Gamification of Education

This year I am teaching myself to think outside the box and make games in order to gamify my class. I have my brother to thank for that. He is an educator in TX and I've been here in OK.

Anyways, I taught the kids how to play "I declare war", the card game. This week, where I had left the regular playing cards for "war", I replaced it with basic multiplication fact flashcards from Dollar Tree. Keep in mind my students are 6th graders, though they don't know their facts well.

I was pleased to hear a group of girls who are particularly low in math who decided to play "war" with the flash cards! So when one got 5x11 and one got 4x12, they figured it out and just kept going.

Virginia

Off to a good Crazy start

This year has been crazy so far. For the last 3 weeks I have been happily teaching 5th grade Math, Science, and History. However our numbers in the school were off. We lost a pre-k allocation and gained a 6th grade allocation. To make a long and confusing story short, the boss asked me to teach 6th grade Math & Science. I've never taught 6th grade Math but I'm good at Math and I have resources so I agreed. LOL. I'm always the flexible one!

Our contract gives us a day without students to prep but the boss had no money for a sub in the budget so I told her I'll just stay late to plan. (I always stay late to plan. 35 minutes isn't long enough during the day.)

So later today I will have my 5th graders carry their books to the new class and I will ask the 6th graders to bring their Math/Science books to me. On Monday, I will begin again. I will start with some new faces and many old ones. Here's to being the flexible one and being capable of teaching at any level of the Elementary! 

Oh well, at least I get to do the Barbie Bungee Jump activity again this year! I love teaching Science! (The only thing I love more than 6th grade Science is 5th grade US History.)

Virginia