Facing My Fear

Just a quick heads-up - my blog post today has nothing to do with education. Hopefully, you won't mind some non-educational rambling and some personal photos from time to time! I'm typing this from a hotel in Boone, NC. Yesterday my husband and I went for an awesome hike on Grandfather Mountain - but it was probably the most strenuous and scary hike that I've ever been on! Our daughter Amy will be attending Appalachian State University next fall and we traveled to Boone for her orientation. Since we love to hike, we decided it would be a great opportunity to hike as well.

Yesterday Marco and I drove to the top of Grandfather Mountain and set out for Calloway Peak, about 2.5 miles away. Little did we know that this "hike" would involve scrambling over boulders and climbing up ladders that were bolted into rock faces. If you've ever done much hiking, you'll know that most hikes are marked as easy, moderate, or strenuous. This one was marked strenuous, but after about 2 miles of hiking, I decided that there needs to be another difficulty level beyond strenuous - the word "treacherous" came to mind! Not only did you have to be in great shape to tackle this trail, but you had to be agile enough to climb over boulders and up wooden ladders such as this one.

It turned out to be a spectacular hike, and I've included a few pictures to show you what I mean. The rhododendrons were starting to bloom and the weather was perfect. However, the pictures don't really do it justice, nor do they convey just how scary this hike was for me.

You might be wondering why I titled this post, "Facing My Fear," so it's time to fess up. I'm afraid of heights, and this hike caused me to face that fear many times over. My dad and my husband are both rock climbers, but even when I'm roped in, I'm terrified on a rock face or anywhere close to the edge of a cliff. To climb up some of those ladders and walk across exposed areas of rock was an act of bravery for me! The trail actually had a safer option where you could bypass most of the ladders and rock faces, but you would also miss the spectacular views. I'm proud of myself for taking the scary route and facing my fear! 

But I have to be honest and admit that I haven't totally conquered my fear of heights. My knees will turn to jelly and my heart will pound the next time I do this hike, but that won't stop me from doing it again. Am I ready for anything more? Not yet. Next weekend my husband and daughters are going sky-diving for the first time ever. They asked if I wanted to go, too. Thankfully, I didn't have to decide because I have an important meeting that day and I can't miss it .... really. But if I hyperventilate at the thought of walking across an exposed rock face, I'm quite sure that I'm not ready to jump out of an airplane!

 

Time for School Year Reflections

During the last week of school, I think it's important for students to reflect on what they've learned and how they've grown during the school year. I created this School Year Reflections printable as a convenient and fun way to have students think about the school year. It asks them to reflect on what they learned, what they thought was the best part of the year, an accomplishment that makes them proud, and so on.

I always loved reading these forms at the end of the year, and I used some of the information on them to create my end-of-the-year PowerPoint presentation or movie. If you do the Classroom Yearbook project, you could also have them glue these forms to the backs of their pages instead of writing letters.

Coincidentally, a few days after I posted this page on my site, I discovered that earlier this month, Rachel Lynette of Minds in Bloom had posted a great list of 20 End of the Year Reflection Questions. I thought you might prefer to customize my School Year Reflections form by using some of her questions, so I created a blank copy of the form for that purpose. When you click on the School Year Reflections printable above, scroll to the second page to see the blank version. Print it and write in your own questions.

What are your favorite reflection questions to use with your students? Have you used any that are not listed here?

Special Celebration for a Special Milestone!

I'm excited about a project I've been working on, and I just had to share! If you already follow me on Facebook, you know that I'm approaching a pretty big milestone there. (If you don't follow me there, I think you'll want to after you read this blog post!) I'm amazed that my page has over 48,000 likes, and I've been trying to figure out what to do for a celebration when that number hits 50,000. I don't do a lot of giveaways, but I thought it would be fun to put something together for this special event. I like giveaways where everyone wins, so I've decided to away my Classroom Goal Setting ebook to everyone who enters. Also, I'm lining up some other great prizes worth a total of over $2000! Several educational companies have already donated prizes to the collection. Right now I have 14 additional prizes lined up, and that means 14 people will each win ONE of the prizes below.

Prizes for the Facebook 50,000 Celebration

• FIVE $50 Gift Certificates to TpT.com  (donated by me!)
• Two $50 Classroom Licenses to VocabularySpellingCity.com 
• School Site License for VocabularySpellingCity.com valued at $1000!
• Classroom set of Kleenslate dry erase boards valued at $200
• $50 Amazon.com Gift Card donated by Brigantine Media 
• Intermediate Numeracy Centers from Really Good Stuff worth $60
• Member-sponsored spot to promote a product in the TeachersPayTeachers.com newsletter worth $50
• BrainPOP.com Classroom Combo subscription (BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr.) worth $275
• DonorsChoose.com Gift Card worth $100

Entering will be easy, but you will have to be a Facebook fan to be eligible to win. The Facebook 50,000 Celebration will start when I reach 49,000 likes and will end when I hit the magic number of 50,000! Please invite your friends to follow me there, and watch for an announcement that the contest is live! Then return to Corkboard Connections to read more information about all the great prizes and sponsors, and be sure to fill out the entry form so you can have a chance to win! 

Host a Classroom Scrabble Tournament!

Do you like to play Scrabble? If so, imagine how much fun you'll have teaching your students how to play! Scrabble is a classic word game, but it's become popular again in part because of iPad and computer apps that allow you to play with friends around the world. It's fairly easy to set up a classroom tournament, an event that will keep your students completely engaged during the last days of school. You can find all the files I reference below on my Odds N Ends page on Teaching Resources. Even if you don't want to set up a tournament, you can still teach Scrabble to your class as an educational game and a fun way to wrap up the year. To use the game in the classroom, you'll need one Scrabble game for every four students. You can purchase 6 games together as a School Scrabble kit, but usually you can ask kids to bring in games from home and that works fine.

Introducing the Game
Before you actually start the tournament or allow students to play on their own, be sure to teach the rules of the game. Don't assume that kids know how to play, even if they own a game board. Most kids today don't seem to know the basic rules of the game, let alone the finer points. Oh, they'll tell you they know how to play, but, trust me, they don't! You can introduce the game by displaying the Scrabble Practice grid on a whiteboard or showing a real Scrabble board with a document camera. It’s not exactly like the real board, but it’s close enough for an introduction.

Draw out 7 letters for yourself and 7 letters for the class. Write the class letters in huge blocks on the board with the number values clearly shown. Play against the class play and write the words for each round directly on the board. Use this as an opportunity to clarify the rules of the game. On the first day that you introduce the game, don’t worry about calculating the scores properly. However, before starting your tournament or letting them play alone, be sure to teach students how to keep score using the proper point values for each letter and the values on the board. If you have the computer version of Scrabble, set up a projector and let your class play against the computer by working in cooperative learning teams. Students in teams can put their heads together to come up with a word to beat the computer. Call on each team to share their word and let the team with the best word come to the computer and play it. If you don’t have the computer game, plan for them to play a practice round before starting the actual tournament.

Hosting a Scrabble Tournament
When setting up my Scrabble tournament, I found it best to divide my class into pairs of students who competed against each other. I always paired students who had excellent word-building skills with students who needed some help. They were allowed to whisper and discuss their word choices together when playing. Here are two of my boys consulting about their Scrabble strategies! I have to say that looking at that picture brings back some great memories!

The way I set up my tournament was to have students rotate to a different table each day for three days. I created a Scrabble Board Assignments seating chart to help me keep track of who went where each day. They earned points based on whether their team won the round, lost the round, or tied (had scores within 10 points of each other.) On the 4th day, the top two teams played off to determine who was first place and second place, the next two teams played to determine third and fourth, and so on. You can find the complete directions for setting up the tournament on my Odds N Ends page on Teaching Resources.

Be sure to allow plenty of time to introduce the game, and at 4 days for the actual tournament. My students loved learning to play Scrabble, and the tournament was a hit every year that I hosted one! I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine did!

Memorial Day Sale 20% Off!

I just found out that the Top Teacher group is having a Memorial Day Sale on Sunday and Monday, and I've decided to join them. Everything will be on sale for 20% off, and you can make your purchases from my TeachersPayTeachers.com store or from my Teaching Resources website. If you purchase from TpT, everything is automatically marked down as of right now. If you purchase from my website, you'll need to enter the discount code "MEMDAY" when you check out to get that discount. All of my Power Pack ebooks and Mini Pack lessons are on sale as well as the print versions of Power Reading Workshop and Graphic Organizers for Reading. Check out the blogs below where you'll find others who are participating in this special event!