Brain Waves Instruction Goes Back to School

I'm blog hopping with some awesome secondary ELA teacher-authors from The Literary League today.

Everyone's sharing a bit about themselves and their teaching experiences, a favorite novel, and a favorite get-to-know-you back to school activity for the first days of school.  I don't know about you, but I'm super psyched to read all the other blog posts from the Literary League members.  (So, I won't be offended if you just skim over my post below and skip right to checking out the others' posts...after all, I can hardly wait myself!)

OK...if you're still reading, let's get started.  The first element of this blog hop is sharing about ourselves.  I'm going to make this pretty brief...mostly because I'm pretty boring. 

For my entire life I've wanted to be a teacher...and I've had lots of fun teaching lots of awesome kids (mostly adolescents) in different states and countries (Belize, Africa, and England --- see pics below).  

The majority of my teaching career has been in the middle school classroom and I love it!  Middle schoolers keep me humble --- they tell me when my outfit is horrible.  They make me laugh -- they call concrete poetry "cement poetry."  They make me proud -- they take risks and grow every day.  They're pretty great!

Aside from feeling happy in the classroom, I also love having adventures with my boys (two + one husband).  I'm crazy about home design, finding a great deal (on anything), laughing with friends, traveling to new places, escaping into a great book, writing curriculum, and eating dessert!

 Now, let's talk books.  Teachers are always on the hunt for a great classroom novel, right?  Well, if you haven't read Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen, you might want to give it a try.  It's a page-turner about a troubled teenager.  I love reading this book aloud to students (when they're doing their bell work) or teaching this book in small groups.  It's an especially wonderful book because it turns even the most reluctant readers into engaged readers.  It's a must-read...or must-teach!

And, now let's talk about Back to School!  One of my favorite get-to-know-you activities is to have students create name tags with a twist.  The twist part is that the name tags are also a way to get to know students.  

First, students complete a survey about themselves.  Then, they color in the name tag with specific colors based on their answers to the survey.  Finally, they fill in their name and assemble their name tag.  Once the name tags are made it's fun to have students find classmates with name tags that are super similar to their's or name tags that are very different.  When the name tags are on students' desks they're great for learning kids' names...and the added bonus is that there's a little inspiration on the back of the name tag for students to look at.  It's simple, interactive, and functional!

You can find FREE copies of this back to school activity in my 5 SIMPLE WAYS to PREPARE for BACK to SCHOOL blog post.

Thanks for stopping by!

Well, that's it for me...be sure to check out these great teacher-authors...

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