Using Independent Films as Texts in Your Classroom
I don’t know about you, but I’m always on the lookout for a great inspirational video to show my kids, and I have found a few good ones this year. Recently, I’ve been looking into some good sites for independent films that I can show to my students, which either provide a text for discussion or written response in Language Arts, or that cross over with some of our outcomes in Social Studies and Health. I wanted to share a site that I found which looks pretty promising!
The site is called indie flix and I will tell you up front that it is a paid subscription site. That being said, indie flix has been generous enough to offer Lessons From The Middle TEN, 2 month subscriptions to share with you! How awesome is that? I’ll simply email the ten winners from the Rafflecopter widget below a redemption code and they will not be required to enter any credit card information. Winners will have two months to preview thousands of films from all over the world. Films are rated by age (although you should always preview a video before you show it to your students) and there are films from all genres and on many topics.
Let’s face it. It’s getting to “that” time of the school year when you just want to tear your hair out
Finding Kind is a video currently on free preview until May 24th, and I plan to show it to my students. It’s focused on the epidemic of girls bullying girls.
In February 2009, two young women, Lauren Parsekian and Molly Thompson joined forces having both been affected by female bullying throughout their youth and decided to create change by giving females a platform to speak out about this universal experience. What began as an idea for a documentary about girl-against-girl bullying, ultimately became Kind Campaign, an internationally recognized movement, documentary, and school assembly program based on the powerful belief in KINDness that brings awareness and healing to the negative and lasting effects of girl-against-girl “crime.”
This is just one video on indie flix. As I said, there are thousands of films and although all are not appropriate for the classroom, but many are! There are films on everything from parkour to poverty, and all that’s needed is a teacher to see how the film could be effectively incorporated into her room.
I think that this is the perfect time of the school year to receive a two month free preview from this independent films site! Two months will take us to the end of the school year, and films on controversial or simply interesting topics will hold our kids’ attention when we need it most! Not to mention, the preview will run into the first weeks of summer. What teacher wouldn’t want to curl up with a cup of coffee and thought provoking film on a rainy July afternoon? I can’t think of any! 
Would you like to receive a 2 month subscription to indie flix? Enter below!
Please feel free to share any independent film sites that you use, in the comments below, as well!
Smart Quizzes to Empower Classroom Engagement (Guest Blog Post)
I’ve been so lucky to find wonderful bloggers, teachers and writers who are willing to add their ideas to Lessons From The Middle. This post is by Laura, from 123Contact Form and she’s sharing some info on how you can use quizzes in your classroom. We all use them, but do you ever create online quizzes?
I don’t usually take guest posts from “companies” even if the rep was once a teacher. However, I see so much potential use for these online forms in my classroom and on my own blog. Also, because my students just started their own blogs, I see tons of potential for them to create their own forms, surveys or quizzes with the tool below. Uses in math, beginning of the year surveys…so many ideas! Take it away Laura!
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When speaking of evergreen teaching methods, quizzes certainly own a place in the top list. I’ve yet to encounter a K-12 teacher who hasn’t ever used at least one quiz with her pupils. This post will discuss the magic of quizzes in creating a higher level of class engagement and why it’s useful (not only trendy) to make use of online tools for designing your own.
Education quizzes come in all shapes and sizes. Trivia quiz, revision quiz, thematic quiz – the possibilities are almost endless. Pre-made quiz templates you can find on the web are a great timesaver for teachers looking to create something useful and engaging. It’s important to caliber your quiz to be “smart”, as so to challenge pupils’ knowledge level while being fun and engaging. Quizzes can help gather instant feedback from students, by students and therefore increase the level of independence in the learning process.
Why use an online app for creating your quiz?
The web holds a couple of very good tools that will help you build an electronic quiz in just a few minutes, then pass it along to kids in the classroom. This way, pupils will also get used to filling in online tests, which is a great way of building their internet culture.
With an online app such as 123ContactForm, it’s easier to share your education quiz with all the pupils, without having to create hard copies of everything. Moreover, you will be able to track responses later and get a quick overview of all data within a single dashboard.
Smart quizzes in action
During my teaching years, I used to give quizzes most often as consolidation exercises, but they can also be a great evaluation tool over various curriculum expectation categories. It’s not about separating the wheat from the chaff, but rather to engage children in an educational activity that stimulates their interest in discovering new things. Also, quizzes help triggering the natural sense of competition that leads pupils to great results.
Here are a couple of use scenarios for quizzes that students absolutely love.
- He who knows, wins!
Students divide into three groups and the teacher chooses one group leader for each. Next, the teacher offers a trivia quiz that every group leader answers independently with the help of their team in a given time. The teams are ranked: first, second and third by percentage of correct answers. Each of the participants receives a symbolic prize – cards, tokens. This type of exercise encourages discussion and interaction in the classroom, helps participants mingle together and works well before doing other activities that involve team spirit such as sports.
- Intuition Quiz
The idea of this quiz comes from Marlene Caroselli’s “500 Creative Classroom Techniques for Teachers and Trainers” (pg. 331) and works best for upper grade middle school students. It’s great for stimulating pupils to take decisions on the run and cultivate their “intuitive powers”. You can use questions such as “How many different vocal sounds can a cat make?” (100+) “How about a dog?” (10) “What is the lifespan of a dragonfly?” (24 h) Provide a range in which you believe the correct answer will fall. Pupils can be categorized as having intuitive powers if they can “guesstimate” the answer with some degrees of precision.
- Jigsaw Technique
This is a great method of learning by teaching. The class divides into groups of 5-6 students, with the most responsible of them as a team leader. Each student of the group receives a certain topic to learn (same combination for all the groups) and he should only have access to his own material. All students take a quiz before everything starts, to test their level of knowledge. Next, they form expert groups, when students of the same specialty exchange viewpoints over what they’ve learned. After that, the jigsaw recomposes and students take turns presenting their topic to their group mates. There is a final quiz to view the level of achievement at the end of the exercise.
These are just a few examples of what you can achieve in class using education quizzes. You can always vary styles and strategies. Be creative and positive outcomes will show up in no time!
Laura
Thank you Indigo!!!!
I just have a quick post this evening. We got some VERY good news at my school this week. After MUCH work, and many hours we found out that we will be receiving an Indigo Love of Reading Grant for $84 000 over the next three years. Yahoo!!!!!
That’s $84 000 for books and literacy initiatives. Can you believe it? What this means to my school and our kids, I can not even describe. We are a community in need and Indigo has realized that and come to our rescue, so to speak. So, thank you so much to Indigo and all of the awesome teachers and parents who put hours of time into this application. You all rock!!!
Here’s a snippet of the telephone conversation when we found out that we were chosen. It was supposed to be an interview, to decide if our school could move to the next level. Little did we know, we were about to get some AMAZING news:)
Scroll down – we are Souris Consolidated School: Indigo Love of Reading Grant. The phone died right after we got the news and so we got cut off – but you get the idea!
TPT Appreciation Sale is on now!
Just in case you haven’t heard…
TeachersPayTeachers is having their annual Teacher Appreciation Sale today and tomorrow, May 7-8. I’ll be having a sale in my TPT Store as well! Many people find that this is the sale that they like the most! The year’s almost over and people are thinking ahead for the next school year. Wouldn’t it be nice to have yourself all stocked up so that when Back to School time rolls around you’re already set to go?
Anyhow, I had to let you know about the sale! Happy browsing!
And the winner is…(Plus Info on Student Blogging)
Thank you to all who hopped on over and followed our blogs and TPT Stores last weekend! Your participation in this little event was awesome! We do have a winner to announce
Drumroll please……
Teachingisagift McKay – your resources and Amazon gift code are on the way! Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter!
I want to mention one more thing this evening. My post just went live on Global Teacher Connect yesterday and it’s about student blogging. I’d really encourage you to have a peek if you are currently blogging with your students OR if it’s something that you’d be interested in trying next year. I have a Collaborative Project: Student Blogging Form that you can fill out with your info so that you are able to contact each other and pair yourselves up! So far, there are teachers from Morocco, US, Canada, Ecuador and Bermuda who would like to blog this year or next! How cool is that?
If you would like to be contacted next year for blogging – just add that as a note on the form. We already have two teachers who have posted their info, who would be interested in something for next school year.
I’ve just started blogging with my students in the last month or so and we’re about to collaborate with another school on the Island and one in Ontario, Canada. The kids are trying to “fix up” their blogs a bit more for their audience – which is what we want! We want them writing for a purpose, and with an audience in mind! Anyhow, I can see this evolving into something more for next year. Maybe even a “Blog-folio” type of idea. Regular blogging would be great, but also, having their best pieces of writing displayed for an audience would be so cool. It would also be neat to see their writing abilities progress through the year. Anyhow, I am quite excited about what we’ve done with the blogs so far, although we all still have much to learn!
Check out the post on GTC and even if you’d be interested in having your students READ the student blogs and comment on them – fill out the form! The wider the audience the better! Plus, I’d love for my students to get comments from kids all around the world. That would be a big part of my ultimate goal. (I’ll be working on this next year…so stay tuned if you’re at all interested…)
That’s it for this evening! Please leave a comment here or on the Global Teacher Connect post if you have any tips or questions for me about student blogging.
School’s (Almost) Out Blog Hop and Giveaway
I know what you’re thinking! What do you mean school’s almost out? We have 2 months to go! Well, I wanted to have one more giveaway before it got too close to the end of the school year to use the awesome ideas and resources you’ll find in this event!
So, I’ve teamed up a new blogger-friend, Joey, from Create, Teach and Share. We’ve come up with this fantastic blog hop and giveaway! The participating bloggers are below. Be sure to hop to each of their blogs this weekend, check out their posts and give them a follow. The theme of the blog hop is “year-end” and so I know that you’ll find some great ideas for the end of the school year and because of the timing – you’ll be able to use them this school year. Per-ty smart, huh?
So, for my post in this School’s (Almost) Out Blog Hop, I’ve got three “End of Year” inspired ideas!
1) I am a reflective person by nature and so I made a little Student Reflection freebie for students to think back on the year that was. You can have them fill it out, decorate it and then laminate the reflections and give them back with report cards, or use them as a display for “closing ceremonies”. I know that I would love to have a little memento from my school year and so I hope that they will as well.
2) In my school, the students “graduate” in grade seven as we are currently a grade K-7 school. I always do a slide show presentation for their ”graduation” and so at this point in the year I’m on the lookout for songs that would be useable for the slide show. Just in case you’re in the same boat – here are a few songs for you to consider! (I’ve included the versions with lyrics:)
3) Do you get your students gifts at the end of the school year? I never did, until last year (too cheap). I got this idea from Confessions of a Teaching Junkie last spring. It’s a Wordle! What’s a wordle, you ask? Well, it’s word art. This is how I did it.
In June, I gave the students a class list and told them that I was planning something for them, but that I couldn’t give them any details. I asked the students to put a kind word/compliment beside each classmate’s name (and gave lots of appropriate examples to begin with). Athletic, kind, creative, musical, funny – you name it. I collected and compiled the compliments. Then, I used the Wordle website to make a personalized piece of word art for each student containing their name and all of the kind words that their classmates said about them. I also framed the wordles with dollar store frames, to make them more substantial. The finished product was really beautiful! The kids appreciated them on graduation night – and I think I’ll have to do them again this year because they were so well received!
Okay, that’s just about it from me. Be sure to hop over to my co-host’s blog Create, Teach and Share - you’ll love her! She’s awesome, as are the dozen teacher-bloggers below who have joined in the fun this weekend. Grab a cup of coffee, kick back and enjoy. Oh and of course, don’t forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post!
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Lots of awesome prizes to be won by ONE Grand Prize Winner!
Thanks again to the teachers above for their donations! Both Joey and I are giving you a choice of any three items in our TPT Stores and there’s a $35.00 Amazon gift card thrown in there as well:)
I’ve been super excited for this event, so I hope you enjoy it!
PLEASE NOTE: Just in case you’re new to Rafflecopter, clicking the “Follow Me” link on the widget doesn’t automatically follow the stores and blogs of the contributing teachers. It takes you to the store or blog and it’s up to you to follow once you’re there. If it’s a TPT Store, click on the red “Follow Me” above their name. If it’s a blog, look for how to follow them on the side bar – usually there are a few options. When you “Like” a Facebook link, it is automatic and then you can enter.
Why can’t we make the papers for something positive?
A little stressed here this evening….
We just got news that the three classes of students in the basement of our building must be relocated to other areas of our school immediately. This means that we will lose our Tech lab, part of our library and our staff room and that those teachers will be in make-shift classrooms for the remainder of the school year, and potentially into next year. Awesome.
I don’t really care about losing those areas – as much as it sucks. The health of our kids and our staff is what matters. We have been battling with a few air quality concerns in our school for a while now, and things just aren’t getting any better.
Rather than holding our PLC meetings tomorrow, as planned, our staff will be helping to pack up boxes for those teachers who must vacate their rooms. We got this news today and the kids will be in their new “classrooms” on Monday. With only two months left in the school year, it’s just not the extra stress that anyone wants right now.
I know that there are more important things to worry about in the world, and that in the grand scheme of things, this is not even a blip on the screen. I know that. Rest assured I know how lucky I am -a new/renovated school is planned for us for 2014. However, the pressure and tension in our school today was evident and I hate that feeling!
I’m about to sound worse than one of the kids with my exaggeration, but why are we never in the papers for something positive?
High Radon Levels Found in Souris
Enough of the ”poor me” attitude … Thanks for allowing me to vent. I don’t do it often – but it was just one of those days!
The actual reason that I sat down to write this evening was to let you know about a giveaway and blog hop that I’ll be co-hosting this weekend with my blogger-friend Joey, from Create, Teach and Share. It’s a “School’s (Almost) Out” blog hop and giveaway and is aimed at you awesome middle school teachers, of course! Be sure to check back this weekend to partake in some fantastic blog posts, freebies, and of course to enter the giveaway.
Getting Students to Understand That Their Power Lies With Them
Friday again already! I’m super excited, actually. It’s the school’s Spring Carnival tonight and last year it was just awesome AND we raised $6000! More on that in a future post…
I just wanted to bring some closure to my last post. The sessions by the Light Up Your World presenters were very well done. The vast majority of the students appreciated the message and many said that they came to see things differently than they had before. There was one session in particular where some students were in tears when they had to think about negative things that had been said to them at some point – things that are simply not true about them. They had to write their “false label” on to a sticky and paste it onto a student volunteer and say those words to them. It made some students quite emotional to call their classmate “fag”, “slut”, “waste of space”, “fat”, “stupid”…the list goes on and on. The students who volunteered to receive these false labels were very vocal in how it made them feel and the pain that they could see in their classmates’ eyes when they had to put that label (and speak it) on to them. It was moving to watch and to be a part of.
As always, the presentation did fall on some deaf ears. Some students who I was hoping would get more out of it, said that it was boring and that they didn’t want to go back for the other sessions. Can’t win ‘em all! All that I can hope, is that they were listening and watching (even when they appeared not to be) and that they did get something out of, they just didn’t want to admit it.
I had my students respond to the workshops in a post on their blogs as well, and it was interesting to read the different points of view. I was glad to see that almost everyone came up with something positive to say about the presentations, even if they did not enjoy them. I feel that it shows maturity on their part.
Our power does lie with us, and I’m still trying to figure out how to get one student in particular to “get it”. People respond to what you do. If you act differently, more positively – people will respond to you more positively. It’s a simple concept to me, of course, but I’m still looking for new and interesting ways for my students to really OWN their behavior and the consequences (positive and negative) that come from their behavior.
So….if you have any ideas…I’m all ears!
Light Up Your World
The choices we make affect what happens in our lives and can impact who we become. You know that. I know that. But how, oh how, can we get our pre-teens and teens to truly understand that? Many of them make poor choices that simply sabotage everything that they really want, and they act as though they’re a victim of circumstance. Some cry the “poor me’s” or are trapped in an endless cycle of learned helplessness and it drives me crazy! I can try to help them, but there comes a point where they need to help themselves first.
Of course, certain things ARE out of their control – that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the choices within only their control, that they are making within the run of a regular school day; choices that will or will not help them reach their overall goals.
So, why am I randomly talking about choices? Well, I’m sitting here doing my planning and I am SO hopeful for this week. We have been lucky enough to be one of four schools in PEI who will be a part of the Light Up Your World program. Presenters will be coming to our school and, in a workshop type of atmosphere, talk about choices and decisions and how we can make a difference in this world. (There’s more to it than that – but that’s the main idea!)
We have 2 grade seven classes and both will be involved with these workshops Monday – Wednesday, for hour and a half chunks each day. (It certainly makes planning for this week of classes a little lighter!) What I am hoping, though, is that this program will REALLY resonate with each student, but a couple in particular. I’m excited that we were chosen as a school to be a part of this and I’m even more excited to see how the students will react to the presenters and the overall message. I’ll be sure to let you know how it all plays out!
Here’s the link to the program, if you’re interested in checking it out: Light Up Your World
I hope you’re enjoying your Sunday! It’s a beautiful day here in PEI. I think maybe we’ll be heading to the pool for a swim and then some time outside for sure! Make the most of the rest of your weekend!
Do your students blog?
I’ve mentioned before that I’m lucky enough to be a contributing teacher-blogger to Global Teacher Connect - an awesome teacher-blog with contributors from all over the world! Head on over and check out my latest post on GTC about my plans for getting my students started with blogging this week. Give us a follow while you’re there!
