Very First Blog Attempt!

Here it is...my first post.  My goal this year was to start a blog.  Not because I think lots of people will want to read what I have to say, but more for my own PD so I can reflect on what's happening in my classroom.  So far, I have added a few new activities in my class to make it more engaging (read "fun") for my 6th graders.  My first activity I am trying is Mr. Stadel's www.estimation180.com  . I lack the 1:1 ipad resource some of these other bloggers have, so I make do with a lifetime supply of post-it notes donated to my classroom.  I put up the picture, the students make their estimation, write their confidence measure and the context clues they used.  After a few days of estimating, the students get a lot better.  Some of them say they even started to read labels around the house to practice on their own!  I use to start my classes with this activity.  Very quickly I discovered that the very engaging activity would get the 6th graders wound up for more than the few minutes I had scheduled.  I moved it to the end of the hour and it acts as a motivator for the students and a great way to end the class.