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Mar
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Mr. Crocker's Advisor Group
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We have spent the past couple weeks watching a movie, it took two full advisor periods.
We took a break in the middle to work on scheduling so we were prepared for the parent/teacher scheduling conferences.
Today, 4/11/07, I had a couple of students put on a concert for the class. It seemed to go quite well.
Posted by Mr.Crocker on 4/11/07; 9:14:01 AM
from the dept.
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November 24, 2007
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Today during advisor period I had the students do some of the Wordles that Mr. Carlson posted at the beginning of the year. The students worked in groups and shared the answers they had. The did this quicker than I anticipated so they played a game of hangman until the end of the period.
Posted by Mr.Crocker on 1/24/07; 9:35:25 AM
from the dept.
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Advisor game (15 Nov)
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We played the following spelling game after we completed our work on our goal setting and planning. The game goes as follows:
1) Sit in a circle.
2) The first person puts a letter on a whiteboard, we used a small portable white board to pass around.
3) The next person puts a letter on the board, however, they cannot spell a word. This continues until someone is forced to spell a word, at which point they lose a point if they spell a word.
4) A player can bluff with a letter, but if the next player challenges them, and they cannot name a word that would have that sequence of letters, they lose a point.
5) We played around our group about 5 times in 15 minutes.
I wasn't sure if this game would work as I have a number of students who are not as strong academically as the most able in the group, but everyone seemed quite comfortable playing.
We also continued work on our goal planning. In discussing our academic goals several weeks ago, it was clear that many of them would require some sustained commitment of time over the trimester and year. Instead of suggesting where they should find that time, I switched gears and had them log the time they spend on various activities after school until bed time. Today, after a week of keeping this log, I asked them to count up the total hours they were awake after school was out, organize their after school activities into categories (dinner, tv, texting, socializing, sports, video games etc.). They then added up the total hours and percentage of their time for each category. Next week I will have them project how much time over the course of the year they will spend on these activities. My hope is to focus their attention on just how much time might be available to accomplish some of their academica goals. We shall see.
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 11/17/06; 1:47:29 PM
from the dept.
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Advisor Activities for 8 Nov
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Our homeroom challenged Mr. Crocker's homeroom to a kick ball game in the gym. We played for high stakes!! The losing homeroom had to clean up after the freshman supper on the 15 th. Unfortunately, my homeroom was trounced and we earned the right of cleaning the dishes.
The kids enjoyed the physical activity and the change from more serious topics. Subsequently, Joyce's and Eric's HR played, and we are considering a small tournament later in the winter for all the freshman homerooms.
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 11/17/06; 1:20:32 PM
from the dept.
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October 25, 2006
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Today for advisor period we had a visit from two members of the Civil Rights Team. That meeting lasted about 10 minutes. After, I shared some information from a book that I have been reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. I read the 7 habits to them which are:
1) Be Proactive
2) Begin with the End in Mind
3) Put First Things First
4) Think Win-Win
5) Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
6) Synergize
7) Sharpen the Saw
I spent some time explaining what each meant, but did not over explain because we will be revisiting these ideas as we get into the Keel activities and DVD.
I then shared with the students the 7 habits of Highly Defective Teens, a sort of comical opposite of the list above, but true for many people, not just teens:
1) React
2) Begin with no end in Mind
3) Put First Things Last
4) Think Win Lose
5) Seek First To Talk, Then Pretend to Listen
6) Don't Cooperate
7) Wear Yourself Out
We also spent some time talking about these 7 habits and the students actually seemed to relate to them more than they did the 7 Habits of Effective Teens. Next Week, I plan on using the DVD provided with the Keel to begin to focus on the Be Proactive habit.
Posted by Mr.Crocker on 10/26/06; 10:44:39 AM
from the dept.
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Advisor Activities for 11 Oct
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I started with the materials from the keel today with my advisors. I asked my advisees to come to our group with two goals, an academic and a personal goal that they wanted to accomplish this year. We used the acronym SMART from the first activity to look at the academic goal. I had them fill out an organizer located here Smart Organizer. We talked at length about how to make these academic goals realistic and measurable. We then began, and will finish next week, to chunk up these goals into "baby steps" . They were to identify what they could do to accomplish these this week, next week, and in the coming month. I stressed setting realistic targets for beginning to achieve this academic goal. Students used a template from the program Inspiration to begin to identify steps in achieving this goal. I have included a snap shot of this program here, Goal Plan , but without the software this has little value for use by another. However, it conveys what they were doing. Students left all their work in their new binders from Joyce, and I plan to sit down with students over the next few advisor periods to talk about their goals, their plans, and their progress. While I meet with students I will ask them to begin the same process on their personal goal.
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 10/11/06; 4:01:13 PM
from the dept.
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Wordlies for Fillers
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I use these Wordlies as fillers during advisor periods. This week when the assembly ended before the end of advisor I had my students work on this Wordlie. Students like them and they can be challenging. Here is the one I used this week Wordlie 1.
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 10/6/06; 8:29:31 AM
from the dept.
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First work in Keel
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I began one of the activities in the Keel last Wednesday 9/27/06 looking at personal mission statements. I read some of the pieces out of "7 habits of highly effective teens" then had them go through the questions of activity 11 in their keel. They completed the free write section adn then time ran out. We will come back to that next chance we get on a Wednesday.
Posted by Eric Chamberlin on 10/4/06; 1:09:24 PM
from the dept.
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What do you like best?
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About 3 weeks into school, I did a quick, unannounced question to each student in my group. What is the best thing about high school and what is the worst thing.
GOod answers, not many duplicates, kids put some thought into it.
ERic
Posted by Eric Chamberlin on 10/4/06; 1:06:29 PM
from the dept.
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October 4, 2006
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After the Renaissance Assembly, I briefly talked with my homeroom about
devoting a space in my classroom to them. A possible theme could be
"Mr. Crocker's Advisor Group Gets Involved" and keep a record of all
the things that they have done. Included in this could be any extra
curricular activities that they do, any community service activities we
participate in, Gold/Blue Cards etc. Hopefully this will encourage
students to get involved and celebrate that they are already doing.
Posted by Mr.Crocker on 10/4/06; 9:48:53 AM
from the dept.
Discuss
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Coastal Cleanup
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The state web site with information about Coast Week is located here http://www.state.me.us/spo/mcp/projects/coastweek/cleanup.htm.
Groups can register there and receive materials (bags, posters, certificates of participation) and a description of where other groups are cleaning. Here in the Boothbay area, the BRES traditionally clean both Knickercane and Barretts Park. The elementary school on Southport cleans the beach at Hendricks Head. This year we took the freshman to Ocean point and to Pemaquid Point.
We provided each student with a pair of gloves. Each pair of students received a garbage bag and a record form. They noted what was picked up and the data is being used in math/science classes to estimate total trash in the Boothbay Region. We left school after period 2 about 11:15 and returned around 2:00. Students brought a bag lunch and they had lunch at the shore before cleaning. We sent four advisee groups to Ocean point and one to Pemaquid. The group who went to Pemaquid left at 10:30 and cleaned the Beach, the Fort, and the Lighthouse parking lot. Every freshman present in school participated. We prepared an alternative assignment (write an essay on an environmental topic) for students who might not participate. Although some students grumbled and threatened not to participate, in the end they either participated or stayed home.
Things to do differently:
1) Less time is required to complete the pick up of these two areas. If lunch was not included, students could pick up Ocean point in a hour. This means that the pickup could happen all in one period away from school.
2) The bus must stay with the groups during the pickup. This way if things are completed sooner, everyone can return sooner. In addition, it provides some safety if someone were to be hurt, etc.
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 9/28/06; 10:58:12 AM
from the dept.
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September 27, 2006
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With my advisor group this week I tried an activity that I thought
would help the student start to think about themselves in a different
way. The activity is called how do you define yourself?.
It began with me giving an example of how I define myself and I gave
them a few minutes to think of their own definitions. I gave each
student a chance to share their definitions with the rest of the
group. I then posed the following questions for the students to
consider:
Is this the way you would be defined by someone else?
What factors have contributed to your own definition?
Is this how you want to be defined? If not, what can you do to "rewrite" you own definition?
Posted by Mr.Crocker on 9/28/06; 10:16:56 AM
from the dept.
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Advisor Activities used today
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The freshman advisors pulled all the freshman together for a class meeting. Students discussed, voted upon, a theme for homecoming. They then split into groups of students who were interested in working on the float, their hallway, and their cheer.
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 9/13/06; 5:35:02 PM
from the dept.
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Advisor Activities used today
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1) I finished the activity described yesterday. I put everyones secret on the whiteboard and then we all tried to guess who provided each secret. I had the students describe any story that surrounded each secret. It was fun, the students wanted to find out who had shared each idea.
2) We played a "Guess the Rule Game". The idea of these types of games is to put the students in a circle. You as the leader know the unknown rule and start the game by doing or saying the rule correctly. In this game, the rules are that each person in turn can say one of the following phrases:
1) One Up and One down
2) Two up
3) Two down.
Each student says one of the three phrases and you tell them if they are correct. They are correct based on the position of their two arms. If they have them both up or both down or one up or one down and say the correct phrase you tell them they are correct. If not you tell them they are not correct. You don't share the reason and continue around the circle until they lose interest or guess the rule. It is easy and many students are confounded by trying to guess why they may be correct or incorrect.
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 9/6/06; 1:55:51 PM
from the dept.
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Activities I tried today.
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I did two activities with my advisees today that you might want to think about.
1) I had my advisees sit in circle with no extra chairs. I then called out traits such as anyone with white socks on, if a student had white socks on, they were to move one spot to the right. If someone was sitting there, they had to sit on their lap. If two people were already sitting there, they could not move. I continued to call out traits until someone made it back to their original seat. They played for a small bag of chocolate. It was a good way to break the ice.
2) Before they left today, I had each advisee write one thing that they thought no one would know about them on a card without signing it. Tomorrow, I will post them all on the white board and we each try to match each advisees name with their secret. After we all guess, we will reveal which secret each shared. Be sure to make sure that they only share stuff they would admit to!!
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 9/5/06; 2:43:30 PM
from the dept.
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Classroom Strategy-Summarizing
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The author makes the point that text messaging as used on cell phones or in instant messages is very similar to the underlying skill of summarizing. Both require one to collapse information into as few words as possible while still communicating. I am not sure that I would use cell phones to practice summarizing, but blogging and posting to message boards might encourage these summarizing skills in a format students are more comfortable with using. At the very least making the connection between IM'ing, Text Messages, and blogging and summarizing would be beneficial.
See the full article here: Messaging Shakespeare- http://www.netc.org/focus/examples/messag.php
Posted by Mr. Carlson on 9/5/06; 1:02:12 PM
from the dept.
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It Worked!
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This is your new webspace. The first thing you should do is decide what should go here. Maybe it is an about me page, or it is some info about your class?
To change this, click the edit button below this paragraph and then delete all these words and enter stuff unique to you.
Posted by Eric Chamberlin on 8/30/06; 3:34:45 PM
from the dept.
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