Finals Week

It looks like Amy isn't going to post anything. Her advice to anyone that has to give finals is to only give multiple choice finals. My advice is to only give a multiple choice final instead of a fun project. I have to give credit to my US History students (most of which I love) because they did really well on a 100 question final. I wrote the final, but didn't want 100 questions. It is hard to find 100 good questions about US History from mostly 1860-1936. The average was around 75/100. My geography students had a fun project to create a children's book about the five themes of geography. Out of approximately 70 students only 25 turned it in. During finals they took a unit test on Latin America. Students missed questions such as:
The capital of Panama is:
a. Mexico City
b. Belmopan
c. Washington, D.C.
d. Panama City

The choice is obvious to everyone but 9th graders. 5 students chose Mexico City (3 of them are Mexican citizens), 4 chose our nation's capital Washington D.C. and 10 chose Belmopan (the capital of Belize). Granted this was supposed to be a question to help them feel good about at least one question on the test. I can only do so much!

At least I get to start over with a whole new set of geography students next semester!

Viva Mexico!!!!!

Monday my Geography students took a Map test of Central America (including Mexico) and the Caribbean (just the large islands). There were 13 countries they had to match. I was pretty proud of the fact that the average score was 11 (The average score on the US States test was 15 & Europe was 10). The most exciting part was that every single student could correctly identify Mexico on a map. Of course I may have helped them with a hint - The largest country on the map is Mexico & by leaving the map of Mexico on the wall, but they usually don't pay attention. I cannot say all of my students know where California is. I have 10 students (born and raised in California) that cannot identify it on a map. Friday is South America - I'm hoping for 100% on Chile and Brazil!

- Mel

Filming Animation OR Why My Students Have Issues

So - I'm sitting in a hotel room in Downtown San Diego at the NCSS conference (which has been interesting) and it's rained all day. Riding the trolley has given me time to reflect on this past week and provide you with what I'm sure will be a returning feature - Why My Students Have Issues. I've kept track of many things I've learned about Geography from my students and a couple of my colleagues and I have formed the "Curtain Club" where we share the interesting things our students say and do. The name comes from an assignment I gave in which a student kept refering to a curtain group (we determined it was supposed to be a certain group, but the name stuck). This week's curtain group tidbit:

We were talking about Latin American and the Andes Mountains in Geography. I try to relate things to what my students might have seen so I asked my students what Animated Disney movie takes place in the Andes Mountains (the answer: The Emperor's New Groove - Go Llamas!) and one of my students asked if The Lion King was filmed in Arizona. Yes - it's new and cool - filming your animated film live on a set in another state. Watch out for those animated actors they have major demands! The student still doesn't believe that animated movies are not "filmed" live. The worst part was that it took about 20 minutes for students to make the connection that animated films are not shot live and therefore would not need to be shot in Arizona or in the Andes Mountains.

Mel

Well - Amy finally got me set up on the account and now I can blog on our blog. She never posted the pictures from crazy hair day - so I'll do that now. It was fun, but my head hurt that night!

Jumping the Bandwagon

Is Bandwagon one word or two? Band Wagon? or Bandwagon? And I really did have an actual band wagon once. It was yellow and would carry all of the band snacks and water to the field for rehearsal during marching season. Now that was off topic. How can you get off topic when it's your first post???

Well here we are - Melody and I are officially jumping the Blog Bandwagon (I looked it up... it's one word). After having so much fun reading about everyone's activities and experiences, we decided it was our turn. I can't guarantee it will be eventful and exciting, but I can guarantee it will be funny! If we are good at one thing... it is being funny. And I can also guarantee that we will share wonderful stories about our wonderful students and their wonderful experiences. :)

Check back soon! You won't want to miss "CRAZY HAIR DAY"!!