The Babbling Box

Welcome to the Class Contract Activity This activity will bring a new class of students together to set expectations on what it means to treat eachother, peers and the teacher with respect. This is a great activity to do at the start of school especially if one of your guidelines for success is respect. This conversation opens up students to discuss what respect, looks like, sounds like and how it will feel in the classroom. This unit is an activity that can be adjusted to fit your class’s need

I revamped and combined all of my blogging materials into one streamlined unit. Included is a powerpoint, project rubric, lesson plan and worksheets. I use the free site kidblog to have students blog but the lesson can be tweaked to use any platform you prefer. This unit gets students writing, reading and commenting in a safe manner, we also spend time discussing cyber bulling and positive digital citizenship.

This powerpoint is a very good introduction to NXT lego mindstroms education. It teaches problem solving skills, team work, responsibility and goes through the kit labeling and defining the key pieces. This is a 3 week long unit that allows students to create a creative design while still learning how the kit works as a whole. Included is a rubric, warm up questions, thinking questions, wrap up questions and labeled NXT pieces.

In my robotics class we compete in a Robot Race project using the NXT lego minstrom education sets. This unit will run about 3 weeks depending on class time. Students learn how to complete the programming for a simple back and forth race. We discuss turning, force and torque. This powerpoint is specific to how I teach my class but can be edited based on your needs.

When Robotics students first join my class they have never worked with the kits before so this unit is the starting off point in our classroom, not only will it allow students to learn the functions of the brick, motors and sensors but they get to be super creative by designing their robot for a class talent show. The majority of students will follow directions from the NXT programs website and download the programming to make their robot preform an action, but some students will go above and be

This 13 day unit will introduce your students to Microsoft publisher, graphic design and working for a ‘client’ at the end of the unit each student will have piece of work that they can use and be proud of. I print each of my students calendar’s for them, yes it uses a lot of ink but they absolutely love this unit and the engagement is always high so I think it’s worth it. Over the 13 days students will learn the design cycle, graphic design terms, how to use text boxes and shapes within publish

Included are 19 editable classroom rules and procedures signs that can be adapted to any classroom setting. I included my classroom rewards chart, lists of consequences and rewards. In my classroom I used the school poster maker to blow up each sign and then laminated them and hung them up. This also makes it easy to copy and paste from a classroom management plan, like my school requires.

This 10 day unit will allow students to use game design as activity that will build technical, artistic, cognitive, social and linguistic skills suitable for our current and future world. Game design is a popular topic or career opportunity to introduce students to but the aspects of game design take time to learn. I enjoyed using gamestar mechanic with my students to allow them to each create an account, play games to earn items to later build a game and then create a final game. I also wanted

Before any group based project I have my students sign a team contract in order to hold each other accountable. There is also a back page that can bring the team together in some simple team building activities like coming up with a logo or team name. At the end of the project students then provide their partners a grade based on how well they held up the contract.

This sheet can be printed and cut in half, it allows students an easy way to learn the main parts of the NXT Lego Brick.

I revamped and combined all of my blogging materials into one streamlined unit. Included is a powerpoint, project rubric, lesson plan and worksheets. I use the free site kidblog to have students blog but the lesson can be tweaked to use any platform you prefer. This unit gets students writing, reading and commenting in a safe manner, we also spend time discussing cyber bulling and positive digital citizenship.

This set of 13 reward pages can be used in the classroom to reward positive student behavior at the teacher discretion. In my classroom we hold a weekly raffle and I use these as the rewards. There are 13 pages of different rewards from helping the students grades to PAT (preferred activity time). Each page prints with 10 cards per page.

In my classroom I have a wall called what do I do now, for my early finishers, these are the signs I designed to hang on the wall. There are three steps to follow, then a student can grab an activity like 'read it' or 'boogle it' and I use a sheet protector to hold the activities on the wall so students do not have keep asking 'what do i do now.' There are no activites included just the signs, as the activities would vary depending on grade level and subject.

I use this project as a beginning of the semester project in order to get to know students but this can also be used as a goal setting activity. Students set goals for what they want to be, do, have and create a collage around those topics. We use computers, but this could also work with magazines and pre-printed pictures. Included is a rubric, directions and examples. The preview is a student example.

I use this project as a get to know you project at the beginning of a semester but this could also be used as a goal setting activity. Students use images to describe what they want be, do and have in their futures. This could also be done without computer, using magazine or preprinted pictures. Included are instructions, objective, rubric and an example.