New Job!!

I have just been hired as a 7th and 8th grade math teacher for the Hayti R-II school. It is my first job and I am so excited about it.  Most of the tips/blogs I have read, recommend the teacher to create and keep a blog and journal. I will attempt to do this! 

This school is using the common core standards this year and I have done a lot of research but I haven't actually done any lesson plans yet. I have to create a whole year's worth of lesson plans for both grades from scratch since this is the first year of common core implementation. It is a tad overwhelming. 

One thing I have decided to use is Interactive Math Journals! I have gotten a lot of ideas from Katie at Middle School Math Madness! and Brittany at The Teacher Who Hated Math .. Their blogs are designed for middle school math and that is what I will be teaching. I can't wait to go through all the blogs and get their ideas and hopefully implement them!

I am not sure how I will start the first day off. The outgoing teacher said do work. She said get straight into the school year. While I agree, there are things I want to do. I want to have my students help decide rules and consequences because I have found that people say when students help with those, they tend to follow them more. I also want to send a homework assignment for the parents. I have read about this assignment and all the positive feedback from it. (I can't remember where I got it from but it was a lady named Deb.) The homework assignment would be "In 1,000,000,000 words or less, tell me about your child". The feedback that was given was that some parents wrote nothing, while some wrote pages on their child. It is a way that the parents can let me know about their child so that I can teach them better. I know that the district I am going to, there is little to no parental involvement. I want to try to get them involved starting day one. I know that there will be several parents who don't do it, and in that instance, I will allow the child to do it so that I can get to know them better. 

I have so many ideas that I don't know where to begin or fit them in yet. I hope I can get some kind of guidance with making common core lesson plans. 

-KayCee