By Genevieve Laucher, 6th grade teacher in San Jose, CA
Summer: that time of year to recharge, a time that teachers look forward to as much as (if not more than) their students do. However, as a brand new teacher who just started teaching full-time midway through the year this February, I felt that I hadn’t quite earned my break yet and wanted to keep my momentum going for a bit longer. I decided to teach summer school; specifically, Speech & Debate and Creative Writing for incoming sixth through eighth graders. Although a part of me envied my teacher friends who were taking trips and sleeping in, teaching summer school turned out to be a very enjoyable learning experience.
Having never taught these subjects before, I set out to do my research on the internet. There are so many resources out there that can be helpful for new teachers, but the challenge was sifting through and making my own tweaks to fit the needs of my eleven to thirteen-year-old audience. Finding lesson plans is great, but every group of students is different, and our lessons should reflect that. Throughout the planning process, I kept in mind that it was summer—my students wanted to have fun in their learning and so did I! 
In my Creative Writing class, one of our favorite lessons was having my students create a “Fictional Facebook” for a character they were working on. They drew out a “profile picture” of their character, listed his or her hobbies, interests, birthday, relationship status, and more, and even wrote “status update” posts from the character and posts from the character’s friends and family members. As we know, students are on social media younger and younger, so why not take note of this interest and use it as an educational activity? My students were fully engaged, laughing and being creative as they developed fictional personas. At the end of the activity, they better understood the importance of character development and were excited to write their characters into a story. 



​     For the Speech & Debate class, one of our most successful debate activities was a simple one: the Four Corners Debate. I made signs that read Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree and put one in each corner of the room. I then wrote a statement on the whiteboard and students moved to the corner that best matched their opinion. There, they talked with other students in their same corner and put together an argument to persuade the students in other corners of their position. Each corner got a turn to share their reasoning and finally students could switch corners if hearing other arguments had changed their mind. Some interesting topics included “Schools should require students to wear uniforms,” and “Homework is beneficial for students.” I had an opinionated group of students, so they were excited to share their thoughts. This activity encouraged them to take sharing a step further and explain not just what their views are, but why they disagree or agree with the given issues. The ability to reason and persuade others will help them throughout middle school, high school, and beyond! One of  the more controversial topics, given the 2017 trends that teachers love to hate, was “Fidget spinners help kids focus.” Surprisingly, this issue was evenly divided! What this means for the future of fidget spinners in the classroom, we will have to wait and see in the fall… 
Overall, teaching summer school gave me more insights and experience with lesson planning, something I’m getting used to as I begin my teaching career. Throughout the regular school year, my goal is to provide variety in my lessons and keep them engaging. The first step is to know our students and plan activities that will best fit their learning needs while also appealing to their interests. Something else that I always want to keep in mind is that learning can and should be fun—both for the students and the teacher!

This summer our goal is to talk about professional development and how to grow our practice over the summer break. We will post resources and ideas we have about growing as teachers. To get us started try this quiz to see what you need over this summer!
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​Among vocabulary technology, Quizlet reigns king and chances are you have at least heard of it if you use technology in the classroom. Starting off as a purely electronic flashcard design, Quizlet has made some amazing updates that help to gamify learning and put more ownership in the students hands. 

A free website, Quizlet harnesses the power of students and teachers a like creating public sets of vocabulary. Once terms and definitions have been entered, users have options on how to learn them and practice.
They can:

• Use digital flashcards starting with either the vocabulary side or the definition side. They have the option to remove flashcards from the "pile" if they feel like they knew the answer so that they can focus in on the ones they don't know. They can favorite certain terms by clicking on the star or listen to the word or definition by clicking the speaker. 

• Use the "Learn" feature to be given the term (and picture if there is one) and type in the correct vocab term to earn point. On the left tab Quizlet keeps track of how many you have left to practice and how many terms you got correct or incorrect. 

• Practice the spelling of the terms using the "Spell" feature. Quizlet plays an audible recording of the term and the user simply needs to spell the word correctly. 

• Take a practice vocabulary test using the "Test" feature. Quizlet will put together a test that may involve matching, fill in the blank, multiple choice, and true or false questions. 

• Play a matching game. Quizlet times you as you try to eliminate the terms and definition on the screen as fast as you can by clicking and dragging matching cards on top of one another. 

• Play an arcade style game to practice typing terms or definitions. The game, Gravity, sends asteroids towards your planet. The only way to stop them is to type the matching term or definition before it hits!

All of these features are really great for your students to practice vocabulary. I love the freedom it gives each student in choosing which feature helps them the most. 
One of my favorite things about Quizlet is that once you teach your students how to use it, they can make their own vocabulary sets to use! Teaching them how to use Quizlet can become a great tool they use in their future classes.

My FAVORITE thing about Quizlet is their full class game! If you are a Quizlet user but you have not played Quizlet Live, you need to!
Quizlet Live displays a website and code for students to enter the game and is best used hooked up to a projector. You need at least 6 students in order to play Live. 

Once your students have signed into the game, Quizlet will divide them into teams of 2-3 by assigning each group an animal. This animal will be displayed on your students laptop or iPad so they can easily identify what group they are in and find their other members. This game works best when students can move to sit next to their teammates. 

Once all of the teams are ready, start the game. On the projector you will see a display that looks like a voting poll. It will keep track of how many vocabulary questions each group gets correct as a race to 15. If a team gets 3 questions incorrect, their points disappear and they start back at the beginning. It creates some intensity and motivation for the students. On the student screens, a single term or definition will pop up for each team member. The trick is that each team member has a bank of terms or definitions but none overlap. When they first see the question, they typically scan their own bank then look to their teammates to see if they have the answer. This leads to a lot of discussion and/or debate about making sure they pick the correct term...they don't want to start back at the beginning!

A fast paced game that lasts only a few minutes, Quizlet Live is a great opener for the day or end to the class after some vocabulary work. Try it out if you haven't! It is sure to be the most fun you've had practicing your vocab!