The One With the Bingo

A great bingo game is one of my favorite ways to review with my students. Teaching 7th grade, I have found that some years my students are all about it and some years they are too cool for Bingo.

This year's group enjoys playing it as long as we don't play too often. We played vocabulary bingo this week in Science as a way to review for the benchmark that is approaching all too quickly.

Right now they have a deal on bingo sets on one of my favorite websites www.zulily.com They have several different themes including science, weather, Texas, dinosaurs, nature, USA, dogs, ocean, wildflower, music, and several others.

They are pretty generic and could work for several grade levels. They are 9.99 plus shipping and come with 6 cards. I purchased the science kit. I think they could be used for a center or small group activity.

You have to be a member of zulily, but that's not a big deal. It's free. All you have to do is sign up. They have new inventory every day. It is primarily children's clothing, but they do have educational things pretty often. I have found that the educational things are geared toward younger kids, but you never know what you'll find.

Spring Break

I am on Spring Break this week and loving every minute of it. I stayed at school until 5:00 Friday so that I could leave with all papers graded. I do still have a small stack of quizzes to grade, but they won't take very long.

I didn't want a huge to do list hanging over my head. I have a couple of projects that I want to start working on. I have some time there though because we won't do them until after Benchmark.

I can't believe we only have 9 school days left until testing. We will definitely be doing some major reviewing and cramming in those 9 days. How do you prepare students for benchmark? What are some things you do?

A friend/coworker and I are taking a group of 7th and 8th graders to D.C. the week after benchmark for 4 days. To say we are all excited would be a huge understatement. We are counting down the days. We are traveling with Smithsonian Student Travel. Have you ever travelled with them? They have been fabulous to work with. If you ever decide you want to take a big trip like this, I recommend them.

Back to those projects.... A little sneak peak.

Science --> Picture a Wax Museum filled with Scientist who come to life. :) This will be the first year of doing this.

Math --> Major Budgeting project. Students learn how to calculate taxes and keep a monthly budget. I did this for the first time last year and it was a big hit!