Sunday, February 24, 2013

MS Sunday Funday- Life Preservers Being Thrown Out!



It's Sunday again, so time for some Middle School Math Sunday Funday.

Today's topic: How to help kids that are behind in Math

In class, when students are behind in their work, they are normally behind on concepts as well. In my school, we have to do 1 hour a week of mandatory tutoring time. We do offer busses and snacks after school. I do mine on Mondays and Tuesdays from 3:30-4:30pm. Most teachers do two days, even though an hour is the expectation.

We also assign Saturday School for students to catch up on work they are missing. We normally have 1 teacher and one aide work this. It is 4 hours each Saturday, students must provide their own transportation and we do not provide snack.

Right now, we are in STATE TEST MODE so we are full steam ahead. We are throwing out life preservers and hoping kids take advantage of them.
I work on a campus that is in Stage 5 with the state. Meaning, we are in BIG TROUBLE.
We made HUGE gains last year in Math and if we succeed this year, we will get "out of stage 5" for Math.
We track sub pops, big time around here!

Starting Monday, we are providing Enrichment Camps after school. For two hours on Monday, students have been invited to attend Math and Reading tutoring for 6th-8th graders. They will do one hour of Math and switch (if needed) to one hour of Reading or vice versa. We invited targeted students from targeted sub pops. But, we will never turn kids away. If they show up, they can stay. We are providing busses and snacks. We will be at school until 5:45pm!

On Tuesday, our 8th graders will have Science and Social Studies Enrichment Camps, and our 7th graders will have Writing Camp.

This past Saturday we also began offering a Math Camp for our Sped students. They can come from 9-12 and work on a computer program we have, Ascend Math, for them to receive extra practice on their. Sixty-nine students were invited, three showed up last week. I am actually working those camps, every other Saturday. Another teacher is doing the other weeks. The three that showed up, worked HARD and got some great practice in. Ascend Math teaches them where they are, so it is remedial. They really needed it. One student and I worked on calculator skills because he has that accommodation, but if he can't use the calculator, it does him no good.

We work our butts off. (I know we all do) We give ample opportunities for kids to get extra help. All they have to do is show up. If we do not succeed, it is not for lack of effort.

I would love to hear what other teachers, schools, and distrcts have in place.  



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