Oh. My. Goodness. Where did my summer go? I am sitting here on the couch on my last day of summer. Tomorrow I return for my first day of in-service. Who starts in-service on a FRIDAY?? Who does THAT??? and more importantly... why did the school district to that to us?!?! ugh....
I know I sound like I am complaining.... well yes.... I am complaining but not about starting school! Just in-service on Friday....but I AM really excited to start this school year off! In fact I am pretty stoked about teaching one subject (SCIENCE) and working on getting all my tweaks out from last year and trying out new labs and all sorts of finds on pinterest :)
Which brings me to my latest find.... clock partners. Last year I had my students keep the same table partners for 9 weeks, and usually if they did partner work, it was with the person they sat across from. It became boring fast, but I didn't want to let them just go willy-nilly and go around working with anyone they chose. We all know what happens when we do that! Nothing.... except talking.... about what happened last night.... not about what we are learning. Ugh. 6th graders.
So I saw something on pinterest about Clock Partners. The students pick who their partner is at each time slot and they make sure they are on their partners clock at that same time slot. This will be perfect during the first few days of school, especially when we are setting up our Science Notebooks. So today I made my own Clock Partners worksheet. We will fill it out, color it,cut it out and paste it somewhere in the front or back of our journals. I usually don't decide where to place things until the day of. So if you would like to use it, it's all yours! Click here for the Clock Partners worksheet! You can also see more of my files to share in the green tabs on the left.
Enjoy your last few days.... hours.... minutes.... of sweet summer time!
I have been at trainings where we used clock partners and it worked well. However, I am worried in class that they will only sign up to be with their buddies to talk. Also, I sit my children in heterogenous groups as much as I can so there are students to help the lower performing or special needs students. How do you overcome them getting stuck together all the time and not have that "peer" coach? Thanks for the printable.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clock partners template. I teach high school physics and have just started using it to ensure my kids work with someone different but not someone they really can't get along with.
ReplyDeleteAny suggestions for setting up clock partners when you have an odd number of kids in a class?
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThere is a site (clockpartners.com) that will generate the clock charts for you automagically.
:-)
I LOVE using clock partners. This is my favorite template because (with elementary kiddos) having the lines clearly mark which "time" their partner is at is essential. Thanks for making and sharing!
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