Episode 108: Tiny Tweaks to your Classroom Jobs

Super short and sweet episode for you this week! I've updated some of my jobs and I think they are some you're going to want to implement for yourself!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Classroom Jobs Course with John Sifert!

Blog about Classroom Jobs! 

Points blog 

Tuesday Tips 10/20 - Pencil Parking

Tuesday Tips 10/6 - Number System

Pencil Parking that I use

Read like a Rock Star Teaching

YAY! Spooky Season is here! Check out this blog that highlights all my BEST Spooky Season resources! Your students are going to LOOOVE them! I know you will too!

Let's Connect!

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My Website
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Transcript

Hello! Hi, it's me, La Maestra Loca, and before you listen to this amazing episode of Teaching La Vida Loca, I want to first allow a message from our sponsors to play.

Hello, my name is Annabelle, and I am the sponsor of the Teaching La Vida Loca podcast. And yes, it is in fact me, La Maestra Loca, one and the same. Today I'm so excited to tell you about my spooky season resources that are all available on my TPT, and soon will no longer be available there, and only available on my website. Get excited! But right now you can head over to the blog post from last year, which is in the show notes, and it includes a whole bunch of my favorite resources that I have available for you for the season of October, when kids are really excited about spooky stuff. I have a lot of legends that are really fun to teach and that give you ideas for how to teach and lead into projects where students can write about cucuys that they create. I also have an amazing activity that's a pumpkin glyph that went over so well with my students last year, and it's a really fun thing to display, a really easy thing for you to display. It's also great for a sub day. And then there are also some legends and other easy low-prep and no-prep resources from my dear friend Viviana that are linked there. Viviana is the person who helps me with all the resources in Familia Loca. She is awfully talented and makes everything really beautiful in a way that I can't, or I haven't learned to yet. So I'm really excited for you to explore these. Head on over to the link in the show notes and check out my spooky season. And thank you so much for supporting me and supporting this podcast. I know you're gonna love these resources, and guess who's going to love them even more? Your kids. It's gonna be great. Okay, enjoy the episode. Take care. Okay, bye-bye then.

Welcome back to Teaching La Vida Loca, the podcast you come to for short and sweet and sometimes spicy episodes full of enthusiasm, magic, and tips and tricks for your classroom. I'm Annabelle, your Maestra Loca, and I'm here to bring you inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. I'm turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host, I'm your cheerleader, and I'm thrilled you're tuning in. So let's do this. Let's tackle Teaching La Vida Loca together.

Hi, it's me, La Maestra Loca. Welcome to Episode 108 of Teaching La Vida Loca. This one really is going to be short. It's going to be the shortest one I've recorded in a while, because it's my anniversary. It's my eighth anniversary, and my husband will be home in about a half hour, and I'd like to just enjoy dinner with him and not be on my computer tonight. So, short and sweet.

I wanted to tell you about two or three of my classroom jobs, how they've changed this year, and new ones that I've added. I've added a total of seven, and all of them are going to be uploaded as new modules to my classroom jobs course that I have with John Sifert. If you don't know about it, John Sifert is the person who taught me about classroom jobs. He has been using them for 20 years in his high school classroom. Yes, with high schoolers. I did say that correctly. You did hear that correctly. I often have high school teachers say, "Oh yeah, classroom jobs, but not with high schoolers." Um, wrong. And another amazing example of this is my colleague, Teresa York, who uses them beautifully with her high school students. And actually, secret shout-out to Familia Loca, you are hopefully going to see a video of her class very soon. She gave me permission, so I'm very excited about that. You'll see some jobs in action.

But anyways, John Sifert taught me about them, and I had been avoiding them for a long time, thinking that I couldn't possibly manage. At the time, I was teaching between 30 and 35 kids in a class, so I was like, I can't imagine managing 35 different jobs and my own job. Like, I can barely get through my day. And what I didn't know is that the cognitive load of carrying all of the tasks that I have to do, that is then offloaded onto students because they are doing all of the things, frees up so much time for just connecting and teaching, and connecting and teaching, and connecting and teaching. So I'll never go back. I will never not have jobs.

And we recently just changed jobs again. Actually, my last class today found out all their new jobs. So I'm changing every quarter now, which actually feels better in middle school. Last year I only changed three times, and they really wanted to change more frequently, so we're changing once a quarter now. And I absolutely love them. So I'm just telling you about some changes.

The first one is to my pencil custodian. Now, I've had a pencil custodian for years. I used to implement it in public school when I was paying for my own pencils and paying for most of my resources by myself, very rarely getting things covered. But I am now at a school where resources are provided to me, and it's wonderful, and I'm so lucky, but I still need a pencil custodian. And they are in charge of ensuring that any pencils that are found on the floor are put away. Now, that's what they've always done, but the new addition to this job is that... and I'm losing so many less pencils, y'all. It is so amazing. I can go through pencils. I'm sure you're sitting there like, ugh, me too, don't even talk to me about pencils. I used to roam the hallways of my public schools looking for pencils, or on the floor outside, just to restock my pencils for use, right? Oh my goodness.

Okay, well, this year, my pencil custodian's job is to check the pencil parking, because I have a pencil parking, which is a literal, like, parking lot for pencils that hangs up. And my pencil person just walks over at the end of class, looks, and tells me what numbers are missing. And the goal is for no pencils to be missing, because that's the only way to lose points in my class. You don't lose points in Spanish class; you only gain points. I'll link my blog about classroom points. But oh my gosh, these kids, they're so much more responsible with returning their pencil, and more specifically, because they're only allowed to use their pencil number.

So I'll link my last two Tuesday Tips in the show notes. Last week, I talked about how I've gone back to numbering my students and passing their work back. I can't believe I ever left it. I love it so much. And this week's Tuesday Tip was about this pencil custodian and this pencil parking lot situation. And let's say, for example, in la clase de Bolivia, if every single day number 22, person number 22, is not returning their pencil, I can have a little conversation with person number 22. It makes it so much easier to hold kids accountable, and they're actually returning their pencils that they borrow. And better yet, they're bringing their own to class. Oh, who'd have thought? Coming prepared with a pencil! So that's one.

One of my new jobs this year that I got from Read Like a Rock Star... hold on, let me... it's Naomi. I wanna make sure that I get her name, her Instagram name, right. Like, yeah, Read Like a Rock Star Teaching. Her name is Naomi Simone O'Brien, and she posted something about her classroom jobs, and oh my gosh, this one is life-changing. I call it my especialista de agua, my water specialist. Three times during class, whenever this person wants, they yell "¡Agua!" at the top of their lungs, and I have to drink water. It is amazing. It is life-changing. I love it so much. I am so much more hydrated. They think it's hysterical. If it happens to run out in their class, the especialista de agua has to go and refill it. I love it. I love it for me, I love it for them, they love it. A lot of my students are hydrating more because of it, because they also take a second to drink water when I drink water. It is grand. I love it so much.

And then the last job I wanna tell you about is my líder. Now, I've had a líder for a while, and I typically make my líder my heritage students or students who are a little bit more advanced in class, who have no qualms with getting up and speaking in Spanish or leading an activity if I have to step out to talk to another teacher, if administration comes in and I need to speak to them, or if I need to handle a situation and I need them to lead a brain break. That's always why I've had a líder. But this year, I've been much more intentional about utilizing them for instances of English as well. For example, this week I'm doing Wooly Week, and the majority of the slides that are provided to us for Wooly Week with activity instructions are in English. I don't speak English in my classroom. It's rare anymore. And so I'm asking my líder to go ahead and read those for me, so that I'm not even, I'm not even speaking it at all. My referee holds me so accountable. My referee is another student job. My referee holds me so accountable that I get in huge trouble for speaking in English when it's more than, like, five seconds. So this is really helping me stay in the target language.

That's it. That's it for today. If you are an owner of my class jobs course with John, then get ready, because new modules are coming to you. I'll also ask John if he has any new jobs, because he's always thinking of new ones. And that's it for now. If you loved this, send it to somebody. Go and give me a five-star rating. Yeah, thanks. Appreciate you. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your evening, or your day, whenever you're listening to this. And I'm grateful for you. Until next time, I'll be Teaching La Vida Loca, and hopefully about to go and eat some sushi, and I'm sure you will be too. Well, I don't know about the sushi part. I hope for your sake that you will be eating sushi, but if you're not, I'm sorry, and I'll talk to you next time. Okay, adiós. Thanks for listening. Okay, bye.