Global Teacher Connect

My family and I currently live in France.  It's been a running family joke that my daughter, who is now 6, lived in 4 countries before she was 1 year old (USA, Canada, Ireland and France).  Because of our travels and life style my children became very interested in different flags of the world.  Me and my husband created this matching game so that our children and others could learn about different flags and also they can sort the countries into different continents.  Click on the picture above to grab your own free copy of this matching game.

My name is Michelle Lundy from Making It As A Middle School Teacher.

I have been teaching for 5 years.  I've taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.  Most of my teaching time has been spent in 7th grade teaching math.  However, this year I'm teaching 7th grade Science and Social Studies.  At this time, the plan for next year will be 7th grade Math and Social Studies.

I'm from the United States.  I teach in a rural, low socio-economic school where about 80% of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch.  I deal with many, many issues each day that stem from the environment in which I teach....lack of care of home, living with other relatives, not enough to eat, few clothing items, dirty clothing items, parents in jail, broken homes, etc. Such problems and constant social and household conflicts have a negative impact on children's education and their adaptation in educational institutions. Therefore, I try to help everyone both in solving extracurricular issues and answering such requests as write my persuasive essay for me, in this way I help such teenagers to avoid unnecessary stress.

My heart often breaks over what my students are going through.  However, I still expect them to be successful and overcome their surroundings!

I wanted to join up with Heidi at Global Teacher Connect after teaching Social Studies this year.  My eyes were really opened to what is going on in our world in a whole different way.  Thinking about global issues enough to teach them to 7th graders and to see their enthusiasm and hear their questions has been a wonderful experience!

I hope to share a little slice of life from my classroom located in the Southeastern US.  




I hope to gain more knowledge about how to better teach my students!



I look forward to getting to know each of you much better!


Making It {and smiling},

Who’s writing this blog? Lots of people – each from a different place and with a different story. So, each week, there will be a Getting to Know you question posted that teacher-authors will answer. This will help all of you get to know all of us just a little bit better.

Do you have a question about us you would like answered? Feel free to email you question to us at heidiraki @ gmail . com.

I teach first graders who are just learning to read.  The problem is they are learning to read in a language they have not quite mastered speaking yet – so a lot of times they can sound out a word, but they have no idea what that word means.  One way I combat this in my classroom is through my word family products.  I use word wall cards, making words centers and self correcting puzzles for each word family that my class studies, and all of the pieces contain the same picture for the same word.  This consistency helps my students remember what those words mean. 

       

Feel free to grab any of the ACK family products for FREE at my TPT store.

At the International school that I teach at, about half of my students are Moroccan and half of my students come from somewhere else, but happen to be living in Morocco.  ( I have students from Spain, Libya, Congo, the Philipeans and the US).  Because of this, I have the unique opportunity to teach many non-Muslims who are living in a mainly Muslim country.  This leads to some very interesting conversations – especially when they come out in first grade terminology. 

Today, one little boy in my class told another little boy “You’re going to the fire because you eat pig.”  (Translation out of 1st grade terms – You’re going to hell because you eat pork.)

Well, needless to say this meant time for a class conversation.  Now, one of my Social Studies standards is teaching Muslim holidays, so my class has had many conversations about how different people can be of different religions and celebrate different holidays.  Today, however, we decided to do a quick lesson in tolerance that can be summed up in this line, (which we decided would be the response in our class if anyone said something not nice) – Different families do things differently, my family is different than your family, and that’s okay!

How do you address tolerance in your class?

  

Who’s writing this blog?  Lots of people – each from a different place and with a different story.  So, each week, there will be a Getting to Know you question posted that teacher-authors will answer.  This will help all of you get to know all of us just a little bit better. 

Do you have a question about us you would like answered?  Feel free to email you question to us at heidiraki @ gmail . com.

 

One of my favorite things to do in the evening is share with my husband all the “interesting” phrases that my students say.  The majority of my students are English Language Learners.  (I teach at an international school in Casablanca, Morocco.)  They are learning to speak a language that they rarely hear, in a country where English is not the language of the streets, and they have some “unique” phrasing that is part of their learning process.  Here are a few of my favorite “heard in my classroom” phrases:

- Ms. Raki, I have blood!  (Translation – I’m bleeding.)

- Can I go in the toilet?  (I have fun explaining why we don’t go inside a toilet – )

- My paper is cut!  (No scissors needed, cut generally means torn or ripped to my students.)

- Today is the happy birthday of my brother.  (Translation – It’s my brother’s birthday today.)

- Take.  (Said as they are handing you something. Translation – Here you go.)