Be, Do, Have

Another Tried it Tuesday and another snow day. 

Shockingly enough this time I am not here to complain one bit. Our district has no snow days built into the schedule so perhaps we will just run school until July...really this way I can tell the mister there is no way I can get that summer job he keeps hinting at. Silver linings?!?

But back to Tried it Tuesday today I am sharing a project I started using this year with one of my preps and I thought I would share it with you guys...cause the project was born from two teachers sharing. And of course I plan to tell you all about it...I babble duh!

Let me first say that I don't do/make 'cute' TPT products, its just not who I am, or how I teach. My products can always be 'cutened up' by the buyer but the reality is the products are the meat of the unit or project...written out word for word for word...I can give suggestions on what we do in my room but really I think execution is up to the buyer. This is probably why I don't share much about TPT because lordy there are some very very 'cute' products out there...

comparison is the thief of joy and all...

Now that that is out of the way.

Last summer during curriculum writing I was paired up with a fellow CTE teacher from another school who had taught keyboarding for 18 years but her principal decided keyboarding was archaic and she should begin teaching web design this year...something she knew nothing about.

I felt for the teacher: she was stressed out, worried about her job and basically felt like she had been crapped on. So I talked her through what I do, gave her all of my lesson plans, powerpoints, rubrics, etc. The next day she came back feeling a little more confident and shared with me a project she has always done with her class: Be, Do, Have.

Basically she provides the students poster boards and magazines and they make a collage about what they want to be, do and have in life. This was a teacher with a full lab of computers yet using glue and scissors...I could see why her principal was skeptical at the technical skills being taught. This isn't to say this project wouldn't work well in any of your classrooms with magazines and poster boards...but we are career technical teachers so there is a assumption that technology is being used daily.

With her blessing she allowed me to revamp the project in order to have the students use computers to make the collages, we wrote specific directions and a rubric which can all be found here for free. I wouldn't feel comfortable charging for a product we worked together on.

I use this project to access computer skills and get to know my students at the beginning of a new semester. I tried it for the first time last semester and the second time at the beginning of January so I tweaked the project a bit today based on the results. I love getting a redo in January with semester classes.

Basically I ask the students to brainstorm answers to the three questions...past just material items...

What do you want to be?

What do you want to have?

What do you want to do?

We share some of their answers then students are tasked to: choose their own computer software in order to create a collage of at least 24 pictures to represent their Be, Do, Have.

Not only do you get to know the students goals, ideas and interests you also get to see what sort of technical skills the students have at the beginning of the semester. Bonus you get some really great art to hang in your classroom.

With testing season quickly approaching I thought I would share the activity with the bloggy world...perhaps it can be used to have students set future goals, a brain break after a long day of testing...or whatever your teacher heart desires.

I also had a brilliant idea to combine my love of pinterest with this concept...students could set up a pinterest account, create boards for each topic and pin pictures. Even made a rubric. 

I guess a teachers brain never stops!

How has brainstorming with fellow teachers or bloggers sparked ideas for your classroom?

- The Babbling Box!

P.S. Ignore the weird white patches on the students work, I had to remove their names.