Daily Details

I know most people think I'm nuts. Heck, right now *I* think I'm nuts! Thursday was our last day with kids and Friday we had a teacher work-day. That means that school is out for summer break, yet here I am on Sunday night typing a post that is about processes and procedures for next year... I know I'm insane, but I need to get these things out of my head :) Besides - this year came to a close very quickly due to a very mild winter with no snow days, so I'm still adjusting to the idea of summer :)

Interactive Notebook
I've already mentioned INBs in previous posts, but I've been spending some time doing research while cleaning off the DVR. I have found a few people that mention using INBs, but it appears to mostly be in Science and SS. For AP though, I did find a site tonight that mentioned INBs and how they had the kids tape/glue in the formula sheet. It made me think of a student's statement after the AP exam this year - she had no idea that the distribution tables were at the back of the test because we had always used a separate formula sheet. I'm thinking w/ the INBs to have the kids put the formulas in the front of their INB and the tables in the back so that it mimics the AP exam. Maybe they will get used to flipping to the front or back throughout the year. I'm also trying to figure out how to integrate their quizzes into the INB. I'm thinking the quiz gets taped in on the right side and their remediation goes on the left.

Daily Agenda
My classroom has lots of whiteboard space, but I need to figure out a way to post the daily objective (essential question), upcoming assignments, etc and still maintain the flexibility of the whiteboards. I am thinking of using laminated posterboard since it could be moved around. I could also post some stuff such as the essential question on the Promethean as part of the warmup screen for students to set up their daily INB page.

Warmups
Speaking of Warmups, I was not satisfied with the warmups I did this year. In AP, I did parts of Free Response questions for most daily warmups, although one day a week we did a vocabulary exercise and another day we did a multiple choice warmup. My problem was that since warmups weren't part of their grade, some kids did it, some didn't and I was horrible about checking. I don't want to grade warmups, but I would like to integrate them into the INB. I don't know how to solve the issue of doing them though :( I am very open to suggestions here...

Closures
I've already posted about exit slips, but I never implemented them to my satisfaction. I would like for the kids to write a summary of that day's activity, which would be the answer to the daily "essential question".. if I can get my act together and write said questions :)

Homework
Every teacher I know is constantly on the search for the perfect homework method. I am no exception. I actually don't mind my homework policy too much, but I hate using classtime to go over homework questions when very few students did the homework. I need to figure out how to maximize my time and not have kids feel like their time is wasted.

Rich Tasks
This was on last year's to-do list too and I'm still working on it :) How do you incorporate rich tasks into your curriculum? Are they warmups? Part of the lesson? Homework problems? Assessment questions? All of the above? I could really use some guidance here.

In general, my classroom runs fairly smoothly, but I would definitely like to tweak some of the structures and be more consistent in some of my procedures. I think this year my focus will be more on those day to day details in order to maximize my classroom time.