Happy Sunday! How is everyone doing? I'm hoping that your August is going smoothly as many of you are preparing to return to school or have already been back in the classroom!
My plans for the week! Grab a PDF here. 
This week I've got plans for beginning digital citizenship with my sixth graders. I use Common Sense Media because not only are they a wealth of reliable information they are also FREE. We like free! Free is good.
I am a Common Sense Certified Digital Educator! What this means is that I've taught their curriculum to my kiddos and I've done so effectively.
I love how simple and direct the lessons are for Common Sense. They are written with the student in mind so that he or she can understand and see the effect of digital citizenship on their lives.
Check out the Course Scope and Sequence HERE. They've got lessons for K-12.
I'm starting the 6th grade off with Digital Life 101. We talk about the effect of using the Internet in our everyday lives and how important it is to maintain perspective.
I use an assignment where the kids must answer "My Digital Life is Like..." and create a simile ending. Then they must follow digital instructions to create a shared slide deck of similes.
Here's the slideshow from one class from last year.
All of these templates can be found in the linked doc at the end of this post.
This week I've also got a slideshow for helping students learn how to search the Internet effectively. We learn about Google shortcuts, we talk about how to use the omnibox, we decide the best ways to determine which search results are viable, and we keep up with using copyright appropriately.
We also get to dive into our Keyboarding lessons which the kids HATE but it is so important to learn how to type correctly and the sooner the better - classrooms are getting Chromebooks in Kindergarten! If they learn incorrectly to begin with, its SUPER hard to teach them the right way later on.
We use EduTyping. Our school has purchased a subscription, but there are so many free typing programs out there. Do a search and play around. See what works for you and your students.
For seventh grade Study Skills, I'm still slowly working my way through the Executive Functioning Bundle I purchased from Pathways to Success last week. I say slowly because I only have about 75 minutes with the kids and they need time to do homework and studying. It is Study Hall after all.
So we do a mini lesson, followed by some short activity, and then they have the remainder of the time to do what they need to do. I've been using the bundle lessons and creating Nearpods for my 7th graders. Since it isn't my original work, I'm not sharing the lessons with anyone. We use Nearpod because it is completely paperless and the kids can follow along on their screens and answer questions and complete activities.
That's it! Click HERE to access the linked doc for all of the resources I've got for this week.
Happy teaching!
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