Best Fitness Trackers for Teachers

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As a teacher, I always thought I did a pretty good job at staying active in my classroom. After all, I walk around constantly! When I started counting my steps using my Fitbit Charge HR, I quickly realized that I wasn't doing quite as well as I anticipated. On average I was getting only 5,000 - 6,000 steps during the school day. Studies say we should be getting around 10,000 steps a day!

I started tracking my health and fitness more consciously using my watch. Just wearing the watch and checking the stats encouraged me to get those 10,000 steps each day and I even started to monitor my nutrition using the app! Several of my teacher friends have different types of fitness trackers. We compared notes and came up with a list of the best fitness trackers for teachers, in our humble opinions. :)

Fitbit Charge 2 Heart Rate +

I have the first version of the Fitbit Charge and I love that this watch tracks my heart rate and monitors my cardio workouts and calories burned. It's so gratifying to watch the app track my caloric intake vs. calories burned so that I can better monitor my nutrition. The Fitbit Charge 2 adds guided breathing sessions (definitely need those some days...right, my friends?) and call, text and calendar alerts. I think I'll definitely be upgrading soon - there are so many beautiful colors! I especially love the teal one. (Unless one of these other trackers catch my eye!)

Apple Smart Watch
The sleek design of the Apple Watches are sooooo pretty. Several of my teacher friends can't imagine living without their watch now that they own one. It's a little pricier than the Fitbit smart watch, but if you're looking for a device that can do double-duty as a sport watch and all-in-one wearable tech, this is for you. It's even water-resistant up to 50 meters! One teacher said she is obsessed with the daily activity tracker which uses sleek, multi-colored rings to help you monitor your daily progress. Click here to learn more from Apple!

Garmin Vivosmart HR+
One of my friends runs several times a week and swears by the Garmin products. She loves the app interface that tracks steps, sleep, "active calories" (calories burned) along with a wide range of ways to monitor nutrition (calories consumed, remaining, etc). There's also a GPS within the watch which allows the wearer to measure distance and pace easily. Click here to learn more about the Garmin Vivosmart HR+.


Fitbit Blaze
The Fitbit Blaze has a very Apple Watch-type feel with a focus on tracking fitness over other apps. It's been described as a "powerhouse" for tracking activities and getting notifications from smartphones. The screen has a beautiful, clear display with touchscreen functionality and (much to my friend's delight!) the battery usually lasts here 4-5 days! Having one last thing to remember during the school week is a lifesaver. The watch keeps careful track of steps, calories burned, etc. so you can just live your life. Click here to check it out for yourself!

While this certainly isn't a comprehensive list of all smart watches available, these represent options that are both affordable and well-recommended! Having a fitness watch has made me more aware about the decisions I make on a day-to-day basis regarding food and exercise. Some of my students love to ask me how many steps I've taken at different times of the day and we can compare our mileage if they happen to be wearing one, too!

If you own a fitness watch that's not on this list and love it, please share it in the comments below! :)

Elementary Classroom Management Strategies That Still Work in Middle School

Developing a classroom management plan in middle school can be challenging, to say the least. Kids are growing and changing so fast at that age and it's difficult to judge which strategies will work best for kids in 6th, 7th and 8th grade.

You might be surprised to hear that middle school teachers can still use some of the same strategies seen in elementary classrooms, with a twist, of course. Here are a few ideas that my colleagues and I have used to create a positive, safe learning environment for our students:

Hand Signals

If you've ever been near an elementary classroom, I'm positive you've seen a teacher use hand signals to refocus students. Kids can use them to let the teacher know what they need. The same idea works well in a middle school setting as well. I've used hand signals to ask the students to be quiet and my students use them to signal a bathroom break. These nonverbal cues are efficient in saving time. How often have we walked across a room to answers a student's question only to find out that they wanted to use the restroom? A hand signal saves me time and I can nod my head to grant their request across the room while working with another student. 

Sticker Chart

Bear with me, here. I know what you're thinking..."Sticker charts in middle school? No way." I'll partly agree with you. While some groups of students would find it juvenile, it may be just what you need to inspire your unmotivated kiddos. I've worked with small groups of students that were failing school. They were unmotivated, lacked support outside of school and were often removed from the classrooms due to behavior concerns. When they came to my classroom, it was my job to motivate them to complete their work. Challenging? Y.E.S. So I brought out a simple little chart with 4 rows, 5 boxes per row - one for each day of the week for about a month. Each day a student was positive and productive, I put a sticker in the box. At first they scoffed at the idea. When their peers started earning small treats and prizes (a bag of chips, a small candy, etc) after getting 5 stickers, suddenly it became very important to earn a sticker each day. I couldn't believe it! These kids transformed in front of my eyes after a few weeks all because of a daily sticker...in middle school. Miracles happen, people, and we all ended up having a pretty good year!

Voice Levels

In elementary school, you'll see teachers with a chart of voice levels and colored dots to indicate what volume the kids should use when completing different activities. I've used this with much success in the classroom. The most common voice level charts I have seen have 4 levels: silence, whisper, normal voices and presentation voices. If you write your daily agenda on the board, it's super easy to stick a colored dot next to an activity so that the students understand what's expected of them during that time. This behavior management strategy is a keeper for me.

Marble Jar

The marble jar is an age-old strategy that allows your class to work as a team to fill the jar. Whenever someone does a good deed, goes above and beyond to help a fellow classmate or the class as a whole has a particularly good day, I add a marble to the jar. When the jar is full we have a little celebration! I fully believe in creating a positive atmosphere in the classroom so I never take away marbles. Those were hard-earned and they should be proud of every single one. 

Table Points

If your students thrive on a little friendly competition, starting a system of table points is a fun way to keep groups on task and accountable for their behavior. This is a fun strategy to use at the end of the year when they're getting a little (ok, a lot) excited for summer and have trouble remembering your classroom expectations. It works similar to the marble jar idea. Each group is awarded points based on individual and group behavior. As they reach certain point milestones, they receive little rewards! The rewards can start off simple (first group to leave the classroom) to more complex (homework pass) as they earn more points. You can even go to the dollar store and pick up little prizes or treats. Middle school kiddos love those little surprises! 

I hope you find some of these strategies useful in your classroom. Middle school is such a fun age to teach and your classroom can have a positive and uplifting atmosphere for your kids to express their ideas while they learn and grow together.

 

Happy Teaching!

My Favorite Resources for Teaching Map Skills

Learning the basics of mapping skills is an important concept to teach and reinforce throughout late elementary and early middle school. Despite the fact that we live in a digital world where handheld GPS devices can pinpoint our exact location on Earth, knowing how to read a map and the basics of latitude and longitude is crucial.

 

That being said, teaching about those concepts can be challenging, sometimes. (Especially latitude and longitude for some reason!) Here are my favorite resources for teaching map skills:

 

Videos:

 

These videos are adorable and clever parodies of popular songs made by some history teachers. I wish I was musically inclined and could organize a video like this, too!

 

 

 

Print and Digital Resources

 

A few years ago, I uploaded two of my favorite resources for teaching latitude, longitude and geography. I also recently uploaded digital versions as well for those teachers using Google Classroom!

 

One of my favorite activities in the Latitude and Longitude Activities resource is the "Exploring Earth" activity. Students use Google Earth to navigate the globe using coordinates. They get to see 360 degree views of famous locations! I've been so pleased to hear that the activity is a hit in other classrooms as well! If you have a 1:1 classroom for your Google Classroom account, there's also a digital version.

 

If you're feeling a little adventurous, you can also make your own virtual field trip using Google Earth. I have directions on how to create one in this blog post.

 

Another one of my go-to resources is the Geography Skills Activities. In the resource, students learn the basic skills of reading a map, measuring scale and are even challenged to create Mega City using all the skills they learned throughout the activities. I updated the resource recently and you can check it out HERE. There's also a digital version for Google Drive.

 

 

 

Other Online Resources

 

The University of California San Diego has a great interactive activity where students mark coordinates on an online map to check their skill in finding latitude and longitude. Click HERE to visit the site.

 

National Geographic has a fun game for younger kids or students who need a basic introduction to understand how to read a map. The game covers map symbols and the map key. Click HERE to visit the site.

 

The National Park Service has a brief interactive activity that covers topographic maps and asks students a few questions to check their understanding. It's a fun and simple way to introduce the concept of topographic maps! Click HERE to visit the site.



Do you use any other resources when teaching about map skills? If so, let me know in the comments! I'm always looking for great ideas. :)

 

 

 



Reflection Connection: September

The start of the new school year is the perfect time to consider which new skills you want to learn over the course of the school year and make a game plan for how to achieve them. No matter how many years you've been teaching, there are always concepts to learn and master.

Entry 2: What new skills do you hope to develop this year? What will you do to obtain those skills?

My Response: This year, I want to continue developing my organizational skills. I've come a long way in the past couple years but I still see areas where I can improve so that I can better help my students stay organized. I think some more organized binders await me this year: one for parent/student contact information and one for substitutes (or maybe a sub tub...hmm....). I'd also like to come up with a new and improved plan for creating and maintaining meaningful student portfolios.

What skills do you hope to learn?