My school's second conferences were last week, and were primarily done virtually.  The first time we did virtual conferences, it became a little chaotic for me - lots of tabs open, clicking back and forth between different Google Hangouts, etc.  This time, I found a really easy, efficient wat to stay organized and efficient and it didn't even take that much time to set up!

For a couple of weeks before conferences, parents were encouraged to sign up for a 10 minute timeslot to talk with all four of their student's core teachers.  Once our team had the time slots scheduled, we created a Google Sheet with the time, child and one of the child's Google Hangout links.  We sent e-mails to the parents telling them which Google Hangout to use for the conference. 

​Our list of hangouts alternated between between two teachers on our team so that early parents wouldn't "crash" the wrong conference (something we learned from last year...), and it also allowed one of us to jump over to the next conference to get it going if things went a little long.  It took a little practice, but got smoother and smoother as we went.

This is where the efficiency part comes in.  Our conference slots were only 10 minutes per parent, so being quick and to the point was vital.  My solution was to copy and paste our conference schedule into a new Google Sheet and add columns for "Positives to be Sure to Mention", and "Concerns to be Sure to Share".  Then I went through each student on the list and made a quick note of the most important things I wanted to share.  I also added a column for things to remember from the conference and one to record whether or not the parent showed up.  This sheet wound up being great documentation of who we talked with and what we talked about as well as a record of who attended for our administration!  Below is a picture of the Google Sheet (with student names blocked out).

So, if you have conferences - especially virtual conferences - coming up, or if you're looking for a way to get organized for next year, I highly recommend this method.  And, if you are interested in other great teaching tips and tricks, please follow this blog and share it with anyone else who might be interested.  Finally, if you have any conference (virtual or otherwise) tips or tricks you think might be helpful, please feel free to put them in the comments.

One of the basic geography skills my seventh grade students really struggle with is using latitude and longitude to find absolute location.  I had been looking for a quick and easy, low prep way that didn't involve making a bunch of copies to practice latitude and longitude when I came up with this idea while driving to work!

I recently inherited a class set of the maps shown in the picture above from an older teacher, so I use them, but any map with latitude and longitude would work just as well - your students could even work in groups with larger maps.

Besides having maps, the only other preparation is using whichever map your students are going to use to find and write the latitude and longitude coordinates of various places or physical features - states, countries, oceans, bays, anything they can find - on notecards (also shown in the picture above).

1. When your students enter the class, give each a 1/4 sheet of notebook paper and ask them to number 1-10 (or however many practice locations you want to do).
2. Shuffle your deck of locations (I think I have like 60 or 70 of them) so that this activity doesn't get stale, or they start memorizing the answers.  - Brief aside - I learned this the hard way.  All my students now know that the Laptev Sea can be found at 75 degrees North and 135 degrees East by heart...
3. Draw out cards and read out the latitude and longitude coordinates while writing them on the board.  I also tell them what they're looking for - EX: "The state at ___North and ___ West."
4. At the end, we quickly check answers.

As a competition, I have been recording the percentage of each class that gets at least 80% correct (mastery).  The classes like to compete against each other, and I am left with data showing this skill is increasing across all my classes - I have gone from the 40's% proficient to above 70% in all my classes!

​So, I hope you like this activity, and if you use it, please let me know how it went in the comments.  If you are looking for more basic geography building activities, please check out the resources I have to offer in my TpT store, and if you like what you see, please be sure to follow this blog and my TpT store for more great ideas!

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I love teaching vocabulary, and utilize at least some of Marzano's 6 Steps for Vocabulary Instruction everyday.  One of my favorite games (which is Marzano's sixth step) is vocabulary bingo.  Here's how it works:

I post word wall tiles (click here to see a the ones I use for ancient Greece) on my wall throughout the school year.  The result is that by the end of the year, students constantly see and remember all of our content vocabulary for the whole year.  I also have written each of the vocabulary words on an index card.  I carry the stack of cards around with me all the time to use a filler questions while slower workers are catching up or to quiz students in the hallway.  I use both for these activity.

STEPS

1. When students enter the room, ask them to make a 5x5 grid on a piece of notebook paper (this is done with 4 vertical and 4 horizontal lines).
2. Ask them to place a vocabulary word in each square (25 terms, or 24 if you want to give a FREE SPACE).
3. Shuffle your index cards of words, and when you select a word, tell them the DEFINITION, not the word - the purpose of this game is to learn definitions, not recognize the words.
4. To extend the game, I have multiple winners - 5 in a row, 4 corners and whole card.

HINT - If you want to do this at a point in the year where you don't have 25 or more words yet, you can do it with a 3x3 grid too, it just goes faster.

If you don't have content area word wall tiles, and would like some, or would like to see what mine are like click the link below.  Or, if you're looking for other great social studies resources, be sure to visit and follow my TpT store!

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I try to infuse some aspect of vocabulary instruction into everything I do in my classroom.  Almost every day begins with an A-B partner vocabulary review of the current unit's vocabulary terms as a warm up.  Each interactive note presentation includes a "focus vocabulary" section at the beginning.  I quiz early finishers on vocab terms while slower workers catch up on note taking, and while papers are being passed out.  I even quiz students in the hallway using note cards between classes.

Today, though, I want to share a different, more static, vocabulary resource with you.  Today, I'm going to highlight my Ancient Greece Vocabulary Word Wall Tiles.  These 14 tiles display 14 vocabulary terms about ancient Greece, the definitions of those terms and a picture that are identical to those they practice with using my Ancient Greece Vocabulary Task Card resource.  These are great to build a word wall with throughout the school year using the tiles from other time periods too!

The words are included in this set are:

So, click the link below for my Ancient Greece Vocabulary Word Wall Tiles, and don't forget to visit and follow my store for more great Social Studies resources!

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Okay, I'll admit it.  I've become a little addicted to using Blooket as a review tool in my class.

So, I decided to try something new to change it up a little - BINGO!

We had completed our atlas pages for the unit we were working on and my students had about 12 locations to learn for an upcoming map quiz, so I came up with this easy, low-prep way to do it!

STEPS

1. I wrote the name of each location, and physical feature they needed to know on an index card.
2. When the students entered class, I gave them each a 1/4 sheet of blank notebook paper and directed them to draw a large pound sign on it.                                                                                                                                *Brief tangent - When I gave this direction, I found out my students had no idea what either a "pound sign" or "number sign" is.  The break through came when I called it a "hashtag" (BTW, I looked it up, and it's actually called an octothorpe.  Who knew?)​
3. I then directed the students to place one location, or physical feature we were studying randomly in each box.
4. Next, I projected a blank map of the area we were studying on the board.
5. I shuffled my index cards and put dots on the map saying, "This location" or "This city" or "This physical feature"

To prolong the game, we had multiple winners - 3 in a row, 4 corners, and whole board.

I also adapted this game to a full 5x5 BINGO version to practice vocabulary terms with using the same procedure listed above (except with no map).  My students really enjoy it, and it's a great change of pace from more flashy electronic games.