As I'm cleaning out my room, a little evaluating is required. What worked? What didn't?

While the kids were learning, so was I. 

Verbs are crucial.  If you want to build a sentence,  you gotta get a verb.  Teaching nouns is easy--you find a picture of the person, place, thing, or concept and point at it, saying its name.  Verbs, you must act out.  Or find a picture.  Explain the nuances. 
 

But before the teaching begins--I must grab the students' attention.  Better yet, involve their hearts.  Give them an incentive.  For some kids, an "A" is desire enough.  Others work for praise.  I truly felt that the least effective is a reward such as parties or candy.  Last year, I tried some of that.  I kept coming away feeling like a parent who found her kids only did chores when they needed money.

A teacher in the room next to me handed out candy all the time.  Kids loved to be in his room, asked to go over there frequently.  However, they openly disrespected him.  Pounded on his door, even broke his window.  I think that he was a confusing mixture of anger and indulgence. 

As to content--I used a matrix for every unit.  I had the students hunting certain things for every story we read--theme, conclusion, characters, plot, sequence of events.

I would like to use more technology in my classroom--powerpoints, films. This is hard when our available technology is so lacking.

I would like to capture the attention of all the students. 

I would like to continue making students feel "safe" and "worthwhile" even if their academics aren't stellar.  I think students work for me even when they don't work for other teachers.

One of the best things I did to generate interest was put small items into a pillowcase, then asked students to feel them and guess what they were. I'll keep that strategy.