Welcome to Mr. Heims
4-8th Grade Class

Web Site!
French Gulch-Whiskeytown School

French Gulch, CA 96033

FGWS Kids

FGWS Blog

FGWS Podcast

 It has been fun creating and maintaining a classroom website but as you can imagine, I spend HOURS and HOURS in order to create and post the work on my site.  I made a commitment to answer every email sent to me about my website and help as many teachers with whatever their questions were.  I am proud to say I have helped over 1,900 teachers now. 

How Did I Create My Website?

I use MS FrontPage on the recommendation of my district.  My advice is I would ask your district tech person what they would like you to use to make your web site. I bought the program at Costco and taught myself to use Front Page five summers ago.  I knew absolutely nothing but was able to teach myself all about it using the help menus and making mistakes and learning from them.  There are also tutorials on the web you could use.  This website has movie tutorials you can use to learn Front Page.  If you can take a class or learn from someone who has an existing web site that would be much easier.  My advice is start slowly and don't expect too much right away because what you see on my website is the result of over 4000 hours of work (a modest estimate).  The other thing is...your website will never be "finished" because there's always something else you could add to it.   

All of my web pages are set up with tables, some visible, some invisible.  This helps "lock" the information in place when people view my site using different monitor sized and screen resolutions. 

How Do I Manage Mastery Club and How Does it Work?

How to Run Mastery Club:  Mastery Club really is easy to manage.  I do it all on recess time & during lunch.  Students must memorize the Mastery Club item (therefore, actually learning something new).  They can use their notes to study from and students can quiz each other, but not on the actual "test."  When a student is ready to tell me their answers out loud to a challenges, I record their answers on a scratch paper to make sure there are no duplicate answers.  The student either passes or not.  If they don't pass they can try again the next school day. 

Answer Keys:  I made a few recording sheets for some of the challenges (math formulas, symmetry, water cycle, bones of the human body, US States, etc.)  The answer keys are just guidelines because the questions are very open ended.  I printed pages from almanacs and encyclopedias for basic keys .  Some answer keys I get off the web, like for football teams. 

What to Do if You Don't Have Computers:  Teachers have asked about using Mastery Club without access to computers.  Well, in the "old days"  when I first started the Mastery Club, there were no computers to use and all research had to be done using books.  A computer is not required but it's much more fun and faster for the students to research using the web links I provide.  Students work at home or school on these.  Families like helping their child learn something new. 

How to Keep Track of Mastery Club:  I record the number of the item mastered on a wall chart.   I keep a master copy of it in my grade book.  It's just a class list & all I do is write down the number of the challenge they accomplished in each box. 

How to Post the Challenges:  I don't hand out copies of the challenges but students can print a copy of the challenges if they choose..  Students use the wall chart and look on the website for the questions they'd like to try and answer.  This link shows the photo of the wall charts with the challenges in my classroom.  When students earn 16, they go on the Hall of Fame list.  (I chose 16 because years ago when I started the club that was my top student's score and I set the standard to meet or exceed her score.) 

Award Certificates: I give small incentives at the end of the year for all students who make earn at least one Mastery Club Challenge.  On the certificate I denote with an asterisk next to the name of the student who earns a place in the Hall of Fame.  I give small incentives during the awards ceremony like: pencils, inexpensive calculators, disposable cameras, etc. The award certificates show all of the accomplishments for each member, from 1 star up to students who make it into the Hall of Fame. See the sample certificate.

Our Classroom Economy:  I start the banking unit the first day of school.  I give students a savings account book (I made it on the computer) and an envelope to keep their money in.  I teach students how to use the savings deposit slip (I made simple versions on the computer and print them on yellow) and withdrawal slips (pink paper).  I also have fines and fees so students have the experience of budgeting and withdrawing money.  You could set up incentives and have the students help think of ways they could earn money (extra credit, turning in homework, challenges etc). I made up a banker test and the students with the highest scores are the top employees (president, vice president, managers, all the way to tellers and trainees).  I have students retake the test to be sure they can handle the transactions at the bank accurately.  When students have adding and subtracting decimals down, I introduce the check writing unit and students who pass the test earn checkbooks.  Again, they can fix errors by doing a retest if needed. 

Auction: At the end of the year I hold an auction so students can spend all their cash - garage sale type things and things students have donated.  Games, bike locks, school supplies, candy, pop, movie passes, ice cream coupons, and dinner-out coupons from local restaurants are also popular. I collect these all year. 

Banking Fines and Fees:  At the beginning of the year I pay for things like a parent signature of my rules or beginning of the year letter ($20) , homework in on time ($5) book projects and reports, etc.  I pay my students $10 "Kickin' Kash" or Kokanee Kash" or "Star Bucks" or "Rainforest Treasure" (depending on the theme of the year) for homework turned in on time and reading minutes. I usually don't fine for not turning in homework, because it ends up costing those students double since they didn't earn the money and then they have to pay.  Those kids rarely have enough money for fines, so they have to pay with recess minutes.  I have "grammar fines" where improper grammar phrases like "Can Megan and me play a game?" costs them $10 (they learn the rule quickly!) and I have a "shut up" fine of $25 because that's not a respectful way to talk to someone.  I use "bathroom fines" when we've just come in from recess (within 45 minutes) and someone asks to use the restroom - that's $10 unless students think it's no big deal, then I keep raising it until they use the restroom at recess like they are supposed to.  I also have a "wandering fine" of $20 during lunch  because we don't have a cafeteria at my school.  Students eat in our classroom and students are supposed to eat while sitting down.

April 15th - Tax Day:  On April 15th I have students add up all their cash, money in savings and checking.  I have them pay income taxes.  I made up a tax time worksheet.  To get a feel for how income and expenses work, students "rent" their desk, chair and locker area in the spring (no, they can't opt to not have the items).  Once a month I put bills on their desks and bankers collect fees and check off who has paid.  I make sure I've given them enough chance to earn money to pay their fines.  This gives the students practice writing check and balancing their check ledgers. Bankers initial the ledgers as each transaction is made.

Earning Extra Money:  Students also earn $50 for each Mastery Club challenge they complete.  I'd suggest you have the students give you suggestions for fines and ways to earn money. I'm sure they will come up with more than you'd imagine!

The students are reading a lot more since I started the monthly book projects.  They love the variety of project choices.  These projects are in addition to the reading group instruction they receive.  Each student selects and reads the book of his/her choice. 

I pass out a calendar at the beginning of each month.  Students record the number of minutes they read each night on the calendar.  I give students time during silent reading to read their book and also make reading part of the nightly homework (15 minutes).  I give some class time to work on the projects and provide the paper necessary also.  

We share projects on the last day of the month, when projects are due.  I grade all the projects with simple scoring guides for the literary elements included & also for neatness/creativity and spelling.

How Do I Teach Using Everyday Math?

The Everyday Math program is so huge you could teach math all day long.  You have to pick and choose which parts and pieces you think are best for the lesson you are on for the students’ level of understanding.  We are starting our third year with EM.  I really like it but it moves quickly for the lower students.  They keep telling us the curriculum spirals back around and around so not to worry, that students will eventually get it but it feels frustrating at times.  My suggestion is to try to teach four lessons a week using the fifth day for games or catch up. 

Math Messages:  We took the math messages and printed 3-4 per page and have students glue them into their math journal (a spiral notebook) and respond there each day.  You can print them for the overhead or use a projection unit.

I created the Everyday Math web page for students to go along with what I’m teaching so my students could have a web extension for each lesson.  I surfed the web to find the links for each lesson.  When students finish the lesson we are on, I let them use any lessons in the same chapter up to, and before that as reinforcement.  

Assessment:  I use the tests in the book.  I make an answer key and the questions which are supposed to be secure I make worth 3 points.  The developing questions I only make worth 1 point.  Its kind of hard to grade but that makes it fairer.

This is not my area of expertise so I'll try to help a bit. 

EduHound's Hot List service:  Free but I don't know its capabilities

My School Online: Here's another one but I don’t think it's free. 

Teacher Web:  This is a nice free service and in minutes you can have a website.  Here is an example of an elementary website.

My Teacher Page:   Free trial but I don't know the cost after that

How Do I Teach a Government Unit?

I love to involve my students in the learning.  I always teach this unit towards the end of the year because my intent is to have students become the senators and representatives who come up with an idea, write it into a bill and pass it on to the governor (me) for approval or veto.  I (of course) almost always veto the bill because the students almost always vote to have no more homework for the rest of the year.  After I veto the bill, students know the power of the override so they get back together as a senate and house and vote to overturn my veto and the bill becomes a law anyway. (Cheers can be heard throughout the school at this point!)  J  My class a few years ago was so clever, they looked on my website from the previous years, figured out they could write a "no homework" bill, so they tied in a few minutes of extra recess on top of that!  Clever!

How Can I Get Involved with the JASON Project?

Star Student of the Week is great.  I try to coordinate the child's week with his/her birthday if possible and students bring in all kinds of items to display for the week.  I always start out being the "Star" so they can see what I bring in.  I have students fill out a booklet the first week of school all about themselves.  When the student is the special person, on Friday, the students reads the book about him/herself to the class (favorites, family info., goals for the future etc.) and the students ask questions.  The class each then writes and illustrates two sentences with compliments or nice statements about the child (nothing generic like '"you are nice" - it must be specific - you are nice because you loaned me a pencil when I needed it).  I use the book binder to make a book for the student to take home with all the nice things classmates have said.  I also make a page for each child.

How Do I choose VOE Students?

The VOE (Value On Excellence Award is extremely motivating for my students. The VOE is awarded to the  who has best exhibited qualities and contributions to their school, community, and showed academic achievement.

How Do You Add the Cool Website Stuff to a Page?

Floating Images:  The images that float on my calendar page are from a programming language called javascript.  I learned how to do this from an awesome site called Lissa Explains it All.  You add the script to your web page and add the graphic you want to fall.  You can change the image to anything you want.  During different months I change the floating image - snowflakes, hearts, shamrocks, flowers, kites, apples, pumpkins and trees to name a few.  This is Lissa's page that I used to teach myself how to add javascript.