Promoting My Tabletop Gaming Club

At my school, they read announcements over the loudspeaker. So whenever I have something to add for the clubs I run, I just write up a little announcement and it'll be read by the kids assigned on that day to read them. I usually try to make things exciting or funny. I found the students who actually are asked to listen to announcements get a kick out of them. Doubly so if our Dean of Students reads them, because he gets all sports announcery. So I always try to come up with something fun and witty to get the students attention instead of just "Don't forget about gaming club at recess."

Also, our weather here in Wisconsin was getting pretty snowy and really cold and is projected to be even more snowy and cold. Most of the recess times were being spent inside. So the students had to either sit in the balcony of the gym or they got the gym floor, depending on the day (alternating between the grades). So instead of just sitting on the balcony, why not come play a tabletop game, right?

Caching in on the season and the reason, I made this cute little announcement and then had my club members pass them out to their teachers and friends to promote the club.  I also put it up on my projector background in my classroom. It was awesome! Just imagine a kid coming to this announcement on a page and having to read it aloud on the spot. Poor girl on Monday didn't know what to do. Today, the Dean of Students actually got in on it and gave it a nice little melody. I'll have to change it for tomorrow. Maybe. . . Winter Wonderland?

BONUS: Our "Game of the Week" from the previous week was Smallworld! I actually used his brief tutorial at the beginning of the episode of Tabletop to help explain the game

Edited 12/20/2013: We had 5 new people come to check out the club this week and even had an inquiry about Magic: The Gathering. I'm super excited about having a very productive school group with a consistent group of kids who participate.

I also made the Winter Wonderland announcement for Thursday and Friday:
School bells ring, Are you listening?
In the hall, snow is glistening.
A beautiful day, We're not outside play.
Walking to a gaming wonderland (In Mrs. B######'s room.)      
Tabletop Gaming Club is open every lunch/recess. Come on over to Mrs. B#####’s room, A###, and check out the game vault!

My Geeky Halloweeny

I just want to go on record saying I had my most, hands-down, favorite costume ever! My husband tried to say it wasn't a costume, but 1) I had to think about functionality in my class and 2) something I can handle doing on my own. This birthed. . . ZOMBIE TEACHER, Great Minds Taste Alike.

I committed to this costume 100%! I zombie-walked (Romero style) and posed with my kids for whole-class pictures of costumes and I always ate one of the brains of one of the kids. Also, in my first hour class, I was eating an apple cake from Starbucks and it looked like a brain cake! So there was some gross fun with that.

The shirt I got from snorgtees forever ago and I knew I wanted to wear it for Halloween. And I know I didn't commit to the full face paint or the full body paint, but I had to work. . . all day. . . with kids. . . in a black shirt. . .  But I was very thrilled with it. More than last year's Ghost Hunter costume. I just wore my Ghost Hunter t-shirt that I purchased while at Ohio State Penitentiary. Then I wore a bag and had some of my ghost hunter equipment with me. It was neat, but not as cool as this.

I got to school Halloween morning and I pulled out my cream paint and hair spray and went to town. I started out a bit too green (and turned a bit too blue by the end of the day), but I really pushed the whole grey look and the bloody mouth. I told my first students who came into my classroom who reacted to me that this was from the first student who tried to come into class early. Even when I had to go around the school, whenever I ran into people in the hall I'd act like a zombie. It made getting places slow-work, but it was well worth it. Later in the day, I had to return the Chromebook Cart to the Library and I really sold pushing that cart as a zombie. It was HILARIOUS!!! I won best drama personality, because I thoroughly commit to my personalities. So for my kids who are counting. . . I've had Aviator Bonilla, Beatnik Bonilla, Yogi Bonilla, Bonilla the Bard, Ghost Hunter Bonilla, Gamer Bonilla, and Zombie Bonilla.

This particular Halloween costume was a huge success and a great deal of fun. Other awesome costumes that showed up in my classroom this year: Philip J. Fry, complete with can Slurm can and Pizza, Captain Kirk; Slenderman, Princess Peach, Properly Dressed Jedi Knight, and the Apocalypse Prepared Guy. My kids were awesome and their creativity was impressive.

Halloween Eve was also the first time we would be taking our daughter out into our new neighborhood to Trick-or-Treat. Last year we didn't realize that our neck of the woods was devoid of houses to visit and no one out here does anything, because they're all snowbirds. This year we knew to go in a bit farther to the main town and Trick-or-Treat along our walking route. So our daughter dressed up as a pink unicorn and I still was a zombie and we went out Trick-or-Treating.

To top off the evening, Ray and I were hosting our first Thursday game night. Sadly, only two people came. Ray had worked hard to create a nice environment. He cleaned and made sure there was enough open space. The house looked quite impressive and Ray was really keen to impress any visitors. Two of our awesome club members showed up, but I was so exhausted from the long school day and going out with our daughter that I had to call it a night. The night wasn't over, though. Our daughter was so excited that people were there that she couldn't help herself and wanted to constantly come downstairs. She was was interrupting the gaming and our dog was being a pill. I felt bad for my husband, because it wasn't as perfect as he wanted it to be. But I do hope that he had fun. . . and that we didn't scare away our gamer group friends. Poor kid was hopped up on candy and the need for GAAAAMMMESS!!!

So all and all. . . it was a Happy Halloween. The Ghost Adventures Dracula Special was really quite fun and the Halloween Scooby-Doo was fun for me and Isabelle, too. It was a good Halloween.

The T-Shirt Treatise (con't.)

A while back I wrote about how I wanted to use t-shirts as a teaching tool in my classroom. Of course I was being a bit hyperbolic at times and not every shirt was a direct link to the classroom. I have now, though, had the time to start using the shirts in the classroom during certain lessons and on certain days and I wanted to share some of the results that I've collected from the use of the shirts (plus add a few shirts that were recently released by snorgtees.com).

I did wear this on International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It was awesome. I had a whole list of pirate lingo and the students had to write pirate stories using the story dice in my class and an awesome pirate name generator. And we used the shirt as a joke and the hook them to the awesomeness of the day. It was a win-win situation and it was a lot of fun. They were trying to figure out the shirt and we talked about why the pirate crossword puzzle would look like this and how hard it would be to solve. Hilarious! A definite shirt to wear again next year for International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

My students were working on plot in the narratives they are writing. My seventh graders were working on a plot for the origin stories they were writing for their super heroes. Whenever I had a student say they were done, I'd always say "Cool story bro, needs more dragons." It usually meant they were missing the action in the story. They just told me some things, but nothing ever really happened in the story. Plus, many of them needed excitement and we talked about that in one-on-ones to help them improve their writing. The students also got a kick out of the fact that my shirt said "bro." While I don't know how memorable the t-shirt will be, it was a fun way to break the tension for ushering in a need for revisions.

My students are struggling to understand what literally and figuratively mean. So when I ask them to tell me what the idiom of the week LITERALLY means, they give me the idiom definition. When, literally, it means "to hit a sack" or to "find a needle in a haystack," instead of "go to bed" or "finding something small in a big place/area." If I am figuratively speaking, I am using "coded" language to explain something. It was an interesting discussion. Does it bother me that people say "literally"? According to this shirt, no. I'll be wearing it again, especially when we're working on figurative language throughout the year in both of my grade level literacy classes. It doesn't hurt that red is our school color, either.


This shirt was a fun puzzle shirt for my kids. The students who are keeping their eye out for what I'm wearing were already trying to solve the puzzle before I ever even introduced it. I  used this t-shirt on the day we were starting spelling in the classroom. Someone said "I don't get it." I flattened the shirt and let them take a moment thinking about it. I said, "Don't words usually follow the 'I before E' pattern, except after a C where the E would come before the I? Don't you think that's wEIrd?" It was great the students won't forget weird, but I used it as a reminder that the "ie" combination doesn't always go "ie," It might follow the "ei" pattern. That is why we are learning features in spelling, so that they can be aware of the certain types of word structures that occur naturally in the English language. It is a great thinking shirts where the students have to start applying what they know to solve the problem. It also causes that kind of awareness that they need to start developing to be more participatory members of a productive community.

This is a Friday or before a break shirt. Sometimes you just need just exude an indifference to high stress situations. Sixth graders can be incredibly worrisome over things that don't necessitate worrying. I have found this has a tendency to stem from not listening to directions or guidelines. It happens. So I have to "meh away the stress." Plus the kids laugh and I have a tendency to say it alot. It helps facilitate a positive atmosphere before the weekends (especially for me).

What? A Sharknado shirt? Yes! My students were working on their narratives again and I wore this shirt as a reminder of how EPIC they needed to be! I said "we're going to need a bigger classroom with all these amazing ideas!" It worked for my students writing a standard narrative AND those who were working on their super hero origin stories.



This is the shirt I am anticipating the most. While teaching spelling this last week, my students had to deal with certain spelling features which focused on vowel/consonant combinations. So, for example the long a using the CVCe word pattern. (Yeah, it's a little intense, I think, as far as spelling is concerned.) As a review, I asked the students, what are the vowels. . . they are sixth graders. . . and they were like "It's like. . . a-w-sometimes y." I mean, they kept saying w. . . and it made me wonder what disconnect happened where they thought u was w. So I went home that night and I saw this shirt on  snorgtees.com and knew it was a must. Here are all the vowels that are always counted, partying inside and Y is only invited sometimes. Love it! Hopefully they'd never forget it. We'll just assume they're drinking soda and punch. What? You thought it was alcohol? Shame on you! Be an adult!


Now that I'm getting to wears my shirts in the classroom, it's wonderful to see that my plan for hooking the students is seriously working. My peer coach also recommended having reference posters that remind the students about some of the t-shirts. I'm not sure what I want to do about that. Either way, I am loving being able to wear my t-shirts in the classroom. Complete with dress pants! It's a great idea for use in your classroom if you're a teacher, especially in middle school.