0 A Little of This and a Little of That

I feel like I have really neglected my blog this week…I have a ton of reasons, but most of them have to do with my new killer tough work-out routine and report cards!  Yes, it was the last week of the quarter for year-round teachers.  The last week always seems to be one of the most stressful – report cards, end of quarter assessments and reading tests.  I am sure that if I am this exhausted my students must be too!

We used our talking chain again this week and my kiddo’s did GREAT!  We’re learning about sound in our science unit and we made it to 13 links!  That means they are really listening to what others are saying and making those connections. Ah-mazing! 

Here is what our talking chain looked like before… look closely... yes, the three little links in the corner...

And, I was so excited, I forgot to take the after pictures!  You can also see the marble jar in the background.  Our marble jar is how our class earns great group activities because they have shown such fantastic classroom behavior!  I can’t wait for them to earn their first celebration…I might have to add some extra marbles before they arrive at school on Monday!

I also wanted to give you an update on WBT!  Well it has been rough hit and miss, but they are successful about 80 percent of the time.  That is better than we were doing at the beginning of the year, so I’ll take it!

I am so excited about October – I love the fall.  My students are getting ready to do some non-fiction research about spiders and bats!  This is always a project I look forward to because they really learn new information and recognize their misconceptions!  Here is a quick peek at some new materials that I plan on using my my students next week!



Detail: A Little of This and a Little of That

0 Management Monday

This is one tough group of kids and they all seem to need something different.  We’ve started doing WBT and my kids LOVE it!! 

I have found the need to adapt it since so many of my kids are worried about what everyone else is doing.  So we added rule #6 – Keep Your Nose Out of Other People’s Business.  The kids think it is great.  When one of them starts to tattle, another pipes up – Rule 6!  It is working like a charm

Of course, I love my clip chart behavior system and wouldn’t give it up for the world!  My kids love knowing that at the end of the day they earn a punch on their punch card for green or above behavior.  They have really taken ownership and we’ve made “card puncher” a classroom job.  The kids really love the double meaning!  When they tell students in other classes that they are trying to earn punches they get all sorts of silly looks and it just makes my kids work even harder.

Detail: Management Monday

It’s hard to believe that I’ve taken the blog plunge!  Now, I have pages and pages to write….(crickets chirping)…and nothing is coming to mind….quite possibly it’s because I am so used to the sounds coming from my classroom, that the peace and quiet is distracting me!

Seriously, I love adore my class, but sometimes the volume can be overwhelming.  I have a loud class this year.  You know how some years you’ve got the quiet kids…not necessarily shy, just quiet…well, this year, not so much!  When one stops talking, another starts – yes right in the middle of a lesson plan when I am about to hit it home.

So, I’ve turned to Whole Brain Teaching (WBT).  Here’s how it started….

Me:  When I say class you say yes.  Class?

Students:  Yes (turning and talking to their neighbors)

Me:  Let me explain, when I say class and you say yes, you are to stop what you’re doing, put your eyes on me and listen.  Classity-class?

Students:  Yesity, yes! (a few neighbors continue whispering)

Yes, we are definitely going to need more chances opportunities to make a go of this!

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