Rule #5: Keep your dear teacher happy!

Last Saturday I had the privilege to attend a FREE conference for Whole Brain Teaching.  Have I mentioned before how much I rely on WBT techniques to help me in my classroom?  Well in case I haven't, I LOVE Whole Brain Teaching! I may not be the best at it yet, but I will continue to work everyday toward the goal of being an inspiring WBT teacher.

While attending this conference we had break out sessions by grade levels.  My group was led by Deb Weigel.  She was quite the motivator for really understanding rule #5: Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy.  Rule #5 really isn't about me, but about the kids.  If I see them engaged and happy and learning then I am happy.  The only way to break rule #5 is when kids are not actively engaged in their own learning.

I went back to school Monday with a renewed purpose; to keep my kids actively engaged.

This is what we did:

 Yes, that's right, we learned how to do Subtraction!

We had big gestures to remind us that subtraction means you "Take it away."

The power pix help me to remember what concepts I am working on.  Power Pix also help to keep things simple!

Simple means the kids can turn and tell their neighbor all about subtraction.  Simple means they can explain it and if they can explain it then they can do it.  I enjoy walking around and listening to them as they are teaching their neighbors.  This is my assessment as to who is hearing me and remembering what my words are.  Which means they are closer to understanding.







Which brings me to the next key component of teaching the Whole Brain Way

Mirrors

When I call out "mirrors", the kids reply "mirror" and they hold their hands up like L's to frame their faces.  Then we do the mirror check, their hand should do what mine do, (this is a favorite little activity of mine) it is great for doing a quick little cross lateral too!  Then I start to teach the concept, quickly, with few words.  I repeat myself a few times doing the gestures.  The kids should be doing what I'm doing not saying what I'm saying because mirrors don't talk. (Haha, that one always gets them.) 

Then we move to "mirrors and words."  Then they are repeating what I am saying while mimicking what I am doing.  We do this for just a quick minute or so.

Finally, they move on to teach your neighbor, where they should turn fully to face their neighbor and then do the gestures while repeating what I had said.  This is where I will decide if we need to practice again or not.  If I hear the majority of the group saying what I want to hear then we can move on.  I call them back with "Hands and Eyes" and they turn back to me, repeating "Hands and Eyes."

The final activity is the time to work as a whole group and do some hands on subtraction.  This is my way of seeing who can follow along.  I can also usually get a little glimpse of who is probably able to venture out on their own.

All in all, we had a great week and they were exceptional at following rule #5 as well as astounding at understanding the concept of subtraction!!

As a matter of fact, one little guy loved subtraction so much he included it in the birthday card he made for me!

This is what I live for, this is why I teach!

Don't forget, if you want more information on Whole Brain Teaching, please visit the WEBSITE.  All of these awesome classroom management and teaching techniques can be yours for FREE!!

Until next time.....

Deanna

Power Pix + Genius Ladder = Double the Fun!

Wow!!
We have already been back in school for 14 days.  Time sure does fly when you are having fun.

Whole Brain Teaching is now in full swing.  We know our 6 rules and practice them constantly.  We know class/yes, hands & eyes and we are beginning to practice switch.  I think the hardest part is making myself stop when they don't respond properly to coach them.  Just like the kids, I need to practice, practice, practice.

We began working with our power pix last week.  I thought I would share with you all how I introduce a few of them and then how I use them as a lead into something else.

First I introduced each of the following power pix, (you can get your own, full set of first grade power pix at Whole Brain Teaching.)
                                                       

  

 To begin, I showed the kids my picture and then asked them the question, "What are letters?"  After teaching them the gesture and modeling it the students then taught each other, "Letters are joined together to make words."   As a little test, I point to different things in the class, numbers, books, etc. and ask "Is this a letter?"

Next up is Word.  Ask the question, "What is a word?"  Teach the gestures and model the gesture while telling them the answer, "A word is a group of letters that makes sense."  The kids then teach each other while practicing using the gestures.  Practice, practice, practice.  After some time I do a little test, writing various groups of letters for them to tell me if it is a word or not.

Now on to the final power pic for the day.  "What is a sentence?"  Following the same procedures as before, I model using gestures and they mirror me and then teach each other the answer.  "A sentence is a group of words that makes sense!"  We practice, all the while using our gestures and teaching each other.  Our little test for this is to write some groups of words on the board to decide if it is a sentence or not.



These power pics get practiced daily, quickly, before I begin teaching spelling or writing.  The kids are beginning to understand what a sentence truly is.  This helped me to lead into my first lesson using the genius ladder. (The genius ladder was done later in day.)

To begin the genius ladder I review quickly the sentence power pic and then also introduce that every sentence needs a "who" and a "did what!"  I have gestures that go with this as well.

I showed them the lowest rung on our ladder and started to snore to help emphasize that there is more to writing than making sure our sentences are complete.  We need to keep our audience AWAKE!
Quickly I chose a student to give me the name of an animal, any animal.  He chose a cheetah!  Wow!  Then I asked another student to tell me what a cheetah does.  She decided a cheetah growls.  So I wrote the blah sentence.  A cheetah growls.

Now to spice it up!  I pointed to the next rung and asked a student to tell me the color of a cheetah.  Yellow! Spotted!  I asked the question how does a cheetah growl?  Loudly! (by this time, everyone was shouting out answers!)  So now we have a "spicy" (I absolutely loved how the kids said spicy!) sentence.

The best part of this entire lesson was how involved all the kids were.  They really understood the difference between blah and spicy.  I told them to close their eyes and see if they could now really SEE the yellow, spotted, cheetah growling loudly.  They were so animated showing me what they saw.  I love the genius ladder.  I can't wait to see how much better their writing will be as we move into using it with other power pics like nouns, adjectives, pronouns.............  I am loving being able to use the two together to reinforce all aspects of their learning.

I know this post was long, so for those of you who made it through, a ten finger wooo to you, wooooooo!

Until next time......

Deanna