Whole Brain Teaching....looooooove! (and giveaway)

This year I decided to try out whole brain teaching with my class after researching a ton about it this summer.
What is Whole Brain Teaching?  WBT is a way to engage students in every lesson and is a great form of classroom management.  WBT connects hand movements with voice commands so that tactile, visual, and auditory learners are all being reached during lessons. 

There are different aspects to WBT:

-5 Rules -- Students recite the 5 rules every day using different hand movements and voices.

 

 

-Teach-Ok! -- is a form of Think-Pair-Share, where the teacher says TEACH! and the students respond OK! and then turn to a neighbor to explain to them what was just taught.

 

-Mirror -- students repeat after the teacher

 

-Class-Yes! -- The teacher says class and the students respond yes as a form of quieting the classroom down.  The students have to repeat the pattern (class class class-yes yes yes)

 

-Hands and Eyes -- Students stop what they are doing and clasp their hands together and look at the teacher.

 

-Scoreboard -- Students and teacher compete for points (students try to beat the teacher and if they are following directions, they get points, but if they are not following directions, the teachers get a point)--at the end of the week we count the tally marks and if the students have more points they get extra friday free time.  If not, they lose five minutes of free time.  (My class loves this because it's a great whole-class reward system)

 

 

There are some other aspects of WBT that are great but I wanted to start with the basics for my first year of using it.  My class loves it and they do such a great job with it.  Other teachers like the Class-Yes form of quieting the classroom as well.  I'm also happy that my mentor from last year is also doing it with her class so we can compare notes.  It would be great if the whole school could start WBT because I really think it is effective!  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments!

 

Also...giveaway time!!! I'm going to give away my whole brain teaching posters with the rules for my classroom to the first two people to post in the comments section with their e-mail address and I will send it over to you!

 

You can check out the file here.

 

Let me know if you have any questions or post about your success with WBT!