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!





More Classroom Management: Vistaprint Cards

I always get these e-mails of promotions from Vistaprint for their free business cards and never thought to take advantage of it because as a teacher I feel like I don't need to have a business card.  However, I saw something posted on pinterest a while back of using business cards for classroom management and I decided to make some of my own! 

I made three cards to use in my classroom.  First up, the Homework Expert card:

Students will each have one of these cards and every time they turn in their homework completed by Friday (Students get a packet on monday and they have to turn in the completed one by every Friday), they get a hole punch on the bottom of their card!  Sometimes students just simply forget to take their homework out of their folders to give to me or they will say that their parents forgot to put it in their backpack, so I am hoping that this will make students more accountable for turning it in!

Next up, the Superb Spelling card:

As explained on the card, if a student receives 100% on their spelling test every Friday, then they get a hole punch on their card. 

Lastly, the Way To Go! card:

This is to be used along with the classroom management clip chart that I posted yesterday.  When a student reaches the top of the clip chart, they will get a hole punch and after 10 hole punches they will receive a prize.   

What will the prizes be?  I had success last year with either giving out pencils or coloring books and I will also give students the option of turning in their card for classroom bucks to buy bigger prizes. 

Now...where will students keep these cards so that they are not eaten up by the desk monster that seems to consume endless amounts of unfinished work and pencils?  I picked up these business card holders from Staples (for about $4 for a box of 10).  and students will put them inside their binder in their desk so they can easily access their cards. 

Check out the free business cards from Vistaprint!  If you have any other ideas of what some other types of cards to make to use in the classroom, I would love to hear ideas!  Also please comment if you have any other Vistaprint projects that you created for your classroom! 

Also...check out Retail Me Not to to see all of the Vistaprint coupon codes you can use!

Check out what *Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge* made on Vistaprint for her classroom!

Behavior Management Clip Chart

Last year it seemed like I tried everything for behavior management with my class to see what would work best.  I saw a lot of pinterest posts about behavior management clip charts and decided to make my own. 

I'm going to laminate all of the sheets and put it up on my wall vertically and the students will each have a clip with their names on it, which will be on "READY TO LEARN" at the start of every day.  (I'm going to use this for attendance as well--where students will have to put their clips onto READY TO LEARN when they enter the classroom in the morning so I know who is there).  

This is what the clip (clothespin) would look like

maybe I'll hang them on a hangar like this so everyone can see their name instead of digging through a jar?

There are 7 Pages in the Clip Chart: Outstanding, Great Day, Good Job, Ready to Learn, Warning, 5 Minutes of Friday Free Time, Parent Contact

This will keep all of the students accountable of their behaviors and if they reach the top (OUTSTANDING!) at the end of the day, they get a hole punch of their cards (I'll post about these cards when I finally get them from vistaprint and can take pictures of them).  Essentially, the cards are like those buy 4 get the 5th free punch cards that some stores have and students will have the cards in their desk for various things (spelling test, behavior, homework -- and they will store them in business card holder sheets that I bought at Staples) and when they reach the top of the chart they will know to bring their card to me and I will punch their card.  When they get 10 punches, they will get a prize (or classroom bucks).

Anyways...I want to design a title for the behavior management chart to go with my classroom theme (hollywood).  Maybe...Celebrity Behavior? Rockin' Behavior?

How about this?  If you would like this clip chart title, pick up this FREEBIE

You can pick up the behavior chart as shown above from TPT

If you would like me to make you another title for your clip chart, just post in the comments and I'll e-mail it to you!