Coach B. is back! Coach B. is back! I am so happy that Coach B. is back with new webcasts at Whole Brain Teaching website. On Monday night, he returned with lots and lots of new ideas as well as reminders of other techniques that I can't wait to try out in my classroom.
I have been using Class-Yes since school began several weeks ago but watching the webcast, I was reminded of using lots of variety and Coach B. included 20 new variations. I will also start using Class - Boom. Today, I did introduce the all-star attention getters - using content to get their attention. My class did great! They did so well responding to some math facts and I threw in a brainy, nouns! I told them to be listening for the different Class-Yes variations. I told them that they were acting like 3rd graders (we are 2nd graders) and they were so proud of themselves.
One new idea is using echo leaders for Class-Yes for challenging students. The idea is to have a small group of students including a challenging student echo the teacher Class-Yes. Another idea that I love is the leader box. Tell your challenging student that you will put their name in the leader box if they improve is a certain area. Whenever the teacher wants, she can pull out a name and that student can lead the Class-Yes. I have not started the leader box yet but I plan to in the future.
Other exciting news, I taped the beginner brainies to their desks. I have been meaning to get to it but like all teachers at the beginning of the year, I have been sooo busy. I think waiting ended up being a good thing. The students were so excited about it and were anxious to share with me the ones that they already know. I promised that I would teach them the rest soon.
I want to leave you with one last idea that I love - one minute Brainy Time. For one minute, have the students orally respond to this sentence stem: "We use Class-Yes because ________________. I love the critical thinking that this inspires in the students. I will be trying this very soon.
How do you get your students' attention? I would love for you to comment below.
I can't believe that we are almost done with the second week of school. I love all that Whole Brain Teaching has already added to my teaching. The kids seem to be very receptive. Yesterday, I noticed that they were a bit off and not responding very quickly to the 5 rules rehearsal or any of the Brainies that they have learned this morning. So, while the kids were at lunch, I realized that I had not marked the scoreboard very much in the morning.
My solution, of course, was to step it up in the afternoon and that helped. I also introduced the Super Improver Wall and they were excited to earn some stars. After I explained that I was looking for improvement; their behavior showed improvement and they were more excited about doing the Brainies and other fun things.
I have introduced several Power Pix and I love the way it is a good way to review skills. I have introduced sentences, fragments, nouns and in math, we have learned about 100s, 10s and 1s. We are reviewing these almost daily - I need to figure out how to remember to practice every day.
I remembered to practice mirrors and mirror words and Teach-ok is really coming along. I get a great a compliment from my assistant principal - she was doing a walk through in my classroom and said that my classroom management was excellent and that the kids were fully engaged! A 10 finger woo for WBT!
What is working in your classroom?
I can't believe that the first day of school came and went so quickly today! I am exhausted but so excited about all that I accomplished with Whole Brain Teaching. I reviewed the webcasts on the whole brain teaching website, including the first hour, the first day and the first week to get ready to meet my students today.
Some of the things I covered today include: the 5 rules (yes, all of them), the scoreboard, the name game, class-yes, mirror, teach-ok, and the capital letter and end mark brainies! It was a very busy day and I also reviewed Read to Self. The good news is that they did the Daily 5 in 1st grade, so they are experts. We did 2 minutes of stamina for Read to Self! It would have been longer but I have a friend who is going to need to build up stamina slowly. One of my favorite moments is when several students told me that the books that they had picked last Friday during Open House were not good fit books. I had not given them any reminders about good fit books but it is obvious that their 1st grade teachers did a great job with this! They will be able to pick new books tomorrow.
I am delighted to be introducing WBT at the beginning of the year. I discovered WBT last Spring and started using it at that time. I also know after today that I need to keep working on mirror and teach-ok. Neither of these come naturally. :). I was successful using the scoreboard - we had about 30 tally marks by the end of the day.
Are you using any WBT techniques? How is it going?
