Monday, July 29, 2013

Tropical WBT Posters

I'm decorating my room this year with a bright colored tropical theme.  So of course I had to make new Whole Brain Teaching posters!


Included:
  • The 5 Rules
  • Class Yes
  • Teach? Ok!
  • The Tickler
  • Switch
  • Mirror
  • Hands and Eyes

Click the picture to download from Google Drive!

I hole punched the strategies and attached them all with a binder ring.  This way, when I am introducing and reading from the back, the students can see the poster on the front for a visual.

The best thing about these posters, is that I also made scripts for how to introduce each rule and strategy.  I made them in a circle outline to fit on the back of these circle tropical posters, but they will also fit on the back of any WBT poster you use.  
Click the picture to download the scripts from Google Drive

What theme are you decorating with this year?


I'm linking up with Manic Monday!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Book Club - Chapter 12 Mirror, Hands and Eyes

To start at the beginning of this book club with me:
I'm back with my thoughts on two more WBT techniques: Mirror & Hands and Eyes.



Mirror is when you want students to mimic your gestures or to even repeat after you.  The teacher says "Mirror".  The students respond with "Mirror" and start to mirror the teacher's motions.  There are three main types of gestures that you can use while teaching:
  • Casual - the hands motions that you would normal use while talking
  • Graphic - motions that match what you are saying.  The gestures for the rules are graphic {Say "Raise your hand.." while raising your hand.}
  • Memory - these are gestures to help you remember a fact, concept, or standard.  When learning about the water cycle, you might sprinkle your fingers down like rain to remember the term "precipitation".  
 And as always, exaggerate your gestures, be silly, and have fun!

Some variations:
Mirror Words - This is like when the wedding officiate has the bride and groom repeat after him.  He uses short phrases and waits for the responder to finish before moving on.  We use this when you really want students to remember something (like the definition of an important vocab word or a daily I Can statement that you want students to remember).  When students repeat your words and mimic your gestures, they are using five areas of the brain: seeing, saying, hearing, doing, and feeling!  When this kind of quadruple learning happens, WBT calls it Teacher Heaven!  We want to get to this state as much as possible!

Hands and Eyes is when you want students to pay super close attention to what you are saying.  The teacher says "Hands and Eyes" and the students repeat the teacher and will fold their hands and put their eyes on you.  Make sure to note that you do not give your students a point on the Scoreboard for every time they successfully do Hands and Eyes.  The teacher is in charge of points and gets to decide when students earn them or lose them.  If you gave positive or negative points for following directions on Hands and Eyes, then the students would have the power, and that wouldn't make the Scorekeeper very happy, would it?

The assignment on the WBT Book Club website was to create 3-5 gestures for educational terms that you plan to teacher next year.  Here are my gestures:

  1. For “positive/negative poles” when studying magnetic fields in science, students will put their hands together (like a soft clap) and then pull apart.  This can also be used for “attract” and “repel”, two other words on our vocabulary list.
  2. For “growing patterns” in mathematics, I’ll have the kids start with their hands close together, then get farther apart, to show that the pattern gets bigger in a growing pattern.
  3. When studying geometry, we teach the terms “edge” and “face”.  I’ll have the kids put up their hand, then with the other hand point to the side of their hand for “edge” and point to their palm for “face”.
  4. In language arts, one of our words for speaking and listening is “retell”.  I’ll have the students put their hand towards their chest, then flourish their hand outward to show the words are coming out of their mouths as they retell something to someone else. 
  5. For “root word”, I’ll have the students put two hands about shoulder-width in front of themselves, as if to bracket a word, and say “word!”  Then they will make their hands smaller, as if to bracket a small part of that word, and say “root word”.  
By adding words to our motions, we will get to Teacher Heaven!

Friday, July 12, 2013

Book Club - Chapter 11 The Scoreboard

To start at the beginning of this book club with me:
The Scoreboard is WBT's classroom management tool.  They don't use clip charts, stoplights, or card-pulling systems.  They don't use stickers charts, prize boxes, or classroom money.  They use tally marks for when the class is good and tally marks for when the class is not so good.  They are explicit about the good and not so good behavior and they have kids working for the teeniest little reward - and the kids love it!  

I've created some pretty huge freebies for you - 50 pages worth of Scoreboards and introductions.  This freebie has two products - one that is just Scoreboards: portrait and landscape of 5 different designs, then additional Scoreboards for the variations, also in all the designs.  The second product is an introduction flipbook to keep by the Scoreboard for your reference, for when you are ready to implement a different version of the Scoreboard and you want to read really quick how to do it.  As a newbie to the Scoreboard, this little flipbook is going to save my behind next year!  




In chapter 11, we learn to give tally marks for positive behavior and also negative.  This is a group reward and consequence, not individual.  Students will need to work together to make good choices.  Always use the 3 Point Rule - don't let there be more than 3 points between the two positive and negative.  Tell the kids bout this, too.  Tell them that if they are 3 higher in positive, you will be looking for negative behaviors, no matter how small.  And if they are 3 higher in negative, you will be looking for the smallest amount of positive behavior.  Even if one kid is sitting in their seat like asked, point that out and give the class the point.  

As for rewards, start small.  Kids can work towards one extra minute of recess.  If they win on the positive side, they get it.  If not, they owe you.  This can go towards a one minute YouTube video, an extra minute of free time, or an extra minute of math centers (my class always LOVEs these!).  Make these rewards easy on yourself.  They shouldn't be too much prep and shouldn't cost you anything.  

As you know, kids and teachers alike can get sick of the mundane.  This Scoreboard is anything but mundane!  There are 15 variations for how you can shake up your behavior system throughout the year. Use these sparingly, though.  3-4 of these spread out throughout the year is plenty.  Even though we can get sick of doing the same thing over and over, we also know that kids thrive on structure and routine.  Don't change it up on them too much.  

At my previous school, the counselor would use a type of behavior system like this with my classes as she would teach counseling lessons (about building friendships  bullying, etc).  She would label one side "Teacher" and the other side "Students".  She never gave any reward at all!  The kids were always just so excited when they beat her and got more points!  I think I may start the year with this system of Teacher v. Students and no reward.  As we progress through the year, I'll change the board to Smiley/Frowney and start adding in small rewards, like the ones I talked about.  I am actually going to giveaway my beautiful clipchart and go all out with this.  I'm excited for the collaboration this will bring!

Are you ready to start using the Scoreboard?  Watch Coach B's YouTube video, grab my freebie, and get started!  

Click here to download from TpT! Leave me some feedback while you are at it! ;)

I'm linking up with TBA Freebie Friday!
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