The Scoreboard!

Where would I be without my scoreboard?  

 

If you're familiar with Whole Brain Teaching, you know exactly what the scoreboard is, and why it is so important!  Although I certainly have a lot to learn about Whole Brain Teaching, I've been using the scoreboard for a few years now, and know I couldn't survive without it!

Lately, my students have been rather rambunctious.  Between snow days and early dismissals, and Invention Convention, and just being totally due for vacation (starts this Friday), these little guys are really struggling to stay focused and get anything done at all. 

How do I keep them going?  The scoreboard!

 

Here's how it works. If the children do something that makes the teacher happy, the teacher puts a tally on the happy side. If the children do something that make the teacher sad, a tally goes on the sad side. This is all "whole group" behavior. (Individual issues are on the classroom clip chart.) If the children are engaged during a lesson, they get a happy tally. If the noise level is too much, a sad tally. If I see cooperation, a happy tally. If I see fooling around during work time, a sad tally.

Interesting, when the kids are as antsy as they've been this week, that's when the scoreboard is busiest! As I write each tally, I tell what they did to earn it, and the children do a celebratory "one second party" or a disappointed "mighty groan".

Of course, all those tallies need to add up to something! Well, each day that "happy" beats "sad", I add 5 minutes. After they've earned enough time, they can spend those minutes on an activity of their choice. They might work for painting time:

 

Block time:

or perhaps a seasonal craft!

To learn more about the scoreboard and Whole Brain Learning, click HERE. You can also click the image below to find out more about their book! 

For the upcoming Invention Convention, one of my students is creating a scoreboard that teachers won't keep leaving on the opposite side of the classroom, that we'll be able to attach to our waists!

Don't you love kids?

Organization and Management, A Little of Each

As I've been teaching for about 100 years, I've explored many different ways to manage behaviors.

This is the thing I've settled on lately:

The Scoreboard has been my savior for the last few years!  It is my main tool for management in the classroom. The best part? It's simple to use! It's part of the Whole Brain Teaching strategies, and I absolutely love it! Basically, when the kids do something well, put a tally on the happy side. When something doesn't go well, put a tally on the sad side. If Happy beats Sad at the end of the day, the kids earn 5 minutes toward a privilege, such as extra recess, arts and crafts, or a dance party. Different teachers do different things with the scoreboard, but that's how I use it. It goes all day, every day!

See more about Whole Brain Teaching HERE (Be sure to watch the videos. That's what hooked me in!)

Now here are a few organizational ideas:

Organizational Tip #1: Organization for base ten blocks! Aren't these caddies great? It's so easy for the kids to get the pieces they need. I used to keep them in one big tub, but all the little cubes would fall to the bottom, and it was tough for the kids to get the ones they needed! These are much easier! (Plus, these base ten blocks are made of foam... much quieter!)

If you're interested in these caddies, just explore this image!

Amazon calls them "Art Caddies", but classroom teachers know they're useful for many things other than just Art supplies!

Organizational Tip #2: Writing Folder Organization! Use 4 different colors, and have even amounts of folders for each color. There's never a question of where a folder would go, or where to put it away. After school, go through the red ones on Monday, yellow on Tuesday, green on Wednesday, and blue on Thursday. Then you get Friday off!  

I use the drawers of the cart for different kinds of paper.

  

 I put pre-stapled booklets, staplers, tape, and staple removers on an extra desk.

Organizational Tip #3: Letter guide/ number grid! I give every child one of these two-sided cards that we use ALL THE TIME! They are good tools for math as well as handwriting. (That's the Handwriting Without Tears alphabet on the back.) They are great for covering work during a test.  They make great bookmarks. They can help kids keep their place while reading. Seriously, these letter guide/ number guides are out several times a day. Plus, if you laminate them, the kids can write on them with dry-erase markers! The letter guide is copyrighted, so you'll have to get that through HWT, but you can download the color-coded number grid HERE!

Hope you appreciate these management and organizational tips!

Seven Brain Based Learning Principles

I've been fascinated by Brain Based Learning. 

I've made a point to learn a lot about how the brain works. Here are some of the important points:

1.  The brain needs to make patterns and associations in order for new material to make sense.

2.  Humor decreases stress and  increases learning speed.

3.  The working memory can hold 2 to 4 chunks of information at a time, usually in about 4 - 8 minutes.  After that, the brain needs time to process, reflect and review in order for those chunks to move to the long term memory.

4.  Music boosts brain organization and ability.  It affects our moods and emotions.  Music goes hand in hand with math.

5.  The brain is a parallel processor.  It needs to activate more than one process at a time. This is why lecture-type teaching doesn't work.  Try combinations, such as listening and moving or watching and listening.

6.  Practice does NOT make "perfect".  Practice with appropriate feedback makes "better".  Feedback should be honest and immediate, if possible.

7. If children are engaged cognitively, physically, emotionally and socially, learning will happen.

The more I learn about how the brain works, the more fascinated I am!

Want some resources?

Click the blue "learn more" button for a link to a previous post on Brain Based Learning Strategies.

Click the orange button for a link to Eric Jensen's blog.

Click the Pinterest logo to see my Pinterest board on Brain Research.

Enjoy your reading about Brain Based Learning!

Ten Ways I Have Grown as a Teacher from Blogging

This will be my tenth set of ten!

If you haven't been following my blog, I decided to celebrate my 100th blog post by making ten lists of ten.  I've written about lots of things lately including blogs that inspire me, great children's books, brain based learning strategies,  motivating students, picture prompts,  things for students to work on during reading groups, learning games, things to do with a list of 1,000 numbers, and test taking ideas and strategies.  I have to say, it's been an adventure and an inspiration.  I've had no problems coming up with ideas, and I'm feeling pretty good about these blog posts!  I hope you have liked them as well.

Being a reflective person, I decided I want my tenth set of ten to be a reflection on the blogging experience so far.  Here are my Ten Ways I Have Grown as a Teacher from Blogging!

1.  Blogging has reminded me of the need for teachers to share.  I've been lucky to become acquainted with lots of other teacher bloggers.  (Much of this is due to Charity Preston's Teaching Blog Traffic School, which has given me most of the inspiration and knowledge that I have about this blogging stuff!)  Chatting with other teachers and exchanging ideas and strategies makes teaching so much easier as well as so much more fun.  Within the blogging community, there are incredible teachers who are more than willing to share ideas.  It's always been my philosophy in teaching to share ideas with anyone who asks.  Unfortunately not all teachers feel this way, but I'm always honored when others like my ideas.  I'm also enthusiastic about helping ALL children learn, not just my own class.  I've never been in this for the personal glory, I'm in this for the kids.


2.  I've made teacher friends around the world, at many different grade levels.  As I mentioned, there are plenty of teacher bloggers in this teacher blog community.  Now although I've never met many of these people, I know a lot about them!  Between reading their blogs, and following their tweets, facebook pages, and Pinterest pages, I feel they are friends.  Yikes, that almost sounds like I'm a stalker!  I'm really just a person who enjoys getting to know people, especially teachers!  We share a common bond.  As a lover of social studies, when a place comes up in conversation or in a book, I can tell the kids... I know a teacher from ... and the kids are thrilled!  (Brain research teaches us the importance of making those connections!)

3.  I learn from teachers at completely different grade levels.  I come from a family of teachers, and I always find it interesting to see how much I have in common with my brother, who teaches at the college level, and my sister who teaches at the high school level.  In fact, I'm always amazed at how much I had in common with my Dad, who was a high school football coach!  The size of the student really doesn't matter that much.  Teachers are caring people and have many of the same strategies and concerns no matter how big the student is, or what they are teaching. Since I've been blogging, I do tend to visit mostly blogs of teachers who are in the primary years, like myself, but I visit a lot of other teacher blogs where the content is far from beginning readers and writers.  Yes, I even learn from physics teachers and algebra teachers!

4.  I've learned more computer tricks.  I certainly haven't mastered HTML yet, but I understand it better, and have become acquainted with lots of little tricks and websites since I've been blogging.  There are things I do regularly now that I never would have tried a couple of years ago.  I certainly have a long way to go, but I've really learned a lot, and plan to continue learning!  (The way technology keeps changing, continuing to learn really isn't an option anyway!)

5.  I'm more focused on how children learn.  One of the topics that always catches my attention is brain based learning.  I've found lots of wonderful resources on this topic, and I'm developing an understanding of how the brain works.  In fact, I like to think I'm becoming an expert on brain based learning.  (Although I admit, putting that in writing makes me nervous, as I also know how much more there is to learn, that even scientists don't know yet!)

6.  Putting myself in the place of the learner forces me to think about learning.  As a teacher, I know what it's like to want the learner to learn.  As a learner, I can remember the challenges, frustrations, and successes of the learning process.  Since blogging involves a lot of learning, it gives me a stronger connection with my students:  I know what it's like to be them!


7.  I've been making better materials for my own students.  I've always made things for my students.  Of course, all teachers do this.  But now I find myself making things with a little more care, thinking that there must be other teachers out there who could also use this.  I find myself thinking, how could I make this so that more levels could use it, or so that larger groups could participate, or how could a teacher differentiate for lower/ higher students.  So I make it a little more detailed, with a little more thought, and I put it up on Teachers Pay Teachers as a freebie for anyone who might be able to use it.  Then I find myself looking at other materials on the same topic, looking for ways to improve upon it even more!


8.  I have plenty of free teaching materials at my fingertips.  Sites such as Teachers Pay Teachers, Classroom Freebies, several Pinterest boards and several teacher blogs I visit (see The Cornerstone for Teachers) are constantly giving out freebies.  I'm always amazed by how many games and activities teachers make that practice and develop the same skills my kids are working toward.  There's a whole lot of great stuff out there, and most of it is free!  The more I explore teacher blogs, the more I know exactly where to find just what my kids need!  (If I can't find it, I'll make it, and share it with someone else!)

9.  I've learned about Whole Brain Teaching  With all my reading on how the brain works, I've discovered Whole Brain Teaching!  Visit their site, check out a few of their free videos and free materials, and see how they've taken research on the brain and put it into classrooms for optimum learning.  I'm totally hooked!  I even attend their weekly live Webinars every Tuesday at 8 pm!  (But they can be watched anytime!)  I use many of the Whole Brain Teaching techniques in my classroom, and I couldn't be happier.

10.  I do more reflecting on my own teaching.  I've always been a naturally reflective person, but now that I'm a teacher blogger, I am even more reflective.  My own experiences in the classroom are what inspires my blog posts.  As I go through the day, I'm always thinking... would this be interesting to blog about..?  Would other teachers benefit from reading a discussion on what happened in reading today..?  I'll bet other teachers would love to hear how my students reacted to this book...  and so on.  I'm constantly reflecting on how I can make my classroom the best it can be, and how I can share it with other teachers.

How has blogging or blog hopping affected your teaching?