Incorporating Gestures into Lessons: Lights. Camera. Action

I love incorporating gestures into everyday lessons.  I am sure most of us who teach Early Childhood, review spelling words everyday.  Finding ways to keep students engaged, helping them really learn the words, and keeping spelling lessons lively can be difficult.  Then I discovered spelling chants cards.  What I do is clip the cards to my board.  Each day the students will lead spelling and pick a few cards to use to spell the words.  The cards tell how to spell the word and do the actions.  This has really helped my students to master their spelling words. 

Mrs. McDowell created the ones I use.  She uses them for sight word practice, and I use them for spelling word practice. 

The students have so much fun performing the spelling chant cards.  Lights, Camera, Action.

 

http://www.mrsmcdowell.com/centers.htm

Click on the link to download the cheer cards to use for spelling or sight words. 

McDowell Word Wall Cheers-2

The Power of “Class-Yes!”

According to Whole Brain Teaching Quick Start by Chris Biffle one of the first steps in successful classroom management is implementing Class-Yes.  I use this in my classroom, and whenever I say “Class” my students respond, “Yes”.  This is a wonderful attention getter.  However I say “class” is how my students must mimic it.  If I sing it, they sing, it.  If I say it three times, they say it three times.  If I use a funny voice, my class responds with a funny voice.  The students copy the tone, projection, and intensity of my voice. This is the attention getter I use all day long.  According to Biffle, even if you say “Classity Class”, your students will respond “Yesity Yes”.  And yes, it works!!  When I use this simple attention getter, I am quickly able to get students to focus on me and engage in what I am saying.  There are times that we are doing a cooperative learning project and things might get noisy and I need students to listen to their next direction.  I now do not have to try to talk over them, I am able to use the simple “Class-Yes” procedure and they are quickly back on task and engaged in what I am saying.  I love changing up my voice, which keeps it interesting for the kiddos.  You want the students to completely buy in to what you are selling, so you have to have fun with it!!  “Class-Yes” is a very effective approach to teaching that activates the neo-cortex area of the brain.  “Class-Yes” has been power in my hands.  I can now get my students in control, on task, and ready for instruction!

I use posters in my class with many of the teacher commands on them.  They are from http://first-grade-fever.blogspot.com.  There is a link to her Teachers Pay Teachers Store and you can download them for free!

http://first-grade-fever.blogspot.com

Building A Classromm Community/ Establishing WBT Rules-One of the Big 7

April 12, 2013

Creating a classroom community centered around mutual respect is very important in whole brain teaching.  According to the WBT website a teacher should incorporate a set of whole brain rules into their classroom.  The rules have gestures and our to be recited everyday.  My students recite their rules every morning using the appropriate gestures.  Sometimes we sing them, dance them, say them in a funny voice, but no matter what we always use the gestures.

According to the official WBT website “If rules are just poster they are not really a part of your class.  You must have the rules running around in your students’ minds to be effective!  I call this my Oprah “Aha” moment!!  Because I thought, that makes perfect sense!! In order for students to learn the rules, they must practice them everyday!!

When my students are having problems with their behavior they are quickly able to articulate the rule # they are not following and tell me how they need to fix it.  Let me tell you, this is powerful!!

These rules help you foster and grow your classroom community!

The WBT rules are:

Rule One: Follow directions quickly!

Rule Two: Raise your hand for permission to speak.

Rule Three: Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat.

Rule Four:  Make Smart Choices!

Rule Five:  Keep your dear teacher happy!

Rules can be rehearsed throughout the day.

According to whole brain teaching research, the brain learns in five ways by seeing, saying, hearing, doing, and feeling.  When students do their rule rehearsals they are seeing the signs posted, hearing the rules, saying the rules, and making the gestures!

Ashley from www.thekinderpolkadotpatch.com  has whole brain teachish rules you can download.  They are different then the traditional WBT rules but still have the same theme and incorporate gestures.  Go to her site to see a clever way to display these rules on ribbon!  You can download theses rules by clicking on the links at the bottom.

Rules Posters     Rule3

On the Road to Becoming A Whole Brain Teaching Certified Teacher

My name is Tracy Shippy.  I have a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and a Masters degree in Elementary Administration.  I have taught first grade for the past 8 years, and love it! There are 2 things in life I feel I was born to do.  One is being a mother, and the other is teaching children!! I am so proud and extremely blessed that I get to do both!  Teaching is my passion.  However, last year I found myself at a road block.  So many things changing: Common Core, data analysis, assessing and more assessing!  I consider myself a constructivist, and everything I do in my room is project based.  However, with all of the “new” things coming down the pipe I was finding it harder and harder to be the teacher I wanted to be. Was I a good teacher? “Yes”!  But were my students always retaining everything I taught them?, “NO, not always”.  I thought, “What can I do differently, how can I make sure my students are getting it and remembering?” Then a friend and I came across  several whole brain teaching videos and were inspired! Was this the answer to my questions?  Would whole brain teaching change the way I look at teaching and learning for the better?  Could whole brain teaching make me an even better teacher and more importantly train my students brains to really retain information?”  The answer is “YES”!  I started using Whole Brain Teaching in my classroom at the beginning of this school year and love it! It has changed my life and the lives of my students for the better.  Therefore, I have started this blog to document my process in becoming a whole brain certified teacher and could not be more excited!

“Mirror, Mirror” on the Wall- Whole Brain Teaching Is Best of All

Ben Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget, involve me and I remember, teach me and I learn.” These are powerful words that reign so very true.  In whole brain teaching, students are actively involved in the construction of their own knowledge.  When all components of whole brain teaching are utilized, all areas of the brain are activated!  “Mirror” is a crucial part of the big Seven that engages and involves your students in their learning.

When trying to be the best teacher I can be, I reflect on how I would want my kids to learn.  I also think about how they learn at home.  And as a mother, I do a lot of modeling.  This in whole brain teaching can be referred to as “Mirroring”.  At home my kiddos will mimic my gestures, words or both.  This is exactly what I have my class do.  According to Chris Biffle, when students mirror our gestures, their motor cortex and visual cortex are activated.  I love that when I mirror with my students, I am able to achieve 100% engagement from my students.  I also love that “mirroring” allows the teacher to see immediately who is on task.  When I mirror the whole brain way, I make a pretend mirror with my hands framing my face.  The students copy my gestures, words, or both.

I have students mirror everyday.

Here is an example of a current lesson I taught using “mirror”.

In order to teach the elements of writing a good story, I had the students “mirror”.  We used our hands as a graphic organizer to identify the story elements.  The students mirrored me as I held up my hand and pointed to different parts of it.  They also repeated my words for what part of the hand represented an element of a story.   Now when you ask them “Show me the elements of a story”  they will hold up their hand and point and list them. PURE AWESOMENESS!!!

Palm- Setting and Characters

Thumb- Problem

Pointer- Funny….

Middle -Exciting….

Ring- Interesting Details

Pinky- Solution

Please see attachment.

Story Elements Graphic Organizer

Mirroring has allowed my students to be able to comprehend and retain the information I have taught them.  It is effective, beneficial, and if you are a teacher you have to try it!