ClassDojo, Math Rotations, Organization Galore!

I have wanted to blog about things for so long but every time I get home I am exhausted.  The first couple weeks are overwhelming!  I guess by week 7, I should probably have my act together! Let me tell you we are finally getting there. 

I started using ClassDojo and my students love it.  The reason for impletmenting this along with my clip chart is simply for negative things and whole class rewards.  I feel silly saying the entire class gets to clip up.  I also have had problems with students not doing homework and not having a way to record it or students being late from recess with no record of how long.  Plus those are not reasons to clip down…. Right?  Thus the introduction of classdojo.  Since my kids love it so much I am going to run with it.  They all get excited when they hear the ding.  Yes, I keep the sound on because I do not have a smart board only a projector.  The projector is not always on so they know when someone gets/loses a point when they hear the sounds.  

The other thing I am quite excited about is my math and spelling groups.  We are using Words Their Way for the first time this year and I LOVE it.  I will explain more on that later though.  I have been doing math groups for the last week and a half.  The students have finally gotten the routine and it has been wonderful.  I do think that it will only work for certain chapters where there is a wide variety of levels but for this chapter it is perfect.  We are discussing addition and subtraction and my students are all over the board.  You can read more about how I implement my groups here.  Each day I project the At Desk and Math Facts information on the board.  This way the students always know what is expected. I would like to make a board to remind them of where to rotate and what they are doing, but for now projecting it works.  Plus, I keep the same movements each day so the students know where they are supposed to go now.  Some days when I know the lesson requires more teaching time I take more time to whole group instruct.  Other days I say very little about the instruction because half of them understand already.  It makes my heart very happy to see the way the students know the routine and move accordingly.  I can also tell that it is stretching my above students and allowing for more time for my lower students. 

The one thing I do know I need to get better on is concluding the math time.  Once our last group is done we move on to silent reading or lunch/special. I think a simple question time of “what was our lesson about?” or “any questions” or something like this will work.  Do you have any suggestions for me? What type of math wrap-up do you do?

By this time are you in routine yet or are things still getting settled? Some days I feel like our class has been together forever and other days I feel like it is the first week all over again! 

Attention grabbers.

Have you seen things like this all over pinterest and blogs?? This one is from I Love 2 Teach.

I thought this was so cute and wanted to introduce it to my class.  Currently, I use a bell to call students attention while they are working but I wanted something fun that I could say to them to get their attention.  We had just changed desks so lots of commotion was happening.  I decided it would be a perfect time to introduce some of these.  Since I knew that my kids know what McDonalds is, I thought I would start with that one....

Let me tell you.

It BOMBED!!!

It was so funny.

I asked them if they had ever heard it before......

....silence.....

no! They hadn't

I had a few kids guess that the theme song was Old MacDonald!! I honestly laughed at them... (woops) but several others thought the same thing. OOpS!! 

Then I tried to do the "Goodness gracious great balls of fire one....

 a phrase that I quite enjoy.  

Nope, that did nothing for them either.  

They had never heard that and thought I was crazy.

I tried the na na na na Hey Hey hey, goodbye.  Never heard that one either!  Ugh.  

This new idea that I was really excited about completely and utterly bombed.

Now I know that if I really wanted to do this I could just make them learn it and we could use it.  But it isn't as fun to do these things when the kids have no idea what they mean.  

Yet another reminder that teaching in Thailand is WAAAAAAAAAAY different than teaching in America.  

I will say that I do something that does work wonders and the kids do enjoy it.  We started this the first day of school so they are used to it and it works.  (I just wanted to add other things). 

When I want to get their attention while they are doing whatever I say:

One (clap) Two (clap) Three (clap), FREEZE.  Whatever they are doing they have to stop and look at me.  Sometimes they are mid walk and have to stop.  Sometimes they are in silly positions and have to stop.  My only rule is that both feet have to be on the ground! (I have had a kid fall over because he was being extra silly.)  I like this a lot because they know what freeze is.  Plus, it allows them to be a little silly if they want while still giving me all of their attention.  

What type of attention grabbers do you use?  Do you ever introduce new ones throughout the year or do you only do it at the beginning of the year?  

Toothpaste Activity for watching our words

Last week I did a very fun activity with my class.  My class is very talkative and needs reminded often about watching their words.  Especially as ESL students they often do not realize what some things mean that they say!

Sooooooooooo. We did a group activity. For this activity you need a small bottle of toothpaste per group.  Honestly the other items are up to you!  The first time I saw this activity they used paper plates and toothpicks; one per group again.  But, I did not have paper plates so we used small plastic cups, 2 toothpicks, and a cotton ball.  

I used colgate because it was the cheapest here !

small cups (and you know what toothpicks and cotton balls look like!)

The first objective was to get all of the toothpaste out of its bottle into the plastic cup using only the materials provided.  I had the students brainstorm how they were going to do it.  Each group member had to participate.  I had them in groups of 4.  I also told them I was going to time them. (I did not tell them how to use the other materials... they had to decide themselves!) Then I set them off.  They did it in about 1 minute.  Easy stuff. Then we talked about what they had to do. 

I asked questions like:

- What was your strategy?

- Was this hard?

- Did you use teamwork?

- Did you need to communicate properly?

Then we moved on to the second goal which is to get all of the toothpaste back into the tube using only the materials provided.  The students had to brainstorm again.  Then I told them to begin.  I let them try it for 2 minutes and then stopped them.  Some were making some progress whereas others got no where.  With these materials, this is impossible to do!! (After I stopped them we threw everything away to get rid of the distractions and then chatted again)

I asked the same questions about strategy, teamwork, communication.  Then I asked if this was even possible to do.  They gave me lots of excuses and ways they could do it if they could change something.... but I always reminded them that they could not cut the toothpaste bottle open, or use a straw instead of a toothpick, or use a funnel or whatever else their brains came up with.  

Then I took the discussion much deeper.  We discussed how the toothpaste is just like our words.  Our words can easily fly out of our mouths just like this toothpaste. BUT putting our words back in is impossible. We also talked about how sometimes you only need a little toothpaste when you are brushing your teeth, just like sometimes you only need a few words.  We talked about using our words wisely and kindly to help others and not hurt them.  

All in all it was a fun activity that hopefully the kids will remember.  I can now remind them of the activity that we did and to watch their words.  It also helped them work on teamwork and problem solving skills!

** Just a couple notes if you are going to try it.  Make rules about not eating or putting on clothing.  Who knew that students would try to do this ;) Also, it might be good to put down paper or something on the desks. Again, who knew students could not get the toothpaste into the cup!**