Whole Brain Teaching- Week 1 Recap and Starting Week 2: 100% Engagement!

Here I am for my weekly recap. As I mentioned last week I am going back and doing the 13 Week Challenge found on the Whole Brain Teaching website.

Last week's challenge was focused on attention getters. I did not do as well as I would have liked, but with the exception of Monday, I was able to get the goal of using attention getters at least 20 times a day. Friday I only ended up with 15, but we did have a two-hour early dismissal so I am still counting that as meeting the goal. I am hoping to step it up a little this week and have set a personal goal of using attention getters at least 30 times each day.

Week 2's challenge is focused on 100% Engagement; the video can be found here.

I'll start out with the three levels and then I will explain a little more in detail.

Rookie: use Mirror Words at least ten times a day

Pro: use Silent Mirrors at least ten times a day

All Star: use a mixture of Mirror Words, Silent Mirrors, and Magic Mirrors at least twenty times a day

Just like last week I will be keeping track of these with a tally sheet.

For those of you unfamiliar with WBT, let me start out with explaining what Mirror Words, Silent Mirrors, and Magic Mirrors are. For Mirror Words, you should say "Mirror Words" and hold up your hands. Students respond with "Mirror Words" and hold up their hands. They now will repeat after you and do the same motions as you. Silent Mirrors is done the same way except students do not repeat your words, just your motions. In Magic Mirrors, you put your hands behind your back and students create their own gestures for what you say.

Mirror Words (and the other variations) involves students' motor, visual, and auditory cortices, resulting in Whole Brain Learning. The best learning takes place when the motor cortex is activated. Everything is retained in our brain through the motor cortex.

Student do better with Teach Okay if they have practiced the gestures ahead of time by using Mirror Words.

Mirror Check should be performed every so often to make sure students are doing it properly. When you do a Mirror Check you say "Mirror Check" and then move your hands around wildly. Watch to make sure all students are following along.

Mirror Words is used to tell a story, describe a process, teach a state standard, for crowd control, or to wake up a sleepy class.

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This week I also tried out three other components of Whole Brain Teaching that I would like to share with you. They are both completely transforming my classroom. They are Genius Ladder, Crazy Professor Reading Game, and SuperSpeed Grammar. Stay tuned in the next couple of days to learn about these other Whole Brain Teaching strategies.

New Brag Tags

I have posted a new set of Brag Tags in my TPT store. There are several more to come. I will leave these free until tomorrow and then I will put a price on them.

This set features brag tags for when students lose a tooth, to celebrate the 100th day, to recognize students for not having late homework, and to recognize students for bright thinking.

I hope you enjoy these! Please be sure to leave feedback if you download these!

Motivational Brag Tags Set 1

Five for Friday- 1/17/14

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the weekly linky party Five for Friday.

First up, I am loving having another computer in my room. I have recently started using Spelling City to have my students take their weekly spelling tests. That definitely called for needing more devices in my room. My hubby had a computer sitting around the house that he no longer uses so it got moved to my room. Last year my dad was getting rid of an old computer so I also have that one. My room originally had the two laptops in it. I now have two laptops, two desktops, and two iPads. This means I have six devices when the wireless internet is working. When it is not I have the two desktops with a direct connection and then there is my teacher desktop that I will let them use during those times.

I have seen such a major change this week in my abilities to teach using the Whole Brain Teaching method. I will be posting my weekly post one day this weekend letting you know how this week's challenge went. I will also be sharing with you about the Genius Ladder and SuperSpeed Grammar. These two programs made a huge impact in my classroom this week! I can't wait to see how much more of an impact it can make!

Be sure to stop back by if you are interested in learning more about WBT!

We added a new item to our indoor recess selection and the kiddos are absolutely loving it. My sister got me this as a Christmas present and it is perfect! It is called a Flash Pad. There are several different games that can be played on it. This is their new favorite thing to play on snowy days like we had this week.

As I talked about in an earlier post, I have ended my relationship with Dropbox and have started a new one with Copy. Boy am I ever glad I did that! I have loved having Copy and it is so easy to use. At this point I have a total of 40 GB of storage now! I am looking forward to organizing my files this weekend and moving over my clipart/backgrounds/frames/fonts to use in making products.

I am loving the Brag Tags that I have been working on. I am excited to post some more this weekend. Be sure to stop by for your chance to grab them while they are free! I will be posting them free for a limited time. Be sure to follow me so you don't miss out on this wonderful opportunity.

Head on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching to see the other Five for Fridays!

Have you heard of Copy?

Oh my ya'll; it was a crazy weekend. I was fully prepared to post a Five for Friday last Friday, but the photos were on my phone. I went to add them to my dropbox so that I would have them on my laptop for my post. Well my Dropbox went in to overdrive and froze up.

I spent many hours working on it over the weekend. I gave up on it fixing and decided to set up another Dropbox account. I added my files to it and because of the whole ordeal some of my files were messed up. I finally decided to break up with Dropbox. I have been a diehard Dropbox fan, but I was running out of space and after all of these problems I decided it was in my best interest to just move on.

And boy am I ever glad I did! I found my new love! I did a little research and came across Copy. Have ya'll heard of it? Well it is pretty awesome. It is VERY similar to Dropbox, but it starts out with 15 GB instead of the 2 GB that Dropbox starts out with. And for every person you refer you get an additional 5 GB. I will be set on space for a good while.

Copy has an app for all of my Apple products so I can access my documents on every device I own. Have I mentioned that I am a diehard Apple girl? Well I am. I don't personally own any devices non apple brand anymore. There are some non Apple items in my classroom, but that is completely out of my control...sorry I got off on my obsession with Apple. Back to your regularly scheduled blog post.

I highly recommend Copy to you all especially if you're really into TPT, whether a buyer or seller. I now have the ability to store all my free and purchased products that I have found, all my fonts/backgrounds/frames/clipart, and all of my own created products. Plus so much more.

Now if I have you totally convinced to jump on the Copy bandwagon I would super appreciate it if you would follow this link Copy. If you do you will find yourself with 5 GB of additional storage! I call that a big WIN!



A little update on my weekly challenge for Whole Brain Teaching. Today I tracked my Attention Getters (well I tried...I think I missed a few). I recorded a total of 16 times. I would like to see an improvement on that tomorrow. We'll see how that goes!

I am linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday.

Good night ya'll!

Another Snow Day! Whole Brain Teaching 13 Week Challenge!

I am in the middle of my third snow day this week after being off since December 20th. I am ready to get back to teaching with my kiddos.

All this time has helped me to stick to my resolution of blogging, making more products for TPT, and researching Whole Brain Teaching.

I have been researching all break and am so excited to try again with WBT. I tried it at the beginning of the year, but had a hard time sticking with it because I was trying to focus on all of the components. I have discovered the 13 Week Master Class that was started back in September. The purpose of it was to focus on just one component at a time and to slowly build up to reaching Teacher Heaven. I am going to start with week one as soon as I get back to school. If you are unfamiliar with Whole Brain Teaching you should definitely check it out and if you are interested in starting I would recommend doing the 13 Week Master Class.

Week 1's focus is Attention Getters. Here is the video: Attention Getters.
I am going to try to at least master the Rookie level, which means I have a goal of using a variation of Class, Yes! to get the students' attention at least 20 times a day.

Class, Yes! is used to start lessons, reduce the hubbub of the classroom, for crowd control, before entering/leaving class, or to interrupt an activity. It works by you saying a variation of Class and students responding with the same variation of Yes and immediately look at you with their hands folded. If they don't remember to fold their hands you remind them and practice, practice, practice until it becomes natural. Students have fun doing this which helps to get the part of the brain involved with emotions going. The goal of Whole Brain Teaching is to have the Whole Brain activated in order to get the best learning.

This is one feature I use a lot still, but I do not feel like I use it as much as I should. I will start tracking how many times I use it so that I am holding myself accountable.

Some variations I use are:
~Class, class
~Classity, class
~Class-a-doodle-doo
~Oh Class
~Class
~(whisper) Class
~(squeaky) Class
~(deep voice) Class
~Class (clap)
~Class Oh Class

I am still looking for some more ideas. Feel free to share your own versions with me.



If I master the Rookie level before the week is over I will move on to the Pro level. The Pro level is to you use Class, Boom! variations at least 10 times per day. This is the same as Class, Yes!, but there is a boom added at the end.

Some variations are:
~Class, Boom
~Class-a-Boom
~Class-Chicka-Boom
~Class-Boom-Sha-Boom
~Class-Ba-Ba-Boom



The final level is the All Star level. In this level you ask a question that students need a lot of practice with (for third grade an example would be multiplication facts) then say boom. Students respond with the answer and boom. In the All Star level you should be using all three types equally at least 20 times a day.




The main thing with Attention Getters is to rehearse often! This is a major key factor in success. I will keep you all posted on how my progress is going. I will also update weekly on the focus of the week based on the 13 Week Master Class.

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On another note, I have posted another set of brag tags to my TPT store:

Monthly Perfect Attendance Brag Tags

These are brag tags that can be given out each month for perfect attendance for the month. I have more brag tags to come over the next few months.

These are at my introductory price of free for a limited time. Grab them before they have a price, but remember to leave some feedback.

Finally a Productive Snow Day!!

I have been on break since December 20th. We were supposed to go back Monday for a teacher day and Tuesday the kiddos were supposed to come back, but we got hit with snow and bitter cold temperatures. Only about five or six teachers were able to make it in for our teacher day so we were told we could just work in our rooms. I stayed until lunch and got quite a bit done. Then Tuesday was a snow day and I had absolutely no motivation to get anything done...until about 10 PM last night. Good thing today was also a snow day because I worked on some ideas until almost midnight and then I got up this morning and continued working. I was on a roll.

I have posted four new products to my TPT store (these are the first items I have posted since before Halloween...it feels so great to be posting some new items). Since I haven't really made anything else lately I am linking up this post with Tara's Monday Made It over at 4th Grade Frolics; after checking out my products you should head on over to her blog and see what everyone else has been making this month.

Oh and one more thing, all four of my new products are free for a limited time. Head on over to grab them up before they have a price. Please, please, please leave some feedback if you take advantage of this opportunity.

First up,

Valentine's Day Scalloped Edge Frames

These are perfect for your Valentine's Day items; there are 72 different versions!

Next up,

Valentine's Robots

Another perfect item to add to your Valentine's Day items.

These five little guys were the perfect addition to my next new item:

Robot Themed Valentine's Day Cards

There are 15 different versions of these Valentine's Day cards. 

They will be perfect to hand out to my students on Valentine's Day with a little goody of some sort.

And finally,

Happy Birthday Brag Tags

I have really gotten in to making brag tags lately. I have many more to come over time. This is my first posted set. They are perfect to give students on their birthday.

Now head on over and snatch these up and don't forget to leave feedback! After that, head on over to 4th Grade Frolics for some more Monday Made Its!

Resolutions for 2014!

Today I am linking up with A Peach for the Teach for her fabulous linky party of Resolutions for the new year. Here are my resolutions for 2014:

Personal:

My goal is to organize the house and keep it organized so it does not stress me out. This one I started a little early. For the past few days we have been decluttering and reorganizing. I figured while I had the time off it would be a good idea. We have thrown away seven huge trash bags full of junk and have boxed up five big boxes of things we will sell in the spring. We plan to have a yard sale. For now it is being stored in the basement. Things are looking so much better and I would love for it to stay that way. We coach track in the spring and things get really hectic during that time so it would be nice to not have things so cluttered. On top of that my hubby will have four jobs along with still being in school so he will be very busy, but you have to do what you have to do to provide for the family. I plan to use Home Storage Solutions 101 52 week organizing challenge and 15 minute mission calendars to help me out. Hopefully this will be successful. If you are interested head on over to Home Storage Solutions 101 to sign up for the newsletter and to get your free calendar.

Professional:

I would like to go to some trainings this year on Whole Brain Teaching. I have really gotten in to it lately, but have still not been to a training. My goal this year is to make it to one. I would also like to go to some trainings on using the iPad in the classroom. I am going to one in January, but I would like to attend a few more this year as well.

Classroom:

As I said earlier, I have really gotten in to Whole Brain Teaching lately. I would like to start implementing it more effectively this year. I let it slip the first part of this school year so my goal is to get back on track for the second half and to start off next school year right with it. I truly believe it is a phenomenal teaching style.

Blog/TPT:

This year I would like to blog at least once a week. During the school year I have a hard time blogging so I am trying to make this goal reasonable. During the summer I will be posting more than once a week. As far as my TPT store, I would like to post a new product at least once a month during the school year and maybe once a week during the summer.

Just For Fun:

I used to run all of the time as my stress reliever and I enjoyed it so much. I would love to get back into it and start enjoying it again. I think it would make me healthier because I could go out and run on my bad days. Plus it would get me back in shape. I am not fat, but I miss my muscular arms and legs. And I miss those abs...lol! We'll see how it goes!

Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!!!!