Rocking Out Our Whole Brain Classroom

        In a couple of weeks I will being teaching 5th grade. I am super excited about this, but decided I was in need of some new ideas for classroom management and was looking for a different way to keep students engaged. I started thinking about music and what keeps people interested. When we know the words and can interact with the songs, watching a concert for hours goes by in an instant. Googling various words and looking extensively on Pintrest, I found whole brain teaching. This idea is phenomonial, easy, and best of all it looks like most of their information of how it works is online and FREE! I love free stuff :)
     

        Their website with further information can be found at http://www.wholebrainteaching.com/


        I am going to try this with my fifth graders this year! I will be posting how it goes. I am excited to see the results and hope that it is a fun way to keep my students engaged and results it them being able to remember the information.


        If you are interested here are a couple of videos of whole brain teaching in action. The first two videos are how to get started with WBT. Teaching the students the rules and procedures for it. The last two videos is it being used in actual lessons. I love how enthusiastic the kids are... looks like so much fun!



       I have a rock star theme in my classroom so I have created posters of the procedures, rules, and the two score boards.  



Click Here to download the posters in the Rock Star theme!

The graphics I used came from thistlegirldesigns.com



Happy Whole Brain Teaching!

Smart Goals Poster

Smart Goals Poster

As part of my graduate research, I focused on goal setting and self-reflection. I found a goal setting acronym called S.M.A.R.T. goals from a colleague in my Master's course. I created a poster for this that I will enlarge and place by my classroom door. Students will write their "SMART" goals on post-it notes and place it on the poster and replace them after they have met their goal. This way their goal is visible and they will see it often and I won't have to remind them of their goals. I am also hoping that students will encourage each other to meet their goals!

If you would like a copy of this poster in pdf format click below.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE SMART GOALS POSTER

Rock Star Classroom Decor

This year I am decorating my room in the Rock Star Theme! It seems fun and I think it will definitely draw the kids in. Also, since I play the guitar, it works on that level as well.

I found this site that has great ideas for the theme:

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/Rock%20Theme.htm

I found some of the items she used at oriental trading company, so I put an order in there. I will be doing the Rock Star of the week and the kids bios to hang up for back to school night.

I went to Hancock Fabrics and Michael's and scored on some great items for my classroom decor! The fabric was on clearance for $1 a yard and the ribbon was all on sale for between $1 and $1.99. The cute guitars are push pins that were $1.99. I am going with neon green, blue, and pink colors that coordinate with the baskets and desktop items I got in the dollar section at Target. The solid colors are to cover my bulletin boards and the pattern is for a curtain and to recover the cushion on my rocking chair (that now is getting very thread bare!)

I love the ribbon that says Rock Star! I also got from Michael's an ID holder that has VIP on it with stars. We use a program called First in Math at our school and there is a player of the day. I am going to use the VIP ID holder for that next year.

I also ordered the Rock star bulletin board set from Carson-Dellosa that you can find here:

http://www.carsondellosa.com/cd2/Products/CarsonDellosa/PID-110150.aspx?CM_VC=10001

Here is the curtain I made:

So super easy to make! I cut down the center of two yards of fabric (my window is 48 inches wide). Hemmed the two ends and bottom, then folded down the top 4 inches and sewed the bottom of that to leave a large enough hole for the curtain rod. Then I just used fabric glue to attach the ribbon. Took me half and hour tops.


I found great graphics from http://www.thistlegirldesigns.com/ to use!




I bought the Kiddie Pop graphics and am using them for decor and on my school web page. I've already had some other teachers at my school comment on how cute my new web page looks with her graphics.