My Noisy Classroom

What do we define a successful classroom to look like as teachers? When you look into someone's room, how do you define a good teacher?

 Most of the time we watch the students. Do they look engaged, are they listening, what kind of activities are they working on?
For the longest time, I felt pressure to have that 'quiet class'. Sitting in rows, I would run around shushing, using all the management techniques in the book to have that quiet hard working class. I felt uptight and nervous, was my class quiet enough, were they bothering others, what did people THINK OF ME?!?!?!?

Haha, I've come a long way since then. I don't worry so much about what others think, as I began to realize that defining a successful classroom does not mean the quietest, there are other ways we can define good teachers.

As I settled into my teaching career, I began to use centers in Language Arts. Students sat around the room in small groups chatting away, laughing and enjoying their activities. As I looked around the room, I felt content and not worried about running around shushing everyone. I enjoyed the centers so much that the next year I began Math centers and that same feeling came over me as worked with students in small groups and watched kids shriek with delight as they played a math game. The year after that I introduced Social Studies centers. This was it, I was hooked on centers! A quiet classroom just doesn't work for me. I like the noise, the chatting, and the laughter.

This also rolled over into my teaching style. I started Whole Brain Teaching and I LOVE IT. It get's your kids talking and interacting during your lesson, and keeps the direct teaching in short amounts. I like giving students chat time, and I find in turn they give me better listening because they have had that opportunity to talk.

Do I do centers all day long? No
Do I think everyone should do centers? No
Is whole brain teaching for every teacher? Absolutely not.

What I think I've learned is that you need to find what works for you and not define yourself by other people's definition of a good teacher. So if you walk by my room and my kiddos are noisy and chatting...well... that's just the way I like it ;)

Another video! Skip counting

Every morning in math since about November I have played a flash it game with my students to develop subitizing skills and number sense. I put groups of objects, starting small in different arrangements and groups on the smart board, and flash three times. This way the children don't have time to count and must recognize arrangements quickly. After we practiced this lots, we have now started working on using flash it to skip count. Again, it forces the students to group and count because there is not enough time to count each individual object.
After we count the objects, student make groups of two students (peanut butter and jelly) and then tell each other how many they saw and verbalize how they know the number based on groupings and how they counted. 
I think this all sounds a bit confusing, watch the video below to see how it's done!!

Mrs. Dunn

Five Senses and MY FIRST VIDEO POST!

We are STILL working on our five senses unit in science class, it seems to be dragging on FOREVER, I'm tellin you. 

We read the story "The Black Book of Colors" which is so cool and has words in braille and raised pictures. 

We then talked about what it would be like to not have our sense of sight and be blind. All of the students wrote out their names and then used the "secret code" to make their name in braille. They glued split peas onto the sheet after colouring in the dots to make the bumps.

I then did a lesson on how scientists smell. Sorry it is so choppy and you can only see my face and lovely lights, just keeping privacy of the children in mind! So excited to have my first video up. I was actually inspired by Cara Carroll, she posted a video of her teaching and it was neat to see what a great teacher she is in real life!!

Mrs. Dunn 

Math Whole Brain Teaching

I was pretty pumped about a whole brain teaching lesson I did the other day in Math class.
We are working on addition and subtraction to twelve, and of course all of the strategies involved in solving problems. The particular strategy we are working on is using doubles.
So the lesson went like this:
Mirrors on- "A doubles fact... means you take one number... and ADD the same number."
We repeated this a few times. I asked a few children if they knew what a doubles fact was. Some little darlings are still confused. We repeat again. Then I say "Peanut butter and Jelly", and they link hands with a partner. I had the PB's "Teach OK" what a doubles fact is, then switch and the jelly teaches the PB what a double fact is. When I asked again, the children seemed to know what they were.
Just goes to show that when you teach someone else, you are more likely to retain information than just listening.
NOW for those who think, BAH this is rote learning and there is no higher level thinking, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT
We went through and wrote out the doubles facts to twelve. Then I asked the children if they noticed anything about the numbers, any patterns etc. 
Then a bright little firstie pointed out, "Look! The answers skip over one each time, skip counting by twos all the way down."
10 finger WOOOOOO to you.
And there you have it folks, higher level thinking stemming from some rote memorization tasks.
LOVE IT.

Mrs. Dunn

December Currently

Happy December everyone! So I did this Currently last night and then got so sleepy that I went to bed before posting.

Linking up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for this fantastic currently! Remember the rule of 3, comment on the 2 before your link and the one after!

I absolutely LOVE the (reasonably new) Mumford cd. They are so amazing, I can listen to their music over and over again and never get tired.

Snow and cookies mean december to me. The hubster and I made GINGER PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES the other day with white chocolate and almonds. OH...  MY.... WORD... It tastes like two cookies in one, gingersnap and peanut butter. So good.

Well now that I've had an excellent sleep, I can't say that I need to go to bed anymore, feeling rested and ready for the day.

I really dislike Christmas shopping. I actually sort of have a thing against presents entirely, not a huge fan. I'm much more of a "Let's just spend time together" than a give me a present kind of person. SO I would really love to just have it over with.

Today I would like to get Christmas decorations up, but that would involve some house cleaning as well, so we will see how that goes.

We have awesome neighbours and I would really like to do a secret santa kind of thing this year. I haven't decided what to get them yet, but it will be a project in the next couple of weeks. 

(PS I love this currently RAK idea)

I have made a Classroom Management Package (Ok so I know this isn't Christmas related, but the kids get a bit squirrel y this time of year, and often in January we have to start all over again with the rules because apparently 2 weeks puts a brain freeze on all of the children).
Anyways, it has a bunch of resources to do with whole brain teaching, behavior tracking and modification, time out, positive rewards and parent contacting. Check it out!

Mrs. Dunn

Behavior Linky Party

I am linking up to Behavior Management on What the Teacher Wants for this next post.

Oh classroom management, how I struggle with you every year. I seem to change my behavior management system ever year, dependant on the class and how much "managing" they need. Here is what I am using this year.

For the little ones who always seem to have something to say and believe that it is their job to inform you at that immediate moment every little thought that appears in their brain.

When students have two magnets removed then they move down to a warning, then time out etc on this chart.

This is my time out chair. So far, haven't had to use it this year, phew! The posters I have are from the Leader in Me program.

I also have been using whole brain teaching and LOVE this one. You can see my whole brain teaching rules posted above.

I say to the students "class", they say "yes". Then I say "class class class", or "OOOOOOO Class" or "Oh classity class" (the goofy possibilities are endless). If they answer quickly they earn a happy face point, if not sad face. With a mighty OH YAHHH, or an OOOO MAN, depending on which they earn they get a circle on the ten frame. They love this part. They work towards something special at the end of the day.

Finally, I use table points. At the end of the week, if their table has earned the most points they pick a stickerless / treatless prize. Examples: Sit at the teachers desk for the day (oh la la), sit with a friend during work time, bring a show and tell, free center time at the end of the day and other wonderful things.

Check out all the other ideas at the What the Teacher Wants Blog. It's so much fun to share!
Mrs. Dunn

Whole Brain Teaching...In the Beginning

So we are about a week into school, and I have begun Whole Brain Teaching already, and I am LOVIN IT!! I think the kids are more motivated to learn, and my lovely ELL students are really benefitting from this repetitive process. They all know the five rules and often recite them to each other when they are not following them. We use the happy face, sad face, with a big OH YAH when we get a point and an OH MAN when we get a sad face. Mirror= amazing! I love it. Teach, OK we are still working on. I have some students with little language and so they are uncomfortable talking to others. I have been practicing Teach, OK with mirroring me, and that seems to help them out. I also started Teach, OK with just going over directions for an activity, 

Class, Yes, Classity Class, is very much fun and they are getting quick with responses. It is hard for me to believe that they are catching on to this so fast, I am having so much fun with it!!

Mrs. Dunn

Whole Brain Teaching

I stumbled upon this on pinterest, and am so intrigued by this teaching technique. I think I will try my own spin on it in my classroom this year. This particular teacher, Rachel Freundlich, is FANTASTIC at making this work in a primary classroom. The students are truly engaged in their learning. When you teach, you learn, and she has her students actively teaching each other, and is able to quickly assess for understanding. The way she interacts with students is really inspiring, you wish you could be in her class when you watch her. She has really inspired me to do this in my own class because of her enthusiasm. For more information visit the Whole Brain Teaching website.. For a Canadian Article about it here is the link. Can't wait to try it in September.

Mrs. Dunn