Hello. I'm Tisha. I'm a 3rd year teacher. First 2 years I was teaching Kinder and this year I just switched to 2nd. I'm having a hard time with this age group (talkers! and a couple even talking back!) and I just really want to have fun at work and enjoy my job again!

I actually found out about whole brain teaching last year. I tried using some bits of it last year, but as I had a very difficult class and discovered it late, it never really worked too well. This year I was hoping to get it going from the start, except the rest of my grade level had different systems, and the principal is big on the grade level all doing the same thing. So the standard 2nd grade system is a clip system where students move their names from good day to different consequences (miss recess, note home). I have this system running for individual behavior. But after my class was starting to get too noisy for me to even teach on the 3rd week of school, I realized something needed to be done and I introduced the scoreboard game. (I already have 5 basic rules similar to the WBT rules, and we rehearse them chorally with gestures.)

This group seems to be buying into it a lot better than my kindergarteners did last year. It's only been about 4 days, but things have improved a bit. One of my biggest questions right now is what to reward or take away depending on scoreboard score? My school is title 1 and in program improvement and DAIT so we're very restricted. We're not supposed to give food, but I know others at the school do and am thinking of maybe giving some small food reward at the end of the day. I really can't give any extra time for preferred activities. Any suggestions?

Also I'm just a bit overwhelmed with all the steps and components and how and when to introduce them. I have been planning to introduce the class-yes so I think that's my next step.

And maybe this is a silly question, but I'd really like to get to the teach-ok part but was wondering what you do about absent students, odd number of students, etc.? I have one girl who is kind of difficult and have left the seat next to her empty on purpose because she was always bothering her neighbors. Don't know who I'd pair her up with.

ANYWAY, I always end up typing too much, but if anyone has answers to those questions or just good first steps for getting going on this, I'd love it.

Tisha wrote:


Hi, Tisha.

Go ahead and introduce the Class!-Yes! right away if you have not already. You will use this component constantly, and the kids really like it because they have something to do other than just sit quietly.

When you feel comfortable with that introduce the Teach!-OK! at a rate you are comfortable with. For odd numbers you can either pair with the odd one out yourself, or have a group of three, two Ones, and one Two. It works really well and the kids like it pretty well.

On your difficult student I would pair her with different groups, or strong a strong student at different times until you get a feel for which way will work most effectively for all the students involved.

For the Scoreboard reward I have started a new one this year. My kids can earn an Instant Game. If they get ahead of me on the Scoreboard by two or three they can stop me and we play a five minute session of Mind Soccer. They love the control they feel, have fun with the game, and the questions I ask are on the material I am going over with them anyway. Win-win!

Jeff

Hi, I hope I can help a bit. I teach 2nd grade. Some rewards I use for SB game are..... a handful of marbles from teacher jar to class jar. When class jar is full they get a class party. Also can use more homework if the lose, less homework if they win. I keep a stack of papers with review things for the extra. I have found that giving them 5 minutes of class time to do their homework in class at the end of the day has been very popular. That is a win-win for everybody! I do sometimes use otter pops or red licorice though you said you can't use food...that probably won't help for you. Hope some of these will help.

For the scoreboard, in third grade, I used more/less minutes of recess. For example, one extra smiley, means they get to go out a minute early. Something very mighty in being the first ones out to recess (plus at our school they get all the best stuff--balls, jumpropes, etc) when they are out early. But if they had extra frowny points, that was how many minutes they had to stand and watch the others go out recess. YOu wouldn't believe how long one minute can feel when you are watching others play!!!! Since the scoreboard starts over every recess but there are no recesses at the end of the day, I would roll them over until the next day. But now that there are awesome games like Superspeed and Mind Soccer that would be a better alternative.


In kinder, I have to do the duty so we get to use fun things like bikes, balls, sidewalk chalk, etc-- when we have more smileys and they get a "longer" recess. When the points are equal we get "regular recess" and no bikes. More frownys and we have a "think time" where they have to sit in their squares for a full minute with a good listening body and "think" of what we can work on to get more smiley points. We get a "shorter" recess and no extras. But of course they can't tell time so long/short/regular is relative;)

Posted in the kinder forum is how I get started in Kinder. You could speed up the pace for 2nd grade.

For the difficult one, you can try pairing her up with someone who will tolerate her--or if she really is difficult she can the empty chair next to her.

Hi Tisha,

I teach second grade as well. I began with class-yes and it has worked like a charm since the very first time. I am a little bit on the hammy side so I really have fun with it and consequently so do my students. You can almost see the little endorphins swimming around the room with 25 students smiling at me and me smiling back at them because of some funny way I said "class" and they said "yes."

For our scoreboard reward right now, my students are playing for "taking the long way around" for our bathroom break mid afternoon. If they don't win, we just go down the hall to the bathroom and drinking fountains and come right back. If they do win, we take the long way around the school which requires us to follow the perimeter of the school and go on the "big kids'" playground where they get to play for 2 minutes. It's a big deal because this is the upper grade students' playground which they don't get to go on. I told them I will double their time to 4 minutes in October and they were ecstatic!

For teach-okay, I was a little stumped because each of my students already has a number and a letter (indicating when it is their turn to be the materials manager for their table). I decided to tape little hexagons and trapezoids that I printed in Word to their desks (good way to work in math standards). So I will say, "okay, hexagons turn to your trapezoid and teach them...." or "trapezoids go first" We'll see how it works since today will be the first day I'm trying it out.


Good luck!