My Teacher Pet Peeve & an Attention Getter

It’s Friday night and what am I doing? Experimenting with someecards. These little puppies have been popping up all over Pinterest and they make me giggle. The ecard below is my attempt at humor and making my own ecards. I made this in literally 2 minutes. The website is quick, easy, and fun. Follow my Teacher Humor board on Pinterest to see more ecards that I come up with as I will direct all my future ones there.

I don’t know about anyone else, but my one of my teacher pet peeves is when my students are hard at work (usually during Writing Workshop) and one student gets up to ask me a question. “Does this look alright?” I look at it give them just enough feedback that somehow magically signals 7 more students to simultaneously get up and seek my approval too. And before I know it, the rest of my kiddos who were hard at work are now distracted and start talking. In 1 minute flat my room turns into a zoo. I have seen teachers who don’t mind/prefer students to come to them rather than go to the student. That just isn’t my teaching style. No way Jose.

Speaking of zoos..what should you do to get your students’ attention when they are in full blown monkey-mode? Enter Whole Brain Teaching attention getter: The Class/Yes. When I say “class” my students say “yes.” However I say class my students say yes. Examples: Class, class – Yes, yes. Classity class, yessity yes.

I use it so often that now my students use it when the spotlight’s on them. One of my girls was in charge of the grammar minilesson for the day. While I was speaking to her about what to do, the class got a little chatty. Watch how she brings the class from monkey-mode to perched owl-ready to learn more (I just made those up haha). When my students follow directions quickly they score a smiley point and celebrate by having a 1-second party. In this video, my girl tells them to have a “quiet riot” which is a quieter version. If this is your first time hearing of Whole Brain Teaching I strongly recommend you watch their videos on YouTube!