Nebula- arms stretched wide apart to show that it is immense (think of the story about catching a fish "this big")

Supernova- You have to say the word like SOUP-ER nova (like Superman!) and jump, feet apart, like a cheerleader, arms raised in a high V shape and spirit fingers. Think of your body as exploding, like a SUPERNOVA!

Protostar- Bring in your arms from their stretched-out nebula, (representing gravity and contracting mass) and mimic washing hands to show it's still swirling.

The Big Crunch theory- clap hands once and loudly (your palms will sting a bit)

My 9th graders thought I was crazy, as this was the first day I introduced gestures (I didn't tell them to copy me, but they were all looking at me doing them) and when they took their vocabulary quiz 2 days later, they saw the word, made the gesture, smiled, and wrote their answer. After I collected the quizzes, they asked "is THAT why you were jumping around the other day?" and I smiled and said "It worked, didn't it?" So now they have made the choice to copy my gestures because they want to, not because I told them to (which I didn't think would go over well in my high school). Success for a rookie on her way to being a successful Whole Brain Teaching!

Congratulations! Definitely make them mirror you next time (this requires you to have the scoreboard so you can reward and punish as necessary a lot at the beginning). Mirroring gestures is one of the most effective aspects of Whole Brain Teachng (as you saw when they mirrored during the quiz).