Hi friends!
I am going to post some awesome questions that have been emailed to me. Think others could benefit! Also--it opens it up to other input and ideas!!! I love reading (and grabbing!!!) your great ideas!!!
Andrea

here is one of those great questions:
Dear Andrea,
>>
>> Allow me to introduce myself. I'm a 4 year teacher who just recently got
>> displaced and will be teaching Kindergarten this fall for LAUSD. I was
>> browsing youtube and came across your demo lesson on Power Teaching for
>> Kinder
>> and 3rd. I must say how impressed I am with your teaching and the strategies
>> used to get your students involved and engaged while making it fun and
>> meaningful.
>>
>> I'd like to know if I could get more information about yourself
>> professionally, how many years you taught, which grades, and how you came to
>> learn about this wonderful method of Whole Brain Power Teaching.
>>
>> I'm also already contemplating how I'm going to convey my behavior plan and
>> classroom management to the parents, how I will manage centers/work stations,
>> and what to have my students do independently and quietly with minimal
>> disruption. Any ideas would be much appreciated, as I will be sure to pass
>> it
>> along to my colleagues. I like how you are willing to share ideas so all
>> children from anywhere can benefit from your wonderful expertise. LAUSD
>> mostly teaches Open Court; not sure if you are familiar with it, but it's a
>> very rigorous program that is pretty much scripted which gives less time for
>> creative lessons. Let me know if you have any tricks up your sleeve even
>> though I'm sure you probably get flooded with emails from teachers
>> everywhere.
>>
>> I really admire you, and hopefully you will be willing to network with me, as
>> I will forward it along to others. I don't know why this method hasn't been
>> mandated by all districts because I definitely see a benefit and how positive
>> the students respond to it. I hope I can get it out there, so our ELs and
>> Special Needs students esp. can benefit from this program. It doesn't seem
>> like many of my collegues have heard of it.
>>

here was my response:
Thank you so much for your positive feedback--it is very encouraging. Let
> me just let you know that I am definitely willing to network and share ideas
> with you!
I start out the beginning of the year, working on routines, routines,
routines. I work on helping the students go through very routine tasks and
hands--on centers so that they will know the routine and that way I have
built them up to be independent for a (short) amount of time so that I can
pull students. Then the fun begins! I can differentiate my instruction in
small groups while the other children work independently. AS long as they
know the routine, they LOVE to be independent! I still have some that
wander over to me and I will just hold up three fingers (For rule #3: Raise
your hand for permission to leave your seat") and they will go back and
figure out what they are supposed to be doing. As the year goes on, they
can work longer periods of time independently and that is magic!!!

We have Houghton Mifflin, which is also very scripted (and can I say
BORING!!!). What I have done is this: I look at the objective of the
lesson. I use their materials and their objective and I "jazz up" the
lesson and make it more student-learning centered, rather than
teacher-instruction centered. I, of course, do not mean that I am not
teaching--but these curriculums do not seem to be written with student
learning in mind. My objective has to me that the students are the center
of the learning and that they are actively engaged in it. How can that be
if I am droning away with my instruction? That is the beauty of WBT! This
interactive method--and especially the Teach! Okay! Can jazz up any
(boring!) curriculum! I think those curriculum writers need a dose of WBT
themselves!!!

Another awesome question:

Hi Andrea,
>
> O.K I checked out the star system on the website and tried it, however I had
> some questions:
> Do you time them in context with... say calendar time, "ok lets see how long
> we can go following raise your hand for permission to speak" or do you time
> them simply all sitting on the carpet not doing anything else "ok lets see how
> long you can go without breaking the rule raise your hand for permission to
> speak." Because I don't think they all understood when I talked about
> breaking our record, etc. ?? Since this is our 5th day of school, should I try
> to rig it so we go to the big playground soon?
> Also, in order to keep the smileys/frowneys on a +/- 3 how many times a day
> to you add to the system? Thank you for your feedback, I recently moved
> schools in the district and truly appreciate the support of a Kinder
> colleague.


here was my response:
NO problem!
At the beginning of the day I start out (after we recite the rules) "Alright we are trying to see how long we can go without breaking rule #2. What is rule number 2 again? That's right "Raise your hand for permission to speak". Tell your neighbor: "you gotta raise your hand and WAIT for the teacher to call on you before you speak" (this is long so I am usually saying it with them as they say it to their neighbor). At the end of the day yesterday we went 3 Minutes and 21 seconds--do you think you can go longer? (hopefully they say "Yes"!) Tell your neighbor "You can do it!" Tell you neighbor "I can do it!" Tell your neighbor "We can do it!" Alright--our longest record is 3 minutes 21 seconds let's see if we can break that record today and go LONGER than 3 minutes and 21 seconds!"
I don't think you should rig it to go out. Get them close. Then on Monday, Take a walk to go look at the big playground. Have them tell you all the cool equipment they see. Go back in class and have a discussion of what they would like to play on. Honestly my children usually don't earn it until the 2nd or 3rd week and you don't want to give it up until they are really doing a good job of following the rules.

I add to the scoreboard system throughout the day. When I see a lull or dip in participation or enthusiasm I ping pong them on the board. Remember: that is your motivator so anytime you want to keep them motivated is the time to do the scoreboard. But it is much more effective if you are using it throughout the day rather than just during certain parts of the day. It is the hardest part to get down (using the board consistently throughout the day) and at first it will feel like a menace or interruption. But honestly if you stick to it---please believe me when I say this----it will become like second nature and will actually become woven throughout the day as the sweetest thread of continuous engagement and participation holding together your quilt of management. Corny way to put it but I swear it is true!
Keep it up!
You are doing awesome!!!!!

You rock!!!!! Thank you so much for all your willingness to share and help all of us out. My principal was saying one of the biggest reason that teachers continue teaching is the collaboration and the team work. It is so true!

I totally agree! We need each other and fresh ideas!!!

Here is another great question, emailed today:

Hi Andrea!
I was wondering if you had the picture icons for the rules. I tried to download some of them on the site, but they didn't have the same icons that coincided with your kinder rules. BTW, how is your new kinder class coming along? Again, I'm having trouble understanding the stars/smileys/saddies scoreboard, so was wondering if you could explain it to me. I'm also saying "hand & eyes" so many times now (kids get awfully talkative in the afternoons) that I don't think they respond too positively to it anymore. I don't know if you agree, but another k teacher told me they should play centers in the afternoons since it's so long of a day for them now. What is your expertise advice on all of this?

here is what I responded:


I am sorry, since I am using the regular WBT rules now, I no longer have those pictures, but I read somewhere on the forum where another K teacher made them and uploaded them. So check that out.

On the scoreboard game, you reward/punish for positive/negative behavior, and to get them going. SO if you aren't getting the desired result, give a saddy, do a mini-rehearsal practice and ping-pong them back and forth (for example: "I see we are not all sitting hand and eyes, mighty groan (saddy point). Let's try that again! "Hands and Eyes!" Oh that was not quite fast enough (saddy point) let's try again "Hands and Eyes" Much better! (smiley point)!
Ping ponging them back and forth gets them engaged. Also, a more detailed explanation of the scoreboard game is available online on the Ebook.

AS for the afternoon....I don't do play centers, but I do do learning centers. Centers are a great way to reinforce learning and break them up with hands on activities. However, they ARE more restless and can get out of control if you spend too long on them. I don't spend longer than 10 minutes on these types of centers. They can be sorting, magnet letters, picture sorts, etc. I save longer centers like listening center and independent work for when I am doing my longer groups and differentiating instruction. I also don't rotate the kids through the centers one after another. They only go through two rotations (I have four rotations so that means they will get through the full round of four centers in two days) but instead of having them rotate, we do the clean up routine, come back to the listening rug, and then I check their cleaning and award smiley/frowny points for cleanliness, pushed in chairs, etc) AND then I do a whole group activity. I usually will do a Phonemic Awareness activity because they are relatively short but they are also fun and engaging. After that, I will have students go out to the next center, repeat with clean-up activity, and then follow up with another favorite quick whole-group activity---our High Frequency word practice using the beloved Biffytoons (See the website for more details on Biffytoons:)
Hope this helps:)

Hi there! Another great question, but hey....I invite others to give input cuz I really don't have all the answers and I love to hear other strategies myself!

Hi Andrea,

I'm using the scoreboard and I think it's working, but it kind of gets tiring after awhile for me and the kids because I have a couple that just like to wiggle around and talk constantly and they don't seem to care that I'm taking away class points or individual stickers from them. They appear to have a negative stance or view on following the rules or caring whether or not I write their names down or let their parents know. What would you do about them?

It's also very difficult for the kids in the afternoons after recess and lunch and they are so tired of school, all they want to do is go home. I feel exhausted myself everyday and stay until 6 or 7pm after school. I don't know how some teachers can just leave right after and be so good at what they do. Maybe I just assume they're good at it, since I'm not really sure what they do in their classrooms. What about you? How do you make planning and prepping so efficient?


Here was my response:
HI!
Are you full day? If you are full day and by yourself, I HIGHLY suggest parent help. Send out a note and see if there are parents willing to work in the class or at home. Then give those parents clear instructions and send that prep...and if you have a good parent: even that grading (how hard is kinder grading anyway:) they can handle it)... HOME with them!!!
As far as the planning is concerned, I have a PE day where I do grade level planning> SO that helps me. But whatever you do: DON'T STAY SO LATE! Kinder is too exhausting. The ones who are leaving early are probably not doing half the work you are doing. SO ask yourself: what is the most important. Maybe only choose one "big" project per week. Cut down on worksheets by having students do more hands-on activities--which is better for this age anyway. Fill the afternoon with learning based hands-on centers and activities. And as for those few wigglers immune to punishment---it's time to move to the practice card system (see the Ebook and forum discussions). The scoreboard will get most of your class. Once you have most of them going, you move to the practice card system. A few times of losing out on the whole class reward usually gets most of the reluctant ones and the others are relieved to not have to include the stinkers in the bunch. Use the practice card system for a few weeks and if that doesn't work, move on to the independents group (see Ebook)!
Hang in there! K is exhausting so that is normal--keep in touch:)
Andrea