OMG OMG OMG! Can we say WOW!!!!!

I am so glad the forum is back up and thank you to all the hard work behind the scenes to get it back. I was truly like feeling so alone last week during a rough patch but I am so glad it is back.

Ok...now an update for all my fellow kinder teaches (and others too).

Week two ended with the "scoreboard" going away. The kids loved playing it but they simply would not follow the MIGHTY GROANS! They wanted a party then too so it didn't really seem to be working AT ALL! They didn't get the fact that the SADDIES were BAD! LOL! Perhaps it was because I was calling them frownies....

On Friday of LAST WEEK...I simply told them that they would not get to play the scoreboard game again until they showed me they could follow the rules of the game. So for Monday and Tuesday we spent the day not telling our neighbor, not playing the scoreboard, pretty much NOTHING! We went through our lessons, the had to sit and listen and didn't get to interact AT ALL! Recess was structured so they had to do what I WANTED TO DO...which consisted of lots of walking around the playground. Let's just say they had two days of BORING! So finally on Wednesday just before morning meeting, I had a child ask.."When can we play the scoreboard game? I want to win!"

So I took this opportunity to talk to the class and ask them if they were ready to behave like BIG KINDERGARTNERS and have fun in class again. Because if we continued the way we were it was going to be a long BORING year (it was dreadful for two days I was hoping something would break before me LOL!) The all pleadingly said "YES!" Though I was skeptical....

OMG OMG OMG....

We have our score board back and going strong....I do have two in the independents who continue to cause issues with rule breaking and they are working hard....we started using the "TIMED GAMES" for paper passing and getting our pencils or our mini offices out....you know those things that tend to take way too much time to do. AND THEY LOVE IT! We had actually started that before but EVERYTHING went away on Friday of last week.

The past two days have really shown me that they do enjoy the WBT techniques. They have calmed down...they are following directions much quicker now, and even WON THE SCOREBOARD GAME TODAY! So at the end of school they all got a fruit juice frozen pop homemade by THEIR DEAR TEACHER!

Today I introduced the teach/ok because tell your neighbor was getting to where they were jumping ahead of me before I told them to "TELL THEIR NEIGHBOR" So I thought we would try it....they really caught it quickly. Made it through an entire math lesson on the positions ABOVE/BELOW using the teach/ok.....I introduced teach/ok just like Biffle suggested...."I think you guys are smart enough to learn something I usually only teach the 1st graders!"

I can not tell you how totally grateful I am to have found this site. I know it has made me a better teacher.

I do have one little thing I feel bad about. We are in portable buildings so their are two classrooms in a building. My neighbor teacher can't stand WBT because of the "rowdiness" as she calls it. But she spends all day yelling at her kids and they didn't go to recess for 3 days because they were in trouble for talking. KINDERGARTNERS I KNOW!

Several of my pre-k kids from last year are in that class this year. I have at least one, daily come up and say the wish their child was in my class. They comment on how much fun the kids seem to be having and how happy them seem at the end of the day. One parent even said that she had yet to see a child crying in the morning when coming to school....and there are at least 2-3 every morning in the other class. I feel kinda bad that the kids next door can hear us having so much fun!

So tomorrow is the end of week 3 and we are just having a blast! Thank goodness they figured out how much fun this stuff really was and I didn't have to spend the week doing it the boring way...that was just too hard!


Hope you other teachers out there have had a good start to the year!

Blessings,
Farrah Shipley
www.teacherpage.com/mrsshipley

Yea! WBT site is back up!!! I missed it. Had a panic attack when some other site came up-aagghh, but you're back!!! . This is my second week w/kdg and we love our rules. I love that I find myself correcting behaviors by say "Let's practice rule #..." instead a negative consequence.
I had put the rule charts in a ppt so I could use the icons as jpegs in their daily behavior folder. Then I found it was also great to practice with. I set the timings and continous loop and we practiced. Then for my 2 who just refused to listen during computer lab, they "practice the rules" while standing in front of their computer (w/ppt running) while the rest of the class was in the program working.
We also love lines, chairs, cubbies, and papers routines. When I get ready to transition, we call it a party- Time for a line party, paper party etc. Transitions are fun now.
I'm trying to get better at my scoreboard and teach-ok. I'm still at "tell your neighbor", but we LOVE class-yes and LOTS of gestures. I think gestures really helps Whole Brain Teaching live up to its name. When your whole body is involved and required in the learning, you have engaged the whole brain and learning becomes solid.
THANK-YOU WBT and Chris Rekstad, Wellington, FL conference:cheer:

What a wonderful note ... and what remarkable creativity in usin WBT!!! Enough gushing. Now, back to the task at hand. Please don't use the Independents until later in the semester! IT'S A LONG YEAR!!! Go as far as you can with the Scoreboard ... then go to the Scoreboard plus the Practice Cards ... and then add the Guff Counter ... then the Independents ... when in doubt as to the order of the Levels, or their nature, consult the new "Levels" menu at the top of every page in this website ... and ... keep writing long, wonderfully detailed, inspiring posts!!!!

Ok...I wrote them down backwards....See I was at a loss last week! LOL! Couldnt' get to the levels! LOL! Just read it and going to put them back in the group and maybe introduce the practice cards next week!

Thanks Chris...Just tell me when you are all tired of reading my long winded posts LOL! I am not talking as much in class now so I have to let it out somewhere LOL!

Farrah

Farrah:
I love your idea about taking it all away! Ingenious! I never would have thought of that! It's a crack up to hear what the kiddos thought when school was back to boring, boring, BORING!! This will be a year they remember...in a GOOD way:)

Week...um...5 I think LOL! AND I AM SUCCESSFULLY STILL ON THE SCORE BOARD!!!! But alas...I see the practice cards right around the corner! My three darling boys....who just refuse to stop talking or messing with people....have been seperated as much as possible without jeopardizing the "teach/ok"....and now they have taken to talking to themselves....


So I am sticking with the scoreboard as long as I can...and we will see. I am hoping a few more weeks.....


But everything else is going amazing. The kids are learning so QUICKLY! It is wonderful! Now if I could find a way to apply WBT to sight words...OH WAIT....the reading game....thats right! LOL!


Farrah Shipley

Have you tried Biffy Toons for sight words? They are in the downloadable section.

Fabulous. I am in week 4 now. My students are catching on to the sight words (I have introduced six, with gestures).

Check it out if you haven't.