When I went to the workshop with Chris he moved so fast I did not have enough time to write down the steps to line up, sit down, and turning to a page in a book. I have been reading all morning through the ebooks and I can't seem to find what he spoke about. I really want to start it on my first day of school in two weeks. Can anyone help?

You start by saying "lines" and your students say "lines, lines, lines" and then they walk toward the door clapping, encouraging each other. When they arrive at the door, they either fold their hands, or hold their hands up in the air to show that they are all in line. Follow a similar procedure with seats. You say "seats" and they say "seats, seats, seats." They then hurry to their seats, clapping their hands and encouraging each other. When they are in their seats, they hold up, or fold, their hands. For opening their books, you say the page number and they repeat it three times (or, for lower grades, keep saying it until they get to the page.) When they get to the correct page, everyone puts up their hands up or folds them to show they are ready to begin work.

I use the same procedure of repeating three times any time I ask my students to take something out of their desks. For example when we are going to use white boards, they say white boards three times and then they have to have their white board on their desk along with their dry erase marker and eraser. I also use it for pencils, crayons, highlighter, clean desks, etc. It is great once the routine is taught the students will use if for everything.

The teach-okay can be used for situations other than content. When I give the students a short list of things to do/have to get ready for activity I do teach/okay with gestures of the actual objects. For example, I might say, "To be ready to learn you need your book opened to page 45, have one sheet of unlined paper, and your set of colored pencils." Students with teach-okay that with gestures. I no longer have the "Mr. K what page?" or "Mr. K what do we need?".