routines

Make Morning Meetings More Meaningful

June 28, 2016By astutehoot

The Morning Meeting should be the most meaningful 10 minutes of your day. Morning Meetings are at their best when they are the perfect blend of social, emotional, and academic activities. It is a time to reflect on yesterday’s success, set goals and focus for the day, and build classroom community all while practicing vital ELA skills. Despite the many benefits, the Morning Meeting is often the first item cut when teachers are crunched for time. Here are some tips to implement a meaningful Morning Meeting all year long:

Gather students in a large circle in your central meeting area. This is a skill that must be taught and practiced many times before students are expected to do it independently. Here are my students at Morning Meeting making a Friendship Web.

Check out our Back to School Toolbox: Routines, Transitions, and Procedures unit for strategies to teach students how to gather at a meeting place.
Select a student facilitator. Selecting a student facilitator in the Morning Meeting engages the students in the process and builds ownership. This duty improves each student’s public speaking skills and confidence by allowing him/her to take charge of the group. It also promotes a sense of pride and accomplishment. A rotation for the student facilitator ensures that all the students get the opportunity to lead the group.The teacher must model these procedures several times (at least 2 weeks) before selecting a student facilitator. The teacher then serves as a coach, scaffolding support using sentence stems and cues until students are adept facilitators.
Include behavioral and learning reflection. Use specific sentence stems to help students determine Glows (success) and Grows (areas of improvement).
Use a learning scale to help students rate and assess their progress towards a specific behavior or learning goal. Students can use a scale such as this and point to the corresponding box that represents their rating or use a finger cue to show their rating.
Greet each other. Teach students a variety of greetings or songs to promote classroom community. We love using Dr. Jean’s songs and chants for this purpose; they are ideal for K-3 students.
Unpack and start your day. After students have set goals and a purpose for the day, they are ready to unpack and start their learning.Have a great Morning Meeting routine? We’d love to hear from you! Looking for additional strategies and tips to teach vital Back to School routines and procedures? Download our Back to School Toolbox: Routines, Procedures, and Transitions unit for tried-and-true suggestions from veteran teachers.

Walk the Line: 5 Tips to Teach Lining Up Procedures

September 26, 2014By astutehoot

Do you have difficulty getting your class to line up quickly and quietly? Does your line seem to go on forever? Like most teachers, I have experienced the frustrations of lining up and walking in line. Follow these five easy steps to put an end to the talkers, the stragglers and the wanders once and for all.

1. Establish line procedures: Explain and model expectations. Students will face forward with arms at side and closed, quiet mouths. As students walk in line, they stay close to person in front of them and use gentle, walking feet.

Establish line procedures_web

Scaffold the steps by using these sentences:
“When I say one, please stand up and push in your chairs.”
“When I say two, please turn and face the door.”
“When I say three, please follow your line leader to the place to lineup.”
When students are very familiar with these steps, simply call the number or use a nonverbal cue by holding your fingers. You should expect this process to take two-three weeks and constant reinforcement.

2. Use tape to model line formation: To design effective transitions in your classroom, start by mapping the route. There is one right way to line up, one path each student follows on the way to the reading area, door and other areas. Teach students to follow the same path every time. First model this path and then students practice it under your watchful eye, several times per day. You can even tape each path using a different color of masking tape so students know the exact route to get to designated area. Once students have mastered these routes, remove masking tape so it doesn’t leave a permanent mark on the carpet.

use tape to model line _web

3. Label stopping points: Map the route to important places around the campus. Take the same routes to specials, cafeteria, playground and bathrooms, labeling stopping points along the way. Stopping points allow the students in back to keep up with the line (no more stragglers) and help wanders remember the designated routes to specific destinations. I tape small owl decals to the sidewalk at class stopping points; these serve as a good visual cue to remember these important points. Remove decals after stopping becomes automatic.

Label stopping points_web

4. Provide visual cues: Create a visual cue to remind students to stay (or get) quiet in line. We are Weinberg Wranglers at my school and students all use a ‘Wrangler W’ to signal quiet time. Visual cues don’t add any additional noise and give students feedback.

provide visual cues_web

5. Reward and reinforce: Add some fun to the line by setting a daily goal. For example, set a stopwatch and time students as they line up in ABC order. Encourage students to beat the previous time. Be sure to provide modeling, praise and constructive feedback as needed.

I also use the Mystery Walker poem and select one Mystery Walker for each line. This student gets a ticket to Treasure Box drawing at the end of the week. You can also give students Mystery Walker paper bracelets or a hat as a reward. If all students are doing a great job, give them a Quiet Line Loop. Attach loops together to make a class chain. Determine how long the chain needs to before the class earns a reward. If the class earns a compliment in line, add an additional loop to the chain.

Download our Back to School Toolbox: Routines, Procedures & Transitions unit for additional tips and activities for teaching effective transitions and routines.

Jessica_blog_signature-SMALL

Jennifer’s Summer Story

July 9, 2014July 10, 2014By astutehoot

Wow! This summer is flying by so fast. My boys attend a school with a modified year-round school schedule so that means that their first day of school is right around the corner on July 21st! Although I worked managing Teacher Development Coaches at a summer Pre-Service Training for new teachers throughout the entire month on of June, I still had a chance to squeeze in some summer fun with my family.

We had an incredible time visiting the Grand Canyon for the very first time. The boys were amazed at its grandeur…and I was freaked out each time they got close to the edge! We went on an exciting jeep tour and learned a lot about the history of the Grand Canyon.

Before we left, the boys picked out some cool souvenirs; a bow and arrow for Jake and a dream catcher and pocket knife for Alec. We also bought an awesome book called Whose Tail on the Trail at the Grand Canyon? . The author, Midji Stephenson, signed a copy for us too! We had so much fun reading the book when we got home as we had to guess which tail was on the trail as we turned each page. The book has beautiful illustrations and fun rhymes. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has visited the Grand Canyon.

Whose Tail on the Trail at Grand Canyon?

Now that we are back from vacation and gearing up for school, I realized that I needed to start getting the boys back on a routine and provide some structure into their days because they have been acting like wild animals Alec and Jake helped me put together the following visual schedule for our remaining two weeks of summer break. We have it posted on the fridge and I see them referring to it throughout the day. I wish I put this in place earlier in the summer! Children crave structure and routines. Using a visual schedule and daily routines are great ways to support this for all children.

A great resource for putting strong routines, procedures, and transitions in place for the beginning of the school year can be found here.

Back to School Teacher Toolbox: Routines, Procedures and Transitions

Top 3 Tips to Break the Ice and Build Community

August 12, 2013August 29, 2013By astutehoot

You know the horrible feeling when you walk into a room and you don’t recognize a single soul? Even worse, everyone else already knows each other, happily mingling together. Most adults shudder at the thought, yet as teachers, we fail to consider how these situations make our students feel. Many students come to school on the first day without knowing anyone, much less bathroom and cafeteria locations. We fill the first days with procedures, rules, and other endless explanations without taking any time to help students feel comfortable and safe, two basic conditions required for learning.

Here are my top 3 icebreaker activities:

Student Scavenger Hunt: Make a Bingo board and write an interesting fact in each (Went to Disneyland this summer). Students will hunt for a classmate who matches the fact and record his/her name in the box. This activity gets students moving and talking, both of which they are hesitant to do the first few days. It also allows time to practice important transitions and procedures such as freezing at teacher’s signal, cleaning up and active listening.
Friendship Web: Students and teacher sit in a large circle. The teacher starts with a ball of yarn, says his/her name and throws the ball to a friend. When the friend catches the yarn, he/she states his/her name and a fun fact about him/herself. Explain that we are building a class web where we are always here to help and support each other. We are all connected in learning. Take a picture and post.
Friendship Salad: Purchase 3 cans of fruit, bag of marshmallows, 1 large container of yogurt and an old, very rotten banana. Read a friendship book (Horace, Morris But Mostly Delores is a great choice) and stop right after friends get in a fight. Discuss possible strategies to solve the disagreement. Then make the Friendship Salad. Show the bowl and tell students this represents the classroom; it is empty and needs many things such as good friends, happy days and lots of learning. Pour in one can of fruit—these are kind kids in the room who help others (can elaborate). Pour in the second can of fruit—these are the hard workers in our room—they always give their best effort and complete their work. Pour in the third can—this represents students who share. Dump in the bag of marshmallows—these represent respectful, polite words used with each other. Add the yogurt—this is for smooth, happy days. Stir together and walk around to let the kids see and sniff. Then show, the secret ingredient—the rotten banana! Start to peel and put in and students will start to scream in disgust. Explain that it only takes one person with rotten behavior or a rotten attitude to ruin the whole classroom. Extend the explanation to the story (i.e., Horace and Morris were being rotten friends when they excluded Delores). The moral of the lesson—don’t be a rotten banana!

Like these ideas? Check out our Back to School Ice Breakers and Community Building Activities for 85 pages of engaging plans and exercises.

The Costliest Mistake Teachers Can Make

July 28, 2013August 12, 2013By astutehoot

With the implementation of Common Core standards and performance-based pay, teachers are under more pressure to perform than ever. Every minute must be devoted to instruction, causing teachers to cut any activity not directly aligned to standards.

This intense pressure starts at the beginning of the year, a vital time to set expectations and establish procedures and routines, or tight transitions. The costliest mistake teachers make is to introduce academics too early without laying the foundation for tight transitions. Many think they are saving time or getting a jump-start on the year; but in reality, this is costing them their most valuable resource—time. Sounds contradictory doesn’t it? Time wasted in poor transitions equates to a great loss of instructional time. It’s the difference between finishing a lesson effectively and running out of time without recapping or closing the lesson, a critical component of effective lessons. Furthermore, messy transitions often invite misbehavior and other disruptions that require teacher redirection, a loss of time. Tightening transitions saves up to 10 minutes daily, which equates to hours of instructional time throughout the year.

It took me years to perfect the art of teaching tight transitions. At first, I couldn’t understand how students didn’t know how to line up—it’s such a simple concept. Why couldn’t they quietly put their materials away or quickly meet at the carpet? After a great deal of professional reading and help from fellow teachers, I realized that I need to explicitly model and teach these transitions starting from day one.

I’ve created the Back to School Teacher Toolbox: Routines, Procedures and Transitions to help all teachers with the critical process. This Toolbox contains engaging, colorful resources and activities that explain how to teach, model, practice, and reinforce important systems and routines throughout the year.

Check out our next week’s Back to School blog: The Do’s & Don’ts of Classroom Management.

Top Ten Tools for Back to School!

July 15, 2013August 5, 2013By astutehoot

The new school year means endless meetings, countless hours of preparation and the dreaded Curriculum Night…all resulting in major stress! Let Astute Hoot: Tools for the Wise Teacher alleviate your pressure with our FREE Top 10 Tools for Back to School. As veteran teachers, we understand the tension that Back to School time brings and are here to help. Our FREE unit includes:

Essential Back to School checklist
Golden Keys to Success classroom behavior management plan with parent brochure
Interactive lesson plans
Effective routines, procedures and transitions

Download our FREE back to school unit here.

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