Whole Brain Teaching in the first few days!

I have been lucky enough to attend the Whole Brain Teaching National Conference for three years. I LOVE using Whole Brain Teaching in my classroom. One of the first things I teach my firsties is how to talk with a partner. It is so important to me that they know how to properly communicate with one another. They need to be able to speak and listen.

This does not just come innately. Students will need to be taught how to do this. This is very simple.

The teacher says, (clap, clap) Teach! The students responds, (clap, clap) Okay!

 As the student says okay they turn and face their carpet partner. My carpet is purposely setup to allow for carpet partners. I have two rows of purple and two rows of blue. My students are taught which row turns and which row stays put. As the students say okay, my friends who are on the blue rows turn super fast and face their friends on the purple row.

 And then we practice that about a million times. Hah! I like them to do it fast. After all, my favorite rule is Rule #1, Follow Directions Quickly! Once they know how to turn quickly I call each student who is sitting on ( I say a random color, doesn't matter which) purple to come and get a microphone.

Well, they naturally get super pumped! Who doesn't want a shiny microphone! I bought these off of Amazon.



I tell my students if you do not have a microphone your job is to listen. We usually practice with something super easy like rhyming words. Here is an example:

Friends, I want you to teach your partner about rhyming words. When I say teach I want you to list all the words you can think of that rhyme with cat, okay?  *clap, clap* Teach!

My students respond with *clap, clap* Okay!  And they turn to face their partner. If they are holding the microphone they then begin rhyming. I walk around and monitor during this time.

Now, once they have listed a few words I teach them how to switch. This is so fun and easy!

I say SWITCH!  Students respond, UH OH SWITCH and then hand the microphone to a partner and that person then begins listing rhyming words.

It looks something like this.

I'll be sharing more of my Whole Brain Classroom, and maybe even a video!!  Thanks for stopping by. :)

Britney Gillich