Whole Brain Wednesday: Complete Sentences!

Hey everyone! Sorry for missing Whole Brain Wednesday last week... all of a sudden it was Friday, the week totally got away with me!

Today I'm going to expand on my last WBT Wednesday on Brainies. Check it out here if you haven't yet!

In my Brainy post, I talked about some of the awesome gestures I've already used and plan to use this year. Here's a cool graphic of ALL the brainies.

One of the brianies I said I plan on using is "complete sentence please." I'm going to talk about why that brainy is SO important and why you should use it in your class (along with loads of other WBT stuff too of course!)

The gesture is super simple, just a hand cupped behind the ear... but its importance is HUGE!

Think about it, how many times a day do you ask a student (either aloud or in your brain) to use a complete sentence? I taught my kiddos to use T.A.P. (Turn it around, answer it, prove it) when they are answering a question aloud and in writing, but despite the acronym and the simple gestures Mrs. R. taught me (remember her? Yes I steal borrow a lot from her) to go along with T.A.P. I still constantly have kiddos who start an answer with "because" or give me a one word answer to questions... using my 3-part gesture for T.A.P. was not something I had time to do to get a kiddo to quickly realize they were not speaking in a complete sentence... so... the "complete sentence please!" gesture emerges to save the day!

Think of how important it is for kiddos to learn to speak and write in complete sentences... and this gesture (if used diligently) is going to be the repetition, motion, visual cue to get students from one word answers or "because" sentences starters to complete and meaningful sentences.

Okay, so you might be saying, well great, but students might still give a weak answer in a complete sentence... so really how much will this help? To those of you, I introduce: detail adder. It's exactly what it sounds like... a gesture to encourage students to add a detail!

Then students continue their sentence by adding a detail. The simplest way for them to do this is by using "because."

This might seem a little confusing to someone who has never been in a WBT class or hasn't watched any WBT videos... so let me give you an example...

Teacher: Who is the villain in The Three Little Pigs?
Student: The Wolf.
Teacher:

Student: The Wolf is the villain in The Three Little Pigs.
Teacher:

Student: The Wolf is the villain in The Three Little Pigs

because he blows down the first 2 pigs' houses.

"The wolf" vs. "The wolf is the villain in The Three Little Pigs because he blows down the first 2 pigs' houses."
You'd pick the 2nd one right? Me too!

Now I'm not saying this will happen overnight... your kiddos will DEFINITELY need practice practice practice with these gestures, but, let's be honest, you probably spend just as much time reminding students to use complete sentences (or wishing they would!) so why not try a few of these brainies to help your students speak and write in complete & detailed sentences!

Can you see why Chris Biffle says WBT leads to teacher heaven!?
Have a wonderful Wednesday & tune in next week for another Whole Brain Wednesday.