WBT First Day

It's been a while since I posted about whole brain teaching...

I am getting VERY excited for school to start, mostly because WBT made me LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching even more when I started it in my classroom.

Today I'm going to talk a little bit about how I will introduce it on the first day of school. You can find many other bloggers who have posted about the first day, and even Chris Biffle the founder of WBT has webcasts that discuss the first day (just search on youtube).

When my kiddos come in on the first day, I have them take everything to their seats and do a self explanatory about me page until everyone arrives. We then will discuss closet procedures, etc. After that is when the WBT fun begins...

I hold morning meeting and the first thing we talk about is how I get their attention... I'll say something like, "there are many times during the day where I need to get your attention, I do that using something called "Class, yes!" when I say class, you say yes... let's try it... class" they hopefully respond "yes" then I'll say "however I say class you say class, classity class" and hopefully they say "yessity yes" (this is pretty much exactly how Chris Biffle suggests introducing class yes.

After practicing class yes (I won't introduce hands and eyes until day 2) we talk about our classroom rules. I encourage the kiddos to share out what are some rules they think we should have. I then will introduce each rule...

... and have the kiddos copy the gestures and say the rule aloud. I then will go over the rules one by one, have the kiddos copy me then I tell them all about teach, okay. Most kids have done "turn and talk" or "turn and teach" so I usually will compare it to that. I model teach, okay with a student. I'll say, "if I say, I want you to turn to your partner and tell them rule #1. Then I say teach, you guys will say okay and turn and teach your partner about rule #1" I then do this with a student. We will model incorrect (i.e. turning before I say teach) and correct ways to do teach, ok. I will then quickly tell each kiddo who their partner is for the time being and we will practice teach, okay for each rule. I'll also be practicing class, yes because I will need to get their attention between each rule.

This might seem like A LOT at once, but these kiddos are sponges, and we will practice, practice, practice all of these procedures ALL THE TIME... so it's OKAY if they don't have it down after one class meeting.

I will probably have a long morning meeting the first day. Depending on how shy (or hopefully not so shy) my class is, we might have a rules sort where the kiddos suggested rules from before I introduced WBT rules get sorted into the 5 rule categories. I.e. No talking in the hall would go under Rule #2 raise your hand for permission to speak.

I also plan on talking to my kiddos about how they think different things should run in the room in regards to our rules. For example, if we need to follow directions quickly, does that mean we run back to our seats, does that mean we walk quickly back to our seats, does that mean we get right to work, etc.

Depending on how the day is going I MIGHT introduce to scoreboard... but it really depends on how the day is flowing and how much the kids are soaking up the WBT. My kiddos LOVED it last year and I really hope it is the same this year :)

Overview: Day 1: I will teach rules, class, yes & teach, okay. If everything goes really well, I will introduce the scoreboard.

Alrighty, off to training...

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