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Home : 2008 : Sep : 8
Make them your pets! Tell them you know they need a break. Give them a little candy (not every day, but often) - like a mint or a sucker. DumDums are cheap. Tell them that the taste and smell helps to wake up part of their brains -it's brain food. Make them promise not to tell the other classes. (They love that, and of course they do tell.) Change seats every week. I had my desks in rows, and the last row moved to the front and everyone else moved back a row. They always reminded me it was time to change. Also a brain and body break for 1 or 2 minutes - you can find suggestions by Googling. Have them stretch and even talk. Use as much multimedia as possible. I bought very short videos myself to introduce/review certain parts of the curriculum. (Don't know what you teach, but BrainPop could be worth the money.) I also tried to have a partner activity when I could, sometimes every week, sometimes only once a month. Always on the three-strike rule. (I draw a rectangle on the board, divide it into 3 squares. If the class is too loud or off-task, I say nothing, just draw an X in a square. If we get to 3 strikes, the activity is over, no matter what it is. No warnings, no threats, I didn't speak at all.) Crossword puzzles that I created as a review for tests were great partner activities. I also had cloze activities using the text. We graded these in class after we finished so there was a deadline and a purpose - not to mention accountability and a chance for an A grade. Doesn't solve all the problems, but gives them a little something to look forward to b/c your class will be a little different. You might want to look into Power Teaching and try it with them as an experiment.
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