Book Study: 122 Amazing Games! Chapter 2

This chapter is a more in-depth review of "The Big Seven" of WBT.
1. Class-Yes! (Attention Getter)
2. Mirror Words (Engager)
3. Scoreboard (Motivator)
4. 5 +1 Rules (Unifier)
5. Teach-Okay (Activator)
6. Switch! (Involver)
7. Hands and Eyes (Focuser)

If you are new to WBT, or just still feel overwhelmed, these are the seven steps to master before you proceed to any other components!  You can read my original blog post about The Big Seven here. And, you can see how all these components integrate into a single lesson here.

The Big Take-Away for me from this chapter is that the "classroom management plan" we use in Whole Brain Teaching cannot be separated from the instruction we teach.  Coach says it best on page 9, "...thinking well is behaving well."  When we keep our students focused, motivated, involved, engaged, and active, there is NO ROOM for misbehaviors.  We have their WHOLE BRAINS developing reading or writing or math skills, and that, my friends, is a WONDERFUL place to be!

Another Big Take-Away for me was the description of the types of gestures used during Mirror Words.
     * Casual gestures - make lessons visual; match the story/instruction; can vary from teacher to teacher.
     * Memory gestures - linked to core concepts; should be the same for every WBT teacher in a school; (can find these in conjunction with Power Pix).

There have been some ahhhh-mazing updates and additions to the Scoreboard. Check out my original post here!

Five Rules; Plus on brand new, oh so shiny, new in the box... DIAMOND RULE!  The Diamond Rule is "Keep your eyes on the target."
     >Reading a book?  Page is the target.
     >Listening to teacher?   Teacher is the target.
     >A classmate is speaking?  Classmate is the target.

When it comes to teaching the 5 rules, Coach B has included some extra special 2-step lesson plans for teaching all 5 rules AND the diamond rule.  Rolling 10-finger WOOO, Coach!

Using the Switch! helps our most talkative kids to listen, and our most quiet kids to talk.  It forces each of those "learning styles" to embrace the opposite - thus, involving the WHOLE brain!

Use Hands and Eyes only SOMETIMES to make a very important point or call students to "laser" attention.

Next week we will be talking about the 10 most popular WBT games, and I will *hopefully* have some lesson plans to share with you that involve some-most of the games.

That's all for tonight, and remember that by adding these little sparks of funtricity into your classroom instruction, management will work itself in and you will be visiting Teacher Heaven on a permanent teach-cation.  Oh, sweet mama!!!!