A Little Bit of That

In Front of the Class

by Linda Starr, Education World®

Call the COPS!

Use the acronym COPS as a reminder to students to carefully check their work.

C --- Check Capitalization.
O --- Read it Over to be sure it makes sense.
P --- Check Punctuation.
S --- Finally, check Spelling.

Quickie Hall Pass

Instead of issuing paper hall passes, you might create a class hall pass from a small square of a dry-erase board. Paint the words

[YOUR NAME GOES HERE]
HALL PASS

on the board. Then, all you need to do is use a marker to write the student?s destination and sign your name to the hall pass.

Active Answers

Actively involve students in the questions you ask. Provide each student with a small envelope containing eight index cards. Four of the eight cards should be labeled with these words, one word per card: TRUE, FALSE, YES, and NO. The other four cards should be labeled with these letters, one letter per card: A, B, C, and D. Ask questions that require students to answer TRUE, FALSE, YES, or NO. Ask other questions that require students to answer multiple-choice questions with one of the letters A, B, C, and D. As you ask questions, have students hold up the appropriate card without looking around to see how other students are responding. You can see at a glance which students get the correct answer, and you?ll know if you need to spend some time re-teaching the concept. As the year goes on, you might add more cards to the envelopes. For example, you might read aloud word math problems and ask students to hold up an ADD or SUBTRACT card to indicate the operation they would use to solve the problem. Or you might read statements and ask students to hold up the card that tells whether the statement is FACT or OPINION. This envelope of cards can be adapted to teach and reinforce many skills.

Quiet in the Class

Chairs scraping against the floor create a lot of classroom noise. Ask parents (or the PE teachers) if they would contribute old tennis balls to the cause. Use a knife to cut into each ball two slits in a plus-sign + formation. Slip a ball over the bottom of each leg of the chairs. Now when chairs scrape against the floor, they won?t make any noise.

Copyright © 2008, EducationWorld.com, used by permission