Question of the Day

This teaching tip starts with something that I bought from really good stuff.

A picture of it, with a link to the item, is featured above.

As you can see from the picture, at its simplest level, kids can answer a question of the day with their name magnet. The kit includes many questions that you can ask such as favorite color, pet, etc.

I use mine in a slightly different way that I think makes it a more valuable classroom tool. I have the kids answer the question first thing upon entering into the room. Then when I take roll, I go over to the question. If a kid's magnet is not on an answer yet, I mark them as absent (of course spot checking the room to make sure that no one forgot).

Later in the day, I include this question as part of our opening. Part of my opening student's job is to read the question of the day, and tell the class which answer was the most popular, and also answer a few more questions about the chart which require graphing skills. For example, I might ask how many more students chose one answer than another, or how many students chose two answers combined etc.

While sometimes I choose a question that is just for fun, most of the time I choose a question based on what we learned about the previous day, or something we will be learning about on that day.

I really like having this question of the day because it is an easy way to take roll, it helps kids practice their graphing skills (which is a 2nd grade standard), and I can use it to do a quick review or pre-assessment of any curriculum that we are learning about during the day.

I encourage you to have a question of the day, in whatever form you choose to use it.

The most important class job- inspectors

Like many other classrooms, I use class jobs. Each student is assigned a job for the week that benefits the classroom in some way.

I have many of the same ones that I know every teacher has- door, lights, line leaders etc. But I have two jobs that might be more unusual, and are easily the most useful jobs I have.

They are both inspector jobs.

The first job is floor and desk inspectors. I assign two students this job for the week. After our clean up time, where every child is responsible for their own floor and desk as well as their assigned job (library, boards, etc.), I give the inspectors a minute to check.

Every piece of trash they find, either under or in a desk, they charge the guilty student a class dollar. Dirty/unorganized desks also can be charged the dollar fee. The inspectors get to keep all of the money they make inspecting.

This works great for many reasons. First, my students are diligent about checking the floor around their desk and keeping their desk neat because they don't want another student to get any of their money. Also, the inspectors do an excellent job checking (much better than I would do, or want to do) because they benefit from finding a problem. In addition, having the two inspectors means that no one is free from having to clean, because the inspectors can check each other's area. I encourage you to try it. It does take some training in what is a big enough piece of trash to charge a dollar for, and how big of an area each student is responsible for, but once the kinks are worked out, it works well enough that I couldn't imagine clean up without it. (the janitors have complemented my clean floors too, they said they almost never need to be vacuumed)

The second inspector job that I have is snack inspectors. One of our health units for the year is nutrition, and so I encourage my students to eat a healthy snack. Just one of the methods I use for this is snack inspectors. I have the class start getting ready a few minutes before recess and they stand at their desks with their snack. Then I have my snack inspectors go check everyone's snack. Healthy snacks- like fruit, string cheese, nuts, etc. can earn a class dollar from inspectors. Medium snacks- chips, cheese its, muffins etc. are allowed to be brought out, but don't earn a dollar. Desserts- cookies, candy, cake are not allowed to be brought out at snack time at all. These students are asked to bring out something else, and to save their dessert for after lunch.

Some benefits of snack inspectors is that every child learns what a healthy snack is, either by being paid for it, or knowing that you, as an inspector, can give a dollar for that snack. Frequently I am asked by my inspectors if ____ is a healthy snack, and I can answer honestly, and explain why it is or isn't. The students learn what snacks to pull out of their lunch bag, and also what snacks to ask their parents to pack, based on what they can be paid for. I, of course, have had some students who don't care about the dollar, and bring out chips everyday. I am not their parent, and so I don't push the issue more than simply rewarding the healthy snacks.

I recommend adding these jobs to your class job list if you haven't yet. You won't regret it.

Scattergories

This classroom game was inspired by the game pictured above, Scattergories.

The board game is played by rolling a letter dice, and having a set amount of time to write an answer for each category on the card, but every answer has to start with whatever letter you rolled. Then you go around the group, and any unique answer that you have you get a point for.

The way I play this is the classroom is a bit different.

First, I primarily use it for phonics, so my explanation of the game is going to come from that. At the end I will also list some additional ideas I have for this game.

Each of my students has a white board in their desk as one of their school supplies for the year. We play this game with these boards. If you don't have access to this, the game could easily be played on paper, with you just checking the papers instead of the boards.

I name a special sound (the way our curriculum refers to unusual sounds such as "sh," "ough," etc.). Let's say for this game I say "sh."

Then each student has to write a word on their board that uses this sound. Then they hold the board to their chest. After some time has passed, and it looks like all my kids are done writing, I have them hold their boards up. Like the original Scattergories, any word that is duplicated in the classroom is eliminated. So, if two students have the word "shoe," they both have to put their boards down. Then I go around and check to make sure that the words are spelled correctly. The original game does not have this rule, but is obviously an important change needed to play this as a class. If a child wrote "shu", they would be eliminated. I do allow suffixes as enough of a difference to stay, where in the board game you wouldn't. For example, "shirt" and "shirts" would both get to stay as long as no one else wrote either of those two words.

Any word that survives both parts of the elimination (unique word, and spelled correctly), and uses the sound correctly is considered a winning word. The writer of that word then receives a class dollar. I usually do a few rounds of this when we have time to play, and it is a real treat for the kids. Later in the year, it gets to the point where kids are frequently asking if we are playing scattergories that day.

Variations of the game:
-I have played it where instead of a sound, I will do a prefix or a suffix, and they have to put it with a word.
-I have played it where I give them a part of speech (like noun, verb, adjective) and they can put any word as long as they can argue that it is that part of speech. This takes a bit longer to decide if they have a "winning" word or not because of words like paper. In "I have a piece of paper," its a noun, but in "I brought a paper bag," its an adjective. As long as the kids can justify their decision, I let it stand.
- With higher levels you could have them write an alternative word to "said" or a synonym for any other too often used word.
- In science, you could have them write an animal that fits within a certain category (like mammal) and then pay for unique ones. I think you could do the same with rocks, but I don't cover that in my year, so I'm not sure.
- In history, you could have them write a name of a person important during the civil war, or revolutionary war, or other unit in history.

There are a lot of possibilities with this game, and it rewards those kids who are able to think outside of the box. I encourage you to try it in your classroom.