As I began the Whole Brain teaching techniques, I started with the attention getter "class-yes". My students responded immediately with excitement because I would change it up. For example, I would change the pattern to classity-class-class and they respond as yesity-yes-yes. At Christmas, I would sing "sleigh bells ring" and they would respond "are you listening" and their all time favorite is when I say "Red Robin" they respond with "Yum". So they never know what to expect and it just adds fun and variation.

The next step was to introduce the classroom rules. I posted the rules and pictures in the front of the room so all students could see them at any time. Then, I taught all 5 with the hand gestures as they mirrored me and then used the “teach-ok” method to allow the students to teach one another the rules. This requires repetition and consistency. I use the rules all day long. I begin the day having them repeat all 5, again with every class rotation, and before any traveling occurs in the hallway (to lunch, library, etc.). At any given time, I might call out a rule, such as rule 2, and they know that someone isn’t following rule 2 (raise your hand for permission to speak).

This leads into the motivator (scoreboard) which I will talk about in my next post.