Traffic School Fun

So, a couple of years ago I got a speeding ticket. 

I know, I know. It was the beginning of summer, I had just dropped the kids off at the one, only week of camp where they both were gone all day and I was FREE ... and feeling good and cruising along, jamming out to some great song on the radio ... about 10 miles per hour more “free” with the gas pedal than I should have been.

I tried keep the points off my license so I did online drivers school. 

If you have never done online drivers school, there are a lot of options — including one hosted by a stand up comic. 

I chose the stand up comic. 

Why? Because when learning is more fun, it “sticks” better. 

Nobody goes home on the weekend and does worksheets or reads textbooks.

But we do play games, solve puzzles, and talk with friends. Some of us act or make art or do other creative things. Some of us compete in sports or other competitions. Some of us read interesting books and watch movies or documentaries. 

I know y’all. I know a lot of y’all. 

You are some AMAZING teachers. But you are amazing on your downtime, too! You all lead the scouts, work part time jobs, do stand-up, bartend, teach Sunday school, sing, dance, act, paint, build, climb, paddle, run, mentor, hike, volunteer, camp, cook, travel. (This is why I’m friends with y’all)

We continue to learn even when we aren’t at school. 

As adults, we learn through fun things. 

Kids learn better through fun things, too.

I don’t mean entertainment. There’s a difference. I mean actual learning - that happens to be fun and enjoyable, not miserable. 

 I mean when you are enjoying your learning, you experience a little bit of endorphins. When your brain releases a little bit of endorphins, it learns a little better. 

It sounds overly simplistic, but when you can smile through a learning task, you learn better. When you grumble and frown and argue and groan through it, you don’t learn as much 

(No comment about some PD or meetings being more conducive to learning than others)

It’s why I actually learned more from the online Drivers School hosted by the stand up comedian than the plain, dry, boring one, where someone just clicks through slides and narrates them. He wasn’t hilarious. But he was way better than just the slides! 

I believe that adult learners (that’s YOU, the teachers, in this case), learn better with fun and enjoyment, too.

I’m hoping our DWT next week is full of fun and enjoyment, too. We have some cool things planned.

Your colleagues who are presenting and facilitating sessions have some cool things planned. 

I hope you enjoy your learning at DWT. Relax and enjoy learning something new. And then I hope you can take the spirit of that fun and enjoyment and bring that to your classroom so your STUDENTS can enjoy THEIR learning. 

It’s so easy to forget about the fun and enjoyment part. But it can make a huge difference in making the learning “stick”. 

What makes learning enjoyable for you, as an adult learner? How do you make learning fun and enjoyable for your students? More importantly, how do you NOT FORGET, like I do half the time? 

And how do you make sure even something like traffic school can be fun?

I always love to hear from you! Email me your fun and enjoyment teaching ideas! 

-Tracy

Five Review Games to Play with Cheap Dry Erase Cubes

Y’all know I love me some deals, right?  

Well here is the deal for you!

I have seen these dry-erase cubes at Dollar Tree (no, I’m not afraid to give a shout out to the popular destination of broke teachers everywhere!). I have seen them off and on all year and now that we are in the season of Review Games, I thought it might be a great chance to bust them out.

Note: Amazon has ones that are nicer but pricier. Your choice!

Anyway, let’s talk about what to DO with these cheap little toys!

*Pro Tip: for these to work with minimal hassle, you probably want a thin-line dry erase marker AND you want to ask the dice rollers to touch the colorful parts of the dice (not smudging the dry-erase parts)

Here are Five games I came up with that can use the Dry Erase Cubes.  Can you think of any more?

1. 3 Branches Cubes: Write the three branches on the first cube (twice for each branch) and write categories of things kids will need to know about each branch (like “who?”, “one responsibility of the branch”, “term lengths”, “requirements”, “check another branch” and” how do they get the job?” on the six sides of the dice.

Put your kids in teams and give each team a dry erase board, a dry erase marker, and a paper towel. Have a different kid each time roll the dice and have the teams race to answer what the dice combination says, like “legislative term lengths” or “judicial - how do they get the job?”

2. Document Cube: Write the following questions on the cube: “Who wrote it (1pt)” “when was it written (1pt)”, “Why was it written” (2pts), “what’s the main idea” (3pts), “Causes” (2pts) “effects” (2pts).

Now, put an excerpt of a document on the screen or smart board. Have a kid roll the dice and everyone tries to answer as quickly as possible on their paper. Or, have each team have a dice and each team does something different with the document.

*Pro tip: if you’re going to play this game regularly, you might print up a sticker label and put it on the cube so it doesn’t get smudged and you don’t have to keep rewriting these!

3. Full Year Review: Put the name of each of six units on one cube (like Rome, Greece, India, Egypt, Israel, and Mesopotamia). Put a common topic from each unit on the other cube (like, important person, cultural achievements, geographic boundaries, traded with..., inventions, and underrepresented groups). Then, have the kids roll the dice in a small group and say (or find in their notes?) something that addresses both dice -- like “underrepresented groups in Rome were...  the plebians and slaves”.

4. One Cube:  Use one cube to distinguish between several parts of a single topic, like “political parties (with a different political party on each side), or influencing government (with two sides each that say “media”, “individual”, “interest group”.  Or, you could label the one cube with the parts of the florida and US constitutions (preamble, articles, amendments) and have the kids tell what’s the same or different with the US and Florida constitutions about that particular part.

5. Matching: I’m not a huge fan of matching, but it could get fun with four dice. Put the amendment topic/text on one cube and the number on another. Have them roll one dice to start and then keep rolling the other until they get the match.

I freely admit to having a tough week. I’m not sure that these are my best ideas. Can anyone come up with any more great dry-erase cube games? Please share! We all need new ideas at this point in the year!

BTW -- happy May! This is it -- the last month of school! You (and we) can make it! The end is in sight!

Have a great week!

-Tracy

The Connection Is Made

It’s getting down to the end. We have less than six weeks of school left (!!). The weather is  gorgeous. The kids have Spring Fever. The “senioritis” is trickling down to junioritis, freshmanitis, eighthgradeitis, even sixthgradeitis! It’s intermittently testing season and field trip season and schedules are all funky and out of whack.

How on earth do we keep any continuity or connections between topics and lessons from one day to the next?  

Especially when we don’t see one group of kids until Thursday because of testing/field trip/special events?

As usual, my magic wand is in the shop. And my magic bullets are in the mail.  

But it definitely wouldn’t hurt to be more intentional in having kids make connections.

Here are two ideas that you can work in, regardless of how frequently -- or infrequently -- you see your kids this month.

1. 
   Clifhangers: How do we remember the important points of Game of Thrones or whatever TV show we haven’t seen in a while? The shows usually helps us out by leaving us with a cliffhanger at the end of one episode.

Cliffhangers are great for that last one-minute of class when you don’t  have time to start something else. Just throw out a fairly interesting question from tomorrow’s lesson and remind kids to “stay tuned” to find out.

• What are some of the most important Supreme Court cases of all time?
• What is Lincoln going to do when states start seceding?
• How can the Roman Republic stay a republic when it adds all this new territory?
• How smoothly do you think these former colonies are going to move into independence?
• What different areas are going to outwardly fight against integration -- and which areas are going to fight passively?

It’s ok that they don’t have the answers. They’re NOT SUPPOSED TO! A cliffhanger is there to make them curious about the next lesson. It’s supposed to engage their brains a little after your class is over.

We know it’s not likely that they will ponder that question all night and lose sleep over it. But even if it crosses SOME of their minds once or twice, then their brains are “primed” and ready to connect new content to the old content.

Curiosity is a powerful force for engagement and learning. And it doesn’t require a lot of prep to add in.

2. Previously On: The next way to help kids is to regularly ask  kids what they remembered from yesterday’s lesson (or the previous time’s lesson) -- ask as bellwork or during the lesson intro.

There are several ways to do this.

• You can just flat out ask -- “what did you remember from yesterday’s lesson?”
• You can toss out a couple of terms from yesterday and ask what they have to do with the main topic.
• You can ask a review question about the previous lesson, test-style.
• You can ask kids to turn and talk about what they know or remember about the previous lesson’s topic.

3. Connections: Put a couple of terms from recent lessons on the board. Then ask kids to use a certain amount of them (6? 10?) on their paper -- with ARROWS showing how they are connected.

This helps kids explore the connections between topics which helps build schema and solidifies it all in their heads.

It requires the kids to not only know the content, but know and understand how each goes with another.

How can we help kids make connections within and between content? How can we help them keep some continuity when our schedules get crazy? How can we start the review process a little bit at a time?

Help kids make connections. Try it!

And let me know how it goes! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy