Adding Novelty to Lessons

By about this time in the school year, everything feels so rushed and incredibly busy to get in those last lessons before the BIG TEST.  Even though we all teach our students what we know they need to learn and don't necessarily plan our curriculum around solely the SBAC, we all want our students to do well.  I'm not sure how things have been going at your school sites, but we have had adjusted schedule after adjusted schedule since January and time is going way too fast.  Our last week was  early release for conferences.  Before that, we had slightly shorter classes daily to prepare for conferences, SRI testing, finishing off one unit, starting a new unit, ICA grading and debriefs....so much stuff!!  We have a lot on our shoulders and that sometimes makes it hard to remember to include different strategies within our instruction. Here are a few tips to add some novelty to your lessons, even on these rushed and packed days!

1. Add movement

Class review of our last unit.  They had to
write thoughtful statements starting with each
letter of the alphabet related to our learning.

• Gallery walks have been a quick and easy go-to for our current unit of study. These are easy to set up and if you laminate your gallery posters, then you can have them ready to go for next year! The Gallery Walk we completed last week went very smoothly.  Limit time at each area and use a bell or other attention getting device to indicate when they need to move on. 

• Write on the whiteboard. No I don't mean you. When you invite students to come up and write on the whiteboard then it changes things completely.  For some reason there is a lot more excitement over writing when you involve dry erase markers.  Maybe the pretty colors?  Whatever the reason, I'll take excitement for writing!
• Use a relay race.  My classes are definitely due for this type of movement and this week and, with all the rain predicted, it could be the perfect time to plan for it. Even middle school students are extra wiggly on rainy days!  The relay race can be as simple or complex as you plan for.  I've used small buckets in the past and students have to stack them in the right order according to the structures they are practicing.  I've also used them for matching for a fun review.  Small cones could also work well as markers.  With the right organization, this doesn't require a lot of room and can be done inside your classroom. 

2. Use technology

• Google Apps Using Google Classroom, you can assign documents to specific student groups or the whole class and use a free add on such as Brain Storming Race that will allow editing rights to those students for a limited time then automatically changes access to "view only" when the timer goes off.  This is great to push students to focus on a task together and the fact that they lose access when the timer goes off is a little more incentive to finish within the given time.
• Padlet is free for up to five Padlets and works similarly. There are a few choices of how each Padlet can be set up. A benefit of this over Google Apps is that it's easier to collaborate with people outside of OMSD. We used this program to collaborate with other schools during the Global Read Aloud.



Plickers in action! I have an earlier blog post about these too!

• Flipgrid brings a new level to communication.  It's perfect for these kids and their obsession over social media and selfies! Surprisingly, some are still embarrassed to make a video. For those students, I have a few super hero masks they can choose from to use. Once everyone makes a video, you can have them respond to each other's videos. Sometimes I assign partners and other times I let them choose. 

• Plickers, of course! I know I've praised Plickers before but they are absolutely amazing and my students use them all the time for quick reviews. The students get instant feedback and I have data to inform my instruction.  Everyone wins!

3. Collaborate in a different way

• Inside-Outside circle: I use this while students are seated and give them a sheet with 6-9 questions to ask on it.  They'll rotate partners as many times as needed so that all questions are answered. They love it because they get to talk all period and I love it because they're talking about the learning and think it's fun!
• Jigsaw an article you are reading. This takes some prep but is good to help with student-led learning. Hand out pieces of an article to students. They become the experts on that section and then meet with experts of other sections of the article and discuss the article as a group. Hmm...another one I need to use soon.

4. Change your scenery

• Go outside. We have such amazing weather (most of the time), so why not do your reading for the day outside in the warm sun? Wiltsey has a gorgeous campus and there are tons of places we could use for outdoor learning.
• Change your seating.  I changed my seating in January and by the second week of February, I realized I absolutely hated it. I made a few adjustments to get me through the month (we change seats each month) and then did a complete change on Friday before leaving.  I can't wait to start using my redesigned space on Monday and I know my students will love the change too! I taught elementary school for one year and hadn't realized how much work it is to change seats with students until I did it, like I always had done, on the first Monday of the second month of school.  It took at least 60 minutes.  Maybe this one is a bit more geared towards our middle school teachers!

Whatever it is you do to add a little novelty to your learning environment or lessons, it reignites excitement for learning in our students and for ourselves as well.  March will fly by and then before we know it, we will be saying goodbye to our kids for the summer.  Make these last few months extra exciting and do some of that "sneaky teaching" where the students don't realize how much learning they are doing. 

What are some of the ways you add novelty to your lessons? Comment below!

Keep the magic alive, 

Kandyce Valverde

Follow my class on Twitter! @valverderules