9 Comments

  1. I always love your blogs and look forward to them all the time!!! I am using your point system and my students absolutely LOVE it! In fact, they are already bargaining for more points if they are able to do various brain bursts at the same time! And, they do this in the TL!! Just yesterday, a student said PERFECTLY in TL “The class gets up, claps their hands, spins around, claps their hands twice, and sits down together for forty points”!!! That’s after only seven classes! It’s fantastic!!!

    Now, after reading this blog, I think I should have started slower in order to bring in more novelty later in the year! My five classes are already competing against each other!! My reward for the class with the most points is donuts-which they absolutely love! In the past few years, my classes always competed but instead of points, I timed which class could stay in the TL the longest. Fortunately, the novelty never seemed to wear off. But, now you have got me thinking…I will have to change it up to keep it novel.

  2. Thank you! Yes, I always try to keep things new and different. This year is the first that I am experimenting with your mini brain bursts as well as your deskless seating. I feel that I may have overdone the brain bursts in the beginning. The kids loved them and so did I…I still do! But, I was doing like 4-5 at a time and they were having so much fun with it. But now I feel like it’s a little too much. The kids aren’t complaining, but I feel that the novelty wore off! I am going to add new brain bursts to keep it fresh but I think I am going to use them as you do…just one at a time every five minutes or so.

    So, deskless seating… I do like it a lot but I only find myself changing their seats about once a period. The kids are out of their seats a lot anyway so I don’t feel like it’s always needed. However, the problem I am finding is that almost no matter what I make the criteria (line up according to favorite type of pizza, high five someone that has the same favorite class, shoe color, hair length, etc.) they end up sitting in almost the same seats all the time!!!! I don’t say anything and it’s not a problem but I would rather them be in different seats. Anyway, I will be starting the dominos soon, so that should help. I am wondering, though, how often do you have them change seats according to different criteria? I have class for 84 minutes…should I do it more than once class, twice? Do you think it’s ok if I do the same criteria throughout the year? I have a list of about 40 different things to refer to but I am going to run out soon!

    Thank you!!!

    1. I actually only have two classes that I switch seats with often this year. Even then I only do it once or MAYBE twice per class. This year all of my classes are VERY easily managed and I don’t really have many chatty kids. They want to be in Spanish and stay in the TL which is a dream. Don’t feel like you HAVE to change their seats unless they are acting up for you! 🙂

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