The Scoreboard and a MLK Jr. Day Activity!

Hello all and happy {almost} Wednesday! I haven't had the smoothest day so this is going to be short and quick so Aly and I can go to bed!

I wanted to write a little more about The Scoreboard I use in my class. This is a Whole Brain Teaching Strategy!

This is one of my scoreboards. I have two that I use in my classroom. This is a portable one that I use during carpet time. I used painter's tape to make the partitions. You can use any colored tape and I had it handy! The smiley and the frowney are written in dry erase marker.

This is my second scoreboard that is on my whiteboard. I use this mostly during "desk time". It's all written in dry erase marker so I have to be careful when I erase!

The scoreboard changed my room completely!! :) The kids love earning smileys. The class can earn smileys by doing what's expected and they earn frownies by not doing what's expected. Pretty simple! Here comes the fun part:

Smileys: (tally on the smile side) When the students earn a smiley they can have a one hour second party by shouting out "OH YEAH!

Frownies: (tally on the sad sideWhen they earn a frownie, they all have to do a mighty groan {the sound and shrug}. You can see an example in my last video.

Rewards: At first, you can just have the kids win. After a while you can give them a small reward like going to lunch 2 minutes early, 2 extra minutes of recess, or 2 extra minutes of center time. I usually play a song as a reward {Justin Bieber, Harry Kindergarten, Tony Chestnut, Cha Cha Slide, YMCA). You can even make the reward something that you are already going to do. For example, while we were studying bats their reward was watching a short video on bats {that was already on the lesson plan}!! Double WIN!

3 +/- Rule: You need to keep the score fairly close. You never want to win by 4 or more or lose by 4 or more!! The win has to feel attainable and if you have 30 more tallies on the frownie side than the smiley side, your students might give up! :(

{I think} that's all I have to say about the scoreboard! If you have any questions... comment below! I will be super happy to try answer them! :)

MLK Jr. Day Activity!

First, we read A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. By David A. Adler.

It has really nice illustrations and my ELLs understood most of the language!!

Then, we made a bubble map describing MLK Jr. and his beliefs! (Sorry, no picture!)

After, we did the cute MLK Jr. drawing that I got from Mrs. Miner's blog. Click {HERE} to check out her post and freebie!

I did the drawing step by step on my document camera and the students did the drawings at their desks! They came out soooo lovely!!! :) Here are a couple of pictures!

Oops! I forgot to take a picture of the finished portraits :/ I will take a picture of them tomorrow! 
Have a fabulous evening, friends!! :)