Index Cards

On the agenda for today are index cards.

There are so many uses for these inexpensive teacher materials. You can get 500 index cards for two dollars and have so many activities planned with those two well spent dollars.

I use index cards for a variety of things. This year I am going to try a few new ideas with index cards as well, and prepping for these ideas is on my to do list for today.

I do not like the traditional style of teaching math. Having students copy notes and do practice problems is not my idea of a good time. Even though I learned that way in school, I do not force any of my students to ever have a day where they sit in their seats silently the whole time and stare at me doing problems on the board. We use games, cooperative learning, art, music, literature and lots of activities that require students to MOVE!

But the transition between these activities can sometimes be tricky. For instance, if I start off with a game that requires students to be on the floor and rolling dice and fifteen minutes later want them to instantaneously switch gears and be able to write a reflective piece on generalizations they learned about probability, this will not work. Yes, I can get their attention easily after each activity (I use an attention getter called the "Gimme 5" to call the class to order), but how do I get them to switch from using one side of their brain to the other in such a short amount of time.

The answer: Energizers and motivators. I have a few of my own and some that I have learned from other teachers. For example, you can have students trace a figure 8 with the index finger of their left hand forwards and backward and then do the same thing with their right hand. Back and forth and back and forth for about 30 seconds, and then hopefully their brain is in a transition mode.

Physical movements stimulate the brain so much better than a teacher saying, "Ok, let's switch gears." That just doesn't work.

So this year, I am using index cards to catalog my different energizers and motivators. I will write one on each index card and keep them on a single metal ring. Each time I need a transition activity, I simply grab the ring, randomly flip to an activity, do it with the class, and write down the date I used it on the card so I won't use it again in the near future.

So simple, so easy, it adds such variety to every fifteen minutes of class, and it's so cheap too!

I'm also going to keep another ring full of index cards with short brain teasers and riddles that we can use to "Take 1", i.e. Take a 1 min break - just to breathe before we jump back into the curriculum.

One other ring that I want to keep this year is a ring full of closure ideas. I am not good at closures - the final summary activity of the day that takes 3-5 minutes. I always have one, but I tend to repeat the same ones over and over, because I stink at coming up with new ones. So, I'm going to research, find some more, and put those on another ring to rotate and add variety to my classroom.

While transitions, breaks, and closures may be the little details of a classroom, sometimes they can make or break how well your lesson goes that day. My goal today: get the little stuff out of the way and on index cards, so the rest of my time can be spent planning new teaching activities. Then I won't waste 15 minutes of each evening trying to come up with a good closure for the next day. It's all right there - on my index cards.

If you know of any good transitions, closures, riddles, or brain teasers that I could use, I would love to hear about them!