Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites - Chapter 6

I am behind again on these chapter studies! No excuse except that I'm on Spring Break and sleeping and reading (non school related books!) take precedence right now!!! For this chapter I am linking up with One Extra Degree to talk about Humour. Hmmm....

I'm not really sure how funny I am but I do like to have fun with the kids and we can get pretty silly sometimes! It helps that I have a teaching partner next door who is off the Richter scale for being silly and out there. She helps to bring out the silly in me!

Here's my thinking on this one...

I do love me a funny story! (And yes, Mum, I know my English was incorrect there!) There is just something about a really funny story that brings a group together. My new favourite is this one:

I picked it out when I was shopping with the teacher next door. She bought it and I can't wait to read it to my class. I heard and saw her reading it to her kids right before the break and, I kid you not, I thought the kids were going to pee themselves they were laughing so hard!!!!

Probably the place I inject humour and silliness the most is when using my own life as the topic for writing. I model writing for the kids by writing about little snippets of my life. Whether it is about my poor dear husband lying on the bed and right into a pile of doggie throw up (amazing how the grosser it is, the funnier the kids think it is!) to my dog doing hand stands every time he pees. My hubby and dog are the main sources of entertainment in my stories. Though I do sometimes put in things about my own childhood that the kids find pretty weird or silly. I find that sharing parts of myself makes a huge difference in the relationships I build with the students. 

I must admit that when I first started teaching I didn't really do this. I think it is something that comes with experience and practice. As a beginning teacher, I wanted to keep them on task and behaving as much as possible. Getting them all amped up and silly by telling a story would have made me worried about getting them back on task afterwards. Now, I am confident enough in my teaching and routines to be able to loosen up and show the kids that learning can be silly and fun as well as serious.

One of the best things about our new school is it has wide open spaces. These spaces just scream out for cartwheels! Last year, all three of the teachers in my community had a cartwheel competition in front of all 76 students. I am happy to say that I can still rock a cartwheel! I was doing them in my classroom (yes, you heard me right!) just before the break. And then, of course, the kids wanted to show me their cartwheels so we had a little impromptu cartwheel time during Choosing. So much fun!

One thing I dearly, dearly want to start using in my classroom is Go Noodle. 

I signed up ages ago but just haven't made using it a habit in our classroom. Luckily, I am currently reading Gretchen Rubin's new book Better Than Before and it is all about habits!!!! Maybe I'll be able to make Go Noodle a habit after I finish reading about how to make habits stick! Click on my quirky character up above to go to Go Noodle. It is filled with tons and tons of Brain Breaks! I will be using it this coming term. I want to set up some sort of timer to go off every 20 minutes or so for a Brain Break time. I think the class will love it!

I also like the suggestion in the chapter about using the "class clown." Kind of a "don't fight them, join them" philosophy. I have a couple of kids who can be disruptive at times. Maybe if I give them the task of bringing a joke to school and giving their silliness a focus it will help. Can't hurt to try, huh?

And, that is pretty much it for me on this chapter. I'm off to read some more non-school related books and, maybe, take a nap, too!

Cheers!

Olwyn