Good Vibes Only!

Today, I tried something new in class.

Every day, the kids are instructed to come in and do a "Do Now." Every teacher at our summer school implements the Do Now, which is a 5 minute short activity that the students are supposed to complete every day coming into the classroom. The Do Now is used for review of a previous lesson or to prepare the students for the lesson that particular day. For example, if the lesson for that day concerned the carbon cycle, the Do Now would read something along the lines of: What do you know about cycles? (More info on Do Now's can be seen here.)

Today, I tried something different. This was for the benefit of both the kids, myself and my co-teachers. I felt that the kids needed a "brain break" -- they had gone through two or three periods straight of work prior to entering my class (science) and over the past four weeks, had been used to direct instruction from their teachers at the beginning of every class. While this is important for structure, it can also be a bit suffocating. I also felt that my teaching tendencies had become too up tight recently, and wanted to find a way for both the kids and myself to unwind and just have a little fun for five minutes before they got into their lesson of the day, which was researching science fair projects.

For all these reasons, the "Do Now" for science today was to simply get up and dance, sing, or laugh at my bad dance moves. For kids that didn't want to dance, they were told to write about what they liked about Higher Achievement (the name of the school) or anything else that made them happy. During this five minute stretch, I played a clean version of "The Show Goes On" by Lupe Fiasco. The idea behind this Do Now was written next to it on the board: GOOD VIBES ONLY! I wanted the kids to get into a good, positive mental state before getting into their work, even if it didn't have to do anything with science. My board, as the kids saw it, is posted below:

It could have went better, especially initially. I tried the Good Vibes Do Now in two classes. In the first, the kids got up and immediately started playing tag, roughing each other up, etc. This was my fault, as I didn't put any real rules for their free time on the board and just told them to have at it. Following this, many were off task and seemed distracted. In the second class, I made revisions, posting comments such as "hands and feet to yourselves," "no running," etc. I think that after this activity, I had the best class of the summer for this particular group of kids. Everyone was smiling after the Do Now, but then got a ton of work done for their science fair projects which are due next week. Some even came up to me and talked about how much fun class was today. Because this was my last class of the day, I came away thinking that today was a good day.

I obviously need to tinker with this approach, but I think there's a solid base here. Sometimes, I think teachers forget what they were like when they were kids, and do not provide time for the kids to be themselves, even if it's only for a couple minutes. There obviously has to be more structure than there was today, and I could have probably incorporated more science into the Do Now, but at the end of the day, kids were smiling and got significant work done (especially in the second class). There's something to be said for that.

By popular request, here's an albino pug. (Hi Beth!)

BD