Updated Art Word

After having the art word up for since the beginning of the year. I noticed a few things. 

1. Students hitting it to hit it, and hard too. 

2. Students not saying the word.

3. Students not saying THE RIGHT WORD.

4. Teachers not helping/ have no idea. 

5. Short students needing to jump. 

SO..I updated the sign for where the students interact and I started saying the definition before they leave. 

                                                      

         Before and after

As you can see, changes. Stop sign part lowered for my more vertical challenged students. Wording changed. NOW student pet the sign and have to say it out loud. I know having them say it out loud just can have the one behind them repeat but they are still using the word! Again they can skip out if they don't know it. Last change not seen is I put a folded piece of felt behind the sign to soften the blow. 

So for the teachers not helping, I have tried talking to the students about it as they are waiting to leave, so the teachers get the hint to ask them. Two of my 10 classes the do this (kindergarten has not been introduced yet, just getting them use to regular route is first step) actually ask the students what the word is, and step in to look to see it too. 

See how this works out now. 

A few new things.

With the new year comes some new elements of teaching I am going to try. They are small but I hope will help with my students learning.

First one is a simple management issue I have had in the past and it falls along the same lines as my bathroom pass.

How it works is, it is a sort of flag to me that the student is out of the room. Instead of waiting to ask, the student can simple grab the bottle, put it at their spot and go do what the bottle says. Upon returning from doing what they needed. The bottle goes back to its home. Simple but I like it. It helps the students take ownership of the room. The night of the open house one student did notice this out and even said "oh it is like the bathroom pass..neat!"

Second thing is a big bigger. I noticed last year that vocab was something my students didn't recall much. I would ask a few students in line before they left key questions about the day but I didn't feel everyone was engaged. So this came about. 

This is inspired by a similar idea I saw for math problems. Students would have a math problem by the door and upon leaving would slap the stop sign with the answer. Similar idea for the art word, the definition or description of a word would be in the grade section and they would high five the sign upon leaving for the day. 

Lastly, art supplies icons. 

I teach in a visual area, and last year I played with the idea of drawing little icons of what the students needed for the day next to the steps. So to save time, hopefully, I came up with this. It will have the supplies for the day on it, through the help of magnets and the name of the supply on it. 

Also helping with vocabulary. 

Here goes nothing.