Rocky Math

Today was generally another successful day. I let the kids win their scoreboard today (I rigged it against them yesterday), and they got to play Beat the Teacher for the last ten minutes or so of the day. We had a rocky time during math today though.

I was really tired before and during lunch, and this probably contributed to general grumpiness on my part during math (which is right after lunch). Power Teaching-wise, I think I could have increased the pace of the lesson a little bit to decrease the talking that was bugging me during it, and this would have been easier if I had thought the lesson through more thoroughly before teaching it. I haven't successfully used much Teach-OK during math yet, though it has been extremely successful in language arts and science.

After reflecting some, I think I just needed to use Class-Yes more often too during the lesson, rather than getting frustrated with a kid that was talking to his neighbor. The beautiful thing about Class-Yes is it takes literally a second and you don't need to target it at all, it refocuses everyone. I also find that if I do it and then still hear some talking, I just quickly do it again (maybe with a different voice), and after the second I've got everyone without having to comment at all on the fact that I didn't get everyone the first time.

On a side note, I have a great story. Several other teachers from my site (in fact all of them, though there are only seven) have adopted Power Teaching this week too. I was just chatting with one of them on Facebook who happens to have two of her children at our school, one (Adrian) in my class, and the other (Lindsay) in first grade. She says that as we speak, Lindsay and Adrian are down the hall "playing Power Teaching;" of course, first grade Lindsay is the teacher. Thanks, Lindsay, for training my student when I'm not even around!

Seriously, though, I've heard all kinds of stuff like that from kids around the school. It speaks to the real magic of Power Teaching: kids think it is a game!