Brain Toys!

Props! Action! After watching Coach B's Webinar on Brain toys, I realized it was definitely time to put another toy into play. So far this year, my students have used the Air Whiteboard, the Because Clapper, the Sockless Hand Puppets, and the Example Popper to further their critical thinking skills in a variety of subject areas. They are fun and encourage great student engagement. For the intro to Props, I followed Coach B's suggestion to just hold up a pencil and ask, "What is it?" After modeling and asking for complete sentences for responses, I heard, "This is a stick." "This is a ruler." We had been reading a story about a young girl in New York City whose grandma worked in a NYC subway token booth. Now each student and his partner used their pencil props to create sentences about the story, using Tag Team to allow each partner to finish his sentence before Switching. "This is the subway train track." "This is the subway car." "This is the pole in the subway car to hang onto." Each student's response inspired his partner to raise the bar and get more creative with her response. On Day Two of Props, we extended our sentences with Because Clappers, still focusing on our NYC story about the subway. "This is the subway car because it is long and smooth." Day 3, of course, was Genius Ladder! As a class, we started with a Prop sentence from Day 2 as our topic sentence, and began to create Adders with Spice! I challenged my class to "Go for a Quad!" So glad I've got another Brain Toy in my back pocket! Does the fun ever end...not in WBT!