I have no idea what happened in the month of January. It came; it went; we haven’t had a snow day, but we’re still alive.
My eighth graders have been in some sort of sweet groove, and I’m loving it.
They just produced some high quality writing using The Write Structure method, and I couldn’t be more proud. Due to new curriculum our district adopted, my colleagues and I changed up our argumentative essay writing method. The essay structure remained the same, but we introduced some freedom in choosing an argumentative topic. This was exciting and invigorating for the kids. Many of my students petitioned for this topic: (adding more) movement in school. We (yes, me included!) learned so much about the how movement throughout the school day influences a child’s experience at school. This was the best case scenario — my kids wrote what they cared about and helped change my thinking in the meantime. My biggest takeaway? — they want to move more, and research supports it… so, let’s do it!
I’ve always done little things to keep my kids moving, such as, Standing Conversations. This was more of a random method — certainly not something I intentionally included on a regular basis. Here’s an idea that thats similar but more structured: Musical Chairs (keep reading because this is not the kind of musical chairs you might be thinking of). Here’s the play-by-play of how it works in my room:
Students complete an entry task (on mini-whiteboards or sticky notes) — this task is often a through-provoking question related to the topic of the day’s lesson, some sort of review from the day before, or practice with a task we’ve recently learned.
I play a song. When they music’s going, my students shimmy around the room.
As soon as the music stops, they sit down at a new seat.
Here’s were crystal-clear directions are important: students either read the entry which they might later nominate for whole-class sharing, or they fix the errors on the entry, or they write a smily-face, star, or “good-job” if' it’s well done.
Music plays again; they move again. Sit down and repeat directions from above.
Music plays a third time, and back to the their seats they go.
I’ve been taking a few moments to let them check any corrections that were made, nominate a great entry for whole-class sharing, or doing a verbal review of what they should have written down.
I always feared that too much movement would cause chaos and loads of wasted time. But, I’m finding the more I include sharing methods like Musical Chairs, the less time it takes my students to refocus.
I’m glad they asked; I’m happy I listened. It turns out that when they’re moving, we’re all happy.