APPLE TOSS
Discussion among eighth-graders can often be difficult, so middle school teacher Felice J.
Pesci of Brentwood, N.Y., keeps a foam apple in her classroom to help. The apple gets
tossed or passed from student to student to indicate a turn in participating in
discussion. Getting the children involved becomes fun, and even the quiet ones join in,
she says.
QUICK HANDOUT
Ben Feeney of Hathorne, Mass., gets his sophomore world history class under way quickly by
distributing classroom readings and handouts at the door as students enter. He usually
makes a quip related to the handout (e.g., "Mary, read this. I'm taking the class to
London today"). When he personalizes the handout procedure, students are more likely
to sit at their desks right away and look over the materials. "My class gets started
quickly and time once used going up and down aisles, counting and shuffling papers, is
eliminated."
PENCIL CHANT
Whenever Cindy Ramthun of Union Grove, Wis., passes out a worksheet for her second-graders
to complete, she chants the following phrase: "Name at the top and pencils in the
air!" This gets students focused on putting their names on their papers, and with
their pencils up, they don't begin work ahead of time before they hear directions. Her
class now says the chant along with her, and "I have yet to get a paper without a
name," Ramthun says.
