Bell Ringer Exercises
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Because of pressure to teach bell-to-bell鈥攖he pedagogical equivalent of force-feeding geese to make foie gras鈥攎any classrooms now start with bell work, short exercises that students complete while the instructor attends to attendance and other administrative chores. Journal prompts and concept questions can focus students on nutritious academic content and initiate a positive tempo for the next 90 minutes of class.
With the help of graduate student David Fictum, I鈥檝e collected several creative, practical, and entertaining exercises that can function as bell ringers or sponge activities.
Journaling
Education blogger Vicki Davis writes 20 things she is thankful for in a , citing indicating that this practice produces greater long-term happiness than winning the lottery鈥攕erious happy. Some of my students volunteered to write joy journals before each class this semester. After five minutes, I ask if anyone in the class wishes to share good news. Each announcement earns a 3-2-1 clap.
Lateral Thinking
lists number and logic puzzles. Even better are its .
Situation: A man marries 20 women in his village but isn鈥檛 charged with polygamy. How come?
Answer: He鈥檚 a priest鈥攈e鈥檚 marrying them to other people, not to himself.
Pop Culture
鈥淭ropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members鈥� minds and expectations,鈥� according to , a wiki that houses hundreds of these figurative concepts. In the tempting fate trope, for example, the hero says, 鈥淎t least it鈥檚 not raining.鈥� An instant later, she鈥檚 drenched. Have students identify horror movie or police procedural tropes, then reveal the answers from TVTropes to see how many they selected.
Challenge students to deduce whether a story is true, a scam, or an urban legend聽using scenarios featured in , and . Despite , Bruce Lee never played ping pong with nunchaku鈥攂ut he could have.
Grammar
Like its cousin, , Education World鈥檚 features a new error-filled text for students to diagnose and rewrite every day of the school year. An answer key is included. is the primary grade version: 鈥淭he skills emphasized in the series are those found on all standardized tests in grades 2 and 3: simple word usage, end-of-sentence punctuation, comma placement in a series, basic spelling, and others.鈥�
Reading and Writing
For an entire school year, ninth graders in Sarah Gross鈥檚 and Jonathan Olsen鈥檚 humanities classes at High Technology High School in New Jersey started each day by reading The New York Times and composing current event essays. Watch the students in talk about how much they learned from the experience.
On the hilarious Tumblr blog, prompt 570 challenges students to write 鈥渁 story about a massive cat colony and the one human who knows about its existence.鈥� In contrast, categorizes more orthodox writing topics (鈥渢he hardest thing I鈥檝e ever done鈥�) by grade level.
Geography and History
厂迟耻诲别苍迟贬补苍诲辞耻迟蝉.辞谤驳鈥檚 for grades 6鈥�12 align with the Common Core State Standards. Citing the Common Core鈥檚 emphasis on cultural literacy, the site also offers short quizzes for every day of the school year. History questions abound. (Classical civilization hangman, anyone?)
WorldAtlas.com contains of every country, province, state, and territory in the world.
Clever Bell Ringer Procedures
The Pennsylvania State Education Association describes a novel way for students to sign in to class. 鈥淲rite each child鈥檚 name on a strip of tag board, laminate it, and glue a magnet to the back. Each day, post a question and possible answers on a whiteboard. Students can 鈥榮ign in鈥� by placing their magnets in the appropriate answer column.鈥�
Patty Kohler鈥檚 requires minimal teacher effort. 鈥淚 have students get out a sheet of paper and write a list of numbers from one to 10. Then I instruct them to put one important idea from the previous lecture on the first line. The paper is passed to the person on the left. Each time the paper is passed, the person receiving the paper writes a different idea. After a few minutes I call time, and the papers go back to the original owner. This represents a collection of ideas for future review and study.鈥�
Finishing Touches
Play Chopin to signal that your classroom demands different behaviors than the hallway. Always locate bell work instructions in the same place. Save the ones that students appreciate the most, the ones that they鈥檒l be glad to remember.