How to use sticky notes for teaching!

Picture Credit: Magoosh

I first got attracted to sticky notes when I saw them in a stationery shop. They were wrapped neatly. I was pulled to them due to the colours. I like neon colours.

I bought my stack not knowing what use to put it to. Being in a leadership position, there was a constant need of sending notes to people as reminders for the work to be done.

The staff members liked my colourful approach. Often I would also draw and make the note more interesting and attractive.

(Actually the colours brought out the creative side of me.)

“Sticky notes are like colourful reminders-you love to do the work which comes through them.”

(I tried to look for quotes related to sticky notes and could not find any so I made a few of my own.)

Yes, they are a waste of paper but the colour combinations are good to lure the brain into positive thinking. Colours after all have a positive impact on the way people work.

I cross correct bundles of notebooks on some days. Then on errors and for appreciations I use colourful tags. Though the colourful tags have negative as well as positive comments, the teachers look forward to only the positive comments.

As one of my staff members stated that she rummaged through the tags to look for the positive comments first. And then later on she turned towards the errors which were pointed out.  In this way the gnawing feeling was less and the euphoria over appreciation was more.

These colourful chits when placed carefully indicate good organisation skills.

I had a colleague who later on became an inseparable friend. She used to meticulously tag her workstation with notes and chits. The pile of books to be distributed would be kept under different tags, the notebooks to be received would be tagged according to priority, the submissions to the principal would be tagged differently, etc.

This made her workstation look neat and pretty. It also looked organised and smartly arranged. In other words it was much better than anyone else.

(She actually overpowered us with her organisational skills!)

Sticky notes can be used to organise your workplace and they are wonderful as a teaching aid. I will discuss both the ways which will make your workplace more colourful and teaching more interesting.

Stick ons to organise a teacher’s workload-

Prioritise your to do list-

It is well said that there should be only three priorities in your life and your day. Write the three priorities on three different colour stick ons. The bright colour will be pointing out to you the entire day and urging you to complete the tasks which you had set for yourself for the day.

Over thinking kills us. To avoid it and to push yourself into doing the most important things first, these colourful reminders help a lot. Putting them up every day states that you are focused towards achieving or completing whatever was very important.

Helps to eat the frog-

This splash of colour helps you to eat your frogs for breakfast or whenever that you are desired to eat.

The difficult or the worst tasks when written on these colour strips with a smiley or a cartoon cuts down the starkness of the task. The task seems less dreaded because the mind returns to the task again and again. This is due to the reminder which the colours throw at you.

It is suggested that you must eat the frog for breakfast. I highly recommend you eat them using these colourful strips of paper. You won’t have to force the frog down your throat because the colour would mellow down its taste.

Motivation:  

The fuel of self motivation helps us in living our life and crossing boundaries to achieve success after success. Motivation is generally thought to be external but the ones who are fast moving ahead are found to be working on self motivation. There are only a few people who derive their motivation from someone else. The best of the lot works upon their own thoughts and self learning material to gain motivation in day to day life.

The coloured strips are beneficial in self motivation. Quotes and points which are mentioned on these and pinned up on the board give a constant reminder to the brain.

Your goals can be written on these and displayed on a board in the bedroom or on a board at your workstation. Reading these while coming and going keeps you in track of your progress.

Inspiration for others:

Yes, it is true. These slips pinned on boards or stuck on doors and walls are also an inspiration for others. They get to know how to organise the workplace and your professional life.

The quotes or steps to work out the problem help others also.

Making people part of the journey lessens the load.

The way you use these notes for organising, similarly you can these for teaching in the classroom.

Reading:

Great help! Sticky notes are really helpful in reading. There are many different ways to use them.

ü Ask the students to write difficult words on the slips which they can later put up on the class board.

ü Antonyms and synonyms can be written while reading is going on.

ü The teacher can put up simple questions. So the students can answer them on the sticky notes and put up on the board or run up to the teacher for a reward.

ü The students can be asked to write the extra questions based on the text and post the notes in the book.

ü Vocabulary words can be written and the notes to be put up on the word wall.

ü The names of the books that the students have read can be written on them.

ü Their favourite authors can also be written.

ü A story map or a story web can also be made.

Classroom Management:

Picture Credit: Organised classroom

 

ü Use them as rewards for students by drawing stars or smileys.

ü Classroom instructions like collection of notebooks, keeping the classroom clean, etc. can be written and displayed.

ü Student qualities can be put up.

ü A kudos for the classroom can be written.

ü Classroom goals or rules can be written and displayed.

Math:

ü Long and short division can be done easily.

ü Multiplication facts can be written.

ü Bar Graphs can be made.

ü Fractions can be taught using sticky notes.

Environmental Sciences:

Image courtesy: Teach Starter

 

ü Difference between two topics can be well illustrated.

ü Places or facts can be marked on the map using these sticky notes.

ü Exit and Entry tickets for a lesson can be planned.

Sticky notes are wonderful teaching aids. There is no end to its use.

Use Innovative ideas and implement them in your teaching.

The author develops and publishes content related to Education and students.

You can follow/like and share my blog: www.wonderfulteachertips.blogspot.com

Disclaimer

21 of My Teaching Experiments

Picture Credit: Primary Practice

 

I hated teaching as a career. I did my Bachelors of Education because I thought it was some kind of a professional degree which will help me in some way in my life.

I entered teaching when my mother pushed me into it.

From the day I entered, I have been experimenting and trying out new things in teaching. I thought that I experimented because I am an innovator. Now I realize I experimented because I wanted to keep the challenge alive in my professional life. It was because I had not entered the profession due to a choice. It was definitely not my passion. It was a compromise.

When I joined school, salary offered was good and I had very little work to do after I reached home. So it was a win-win situation.

That was the reason to say good bye to nine-to-five!

But my drive and passion were missing. So to make my work interesting I innovated and experimented.  I agree, I failed also but it did not stop me from trying out something or the other.

I used to adopt different teaching methodologies for different types of learners in the classroom. My mind used to question me constantly if anyone did not understand anything in my class.

Once I put up some difficult questions to the students of my class.  Some of them answered the questions correctly. I was surprised. I questioned the children who had taught them those concepts and they promptly took the name of the teacher who used to teach them the previous year. They said that she had taught them last year.

My blood boiled out of curiosity. I went to interview that teacher and asked her how she taught her students.  Then I observed her class for two to three days until she was fed up of me. I checked her notes. I went through her notebooks. In short I did everything to understand how she had become a successful teacher.

These crazy habits of mine have brought me up the ladder in all these years. I am proud of my habits.

They have taught me more than anyone ever did. So after spending many years in education I finally decided to note down all the experiments which I have done in the past few years in teaching and came up with the desired results!

Lesson plans used to torture me mentally. Why?

Because when I planned I had different ideas and when I was in the class, I again had different ideas. And I wanted to implement everything but of course my wisdom was wiser and I chose only one to act upon.

So here are a few of my wonderful ideas which I implemented in the classroom over the years-

v Taking the children under the tree to teach them.

v Recording advertisements from the television and asking the children to identify the brands.

v Finding the dictionary meaning of the brand of cars and identifying their mechanics.

v Writing poems on every child of my class.

v Writing a letter to the students and asking them to come at a particular place for a class.

v Creating a class magazine.

v Circle Time-Different topics of discussion.

v Parachute Games

v Role plays to teach them to express

v Taking colourful charts to class and make them write/draw/paint on them

v Writing certain qualities on chits and hiding them and asking the children to find them.

v Asking the students to write about their mistakes and then making them identify the emotions.

v Discussing the longest word in the class.

v Arranging talks of people.

v Making them learn and recite long narrative poems.

v Developing word walls to enhance their vocabulary.

v Making them write and rewrite certain sentence structures to help them write correct English.

v Interacting with students of other countries over Skype.

v Asking the children to write stories and then compiling it into a small book.

v Narrating half a story and asking them to complete it on their own.

v Recording a video of the students narrating a poem and then playing it in their classroom to help them develop confidence.

These are a few innovations/experiments which I did in the classroom to make my teaching interesting and to help the students learn. There are many more things which can be done on a daily basis.

But compiling this list gave me more pleasure than implementing it in the classroom. This small tricks were fun on the classroom and it kept me on the toes wanting to do more and more every time.

These are some of my creative instincts which I spilled out for you.

Let your Child make these 6 mistakes

Picture Credit: Mothering

Since a child is born we protect him to the hilt. He is cocooned and given warmth physically.

Well it is important for his development and growth. And remember this cocooning is also providing for his mental and spiritual growth.

This sheltering and cocooning sometimes leads to nagging and a hovering parent attitude. It causes more harm to the child than advantage.

Children learn by making mistakes. If life is all about learning then why do we shy from letting them fail.

“Remember that life’s greatest lessons are usually learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes.”

Failure is important. The child must taste failure before he tastes success. Failure teaches resilience. We are aware that success is not permanent. Everyone who is at the top does come down in the circle of life.

“Forget the mistake, remember the lesson.”

This is something which the parent should remember. The child should forget the mistake but remember the lessons that remain for a long time.

Parents do not want the children to make mistakes because when a child fails it is seen as the failure of the parent. The parent can only protect the child until he is ten or eleven years old. After that the child has to fend for himself.

Teenage years are really tough to handle for a parent as well as the teenager. Along with the physical issues, the mental and developmental issues get mixed up. In this stage, less of protection and more of support is desired to be offered by the parent. The teenager is learning to be independent but he feels that already he has developed the capacity to make good decisions which will give him the success rather than the failure as predicted by the parent.

Support and positive motivation have to be at the top in this stage. 

Temper and egos have to be controlled. A parent cannot have ego at this time for the teenager is already not willing to accept anyone else’s decisions for his life. Some of the best life’s lessons are learned during these years.

These years are also important because the child tends to remember everything that happens with him during these years. Childhood memories might not be remembered as vividly but the memories of the teenage years stay with them closely throughout their lives.

“A teenager is always too tired to hold a dishcloth, but never too tired to hold a phone.”

This quote somehow describes the attitude of these young mortals.

The parent must learn to wean away the over protective attitude before the child steps into the teenage.

The falls, the scratches on the knees, the peeled skin and the grazes everything merely helps the child to walk better and learn well.

So here are a few mistakes which you should let your child make-

-Exhaust the complete pocket money:

To develop a complete sense of financial independence and learning, it is important to let the child make mistakes while handling money. Generally when pocket money is allotted to the children, they tend to spend away most of it in the first few days. In spite of telling them to save a certain percentage from their pocket money, they like to squander it as soon as it is received.

Delayed gratification can also be taught with the help of pocket money. Once the money is spent the parent will have to constraint himself in giving away more money.

Hold yourself. You will be tempted to hand out more cash, but this is the right time to teach the child how to manage the given amount for a complete month and also end up with savings to buy something later with the saved amount.

-Not eat the vegetables in the school lunch:

Food is a real challenge for all the parents. With the online ordering and availability of food, the children seem to run away from good and fresh food cooked at home.

Eating the food in the school is a major problem. They do not tend to eat the vegetables which are sent. Once or twice let them come back with unfinished food in the lunch box.

Do not scold them for it. Otherwise they will start hiding the lunch box and the facts from you. It is better not to serve them food as soon as they return home if they have not finished the lunch in school.

One of my friends used to make her children eat from the lunch box which was given for school. So if her children refused to eat their lunch in school, they had to eat the same after returning home. Soon they started eating the lunch box given to them.

As a special treat you can offer them a day’s food at the school cafeteria.

-Stay up late at night before the exam:

Most children are in the habit of staying up late. So even before the examination they refuse to sleep early. Mobile gaming and other things keep them awake. They are unable to resist the temptation. This definitely puts you off as a parent. For once let them avoid studying and indulge in these useless activities.

Groggy eyes, unclear vision and hazy head will push the child towards non performance in the test. One failure is nothing in life. But let him realise on his own how he had to pay due to his own negligence.

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

-Forget the project file at home:

The above one is just an example. This refers to the habit of not taking care of their things and not planning or packing things in advance say a night before. This last minute pushing things in their bags really creates chaos and at times they forget to pack the important things.

Procrastination also pushes them towards not taking action at the desired time.

As a parent you want them to keep things in their places and pack their bags early so that all the important items are carried by them.

Call it laziness or call it procrastination they do not attend to these chores early.

Instead of reminding them do let them forget a nonessential thing or two. Soon they will learn to do things in advance.

-Go to school with incomplete homework:

This one really brings them on track ASAP.

Try it out. Instead of being after them every day leave them. Let them go to school without attempting homework.

The result in school automatically helps them change their tracks.

-Let the room be a mess:

A messy and cluttered room is a sore sight and difficult to digest for all mothers. But it will also not let them find the necessary things that they want.

Yes it also puts children in a bad mood and it is really bad for them.

Sooner or later they have to learn to do the things on their own.

Trust me they do realise that it has to be cleaned. But your daily reminders or asking frequently will not help the situation.

Leave them to learn this lesson.

Final Call-

Adults learn by mistakes so definitely the children also learn with them. The difference is that we reflect and learn, the children do not have the patience and the maturity to reflect.

But if you give them time they will surely pick up the important life lessons with these mistakes.

Follow me for more content: #KesarWritez

Do subscribe @kesarpatel1234