Teacher’s Brain

Make Learning FUN!

WHY?

I had someone once try to make me feel bad about having fun while teaching in my kindergarten classroom. They even said I should use the word “engaging” instead of fun. 

Never mistake smiles and laughter in the classroom as not learning. It is the way to build rapport and capture interest. It is a tool to open the door to learning! Don’t ever let anyone make you feel guilty about having fun in your classroom! Open that DOOR! 

Always?

Not every lesson is going to be a Disney experience. We want students to value learning even if it’s not always fun. Plus, teachers would be exhausted planning lessons. That is a great reason to used Teachers Pay Teachers to find “FUN” lessons. Rigorous learning entails deep thought and reflecting on those thoughts. You should also run a very tight ship when giving instructions or it will lead to repeat instructions and misunderstandings.

We are competing with technology now in a new way. Today’s technology is a game changer in education! One great way to ensure engagement is to integrate technology into your lessons. I try to make every educational resource have some kind of fun hook or exciting end of the unit review to capture a moment that students will be inspired to learn. Most of them include technology.

I want children to wake up excited to come to school. FUN lessons are a perfect tool to increase student engagement, to retain information, and to build a rapport with your students. We should strive for creating fun memorable moments with students regularly. Research shows that engaging students in the learning process, including technology, movement, comedy and collaboration increases learning.


?? Share your ways you build rapport with your students.

Quote: I dream of a world where children wake up excited to go to school!

Secret Tips to Successful Goal Setting

Hi, everybody!  I promised you last week that I would share with you my secret tips for goal setting, making sure you feel successful at the end of the day, and ways that you actually will follow through with your goals.  Time got away from me last week, but I am here now!

I want to let you know that making goals in today’s world is a MUST! You have got to set goals or you are just going to spin your wheel’s and not get anywhere.  So let me share with you some of my goal setting secrets.

First of all, you have to know what your big mission is whether that be doing something great in your business, losing weight, or wanting more family time.  

What is it that you want?  

This is going to help you decide what your goals are in the morning.  I want you to do these first thing when you wake up. You could do these at night, but I believe that it is important to do this first thing in the morning!  

Write Down Your Goals

So when you wake up, before you grab your phone, I want you to write down three goals.  These are doable or fairly simple goals. I want you to physically write these down. Even though you may believe that you can just say them in your head and memorize them, studies show that when you write something down (like these goals) you are fives times more likely to follow through with your goals.  

My three goals for today:

  1. Do a Facebook video about goals! (DONE!)
  2. Write a Blog. (In the Process!)
  3. Workout for 30 minutes. (DONE!)

Visualize Your Goal

Now this next part is very important! Don’t skip this!  Right after I write that down, I close my eyes for about 30 seconds, and I visualize myself doing each one of my goals.  I will also try to attach some sort of feeling with it. How will I feel after I am done with the workout or how will it feel to do my Facebook Live, and to follow through with something I told everybody I was going to do? I put a feeling with each goal by visualizing it.  

These goals can be little things, but they are all leading up to the big mission or mission statement that you are wanting to work up to completing or accomplishing.  Harvard studies actually show that if you are doing little things that are of some importance to you, and you finish them in a short period of time you will go to sleep feeling successful, accomplished, and satisfied.  

Sometimes life happens. I will make 3 simple goals that I think will get done within one hour, and I do not even get them completed that day!  That’s okay, because I will just add them on to the next day. I put them on my list for tomorrow, no big deal. I still feel successful the next day if I get them done, and I will still feel accomplished.  Chances are if you can not visualize it when you are trying to think about your goals, you are not going to do it. So if you come up with something too big and you can not picture yourself doing it in that 30 second time frame, you will most likely not follow through.  

Final Goal Setting Secrets

Those are all my goal setting secrets that actually have been working for me that I wanted to share with you.  Make sure that you know what your end game is or your end mission. If you don’t know where you are going, how are you going to get there?

Go ahead and start tomorrow!  

Create 3 simple goals that are doable, write them down, visualize it, and FOLLOW THROUGH!  Now go be a great goal setter!