Your students know to come into your classroom and take their seats. They know to get out their materials, too. But they've come in from the halls, and so they're talking - some more loudly than others - and you need to get them focused. Again. This is a daily ritual.
Bell ringers, Do Nows, Warm-ups, Morning Work, Brain Activators, they go by a lot of different names. No matter what you call them, they can be game changers for settling your classroom in. If you have several different groups of students you see every day, you know what transitions feel like.
Especially after lunch. Right?!
Let's look at the pros
- Calm the chaos
- Activate students' brains
- Quickly assess levels of understanding
- Take 5 - 10 minutes
- Guide classroom discussions
- Use as a review or a foundation
- Establish a daily, calming routine
- Allows you to take attendance, answer questions, and take care of student needs
What are the cons?
- Take 5 - 10 minutes
Honestly, that's about it. But if the trade-off is a calmer class, ready to engage in learning, then the time is totally worth it. Even if you only have 45-50 minutes for class.
Let's take a look at what I have to help with ELA! Right now, it's one marking period of a variety of Bell Ringers that's perfect for students in 5th - 7th grades. All of the activities are based on Language, Reading, and Writing standards for those grades.
Here's what you get each week:
Day 1:
A passage from a grade-appropriate book
Day 2:
Informational Reading passage
Text structure
Day 3:
Writing prompt - narrative and argumentative
Day 4:
Grammar
Genre with a passage from a book
Day 5:
Figurative language
Word puzzles and games
Not sure if they'd work for your students?
CLICK HERE TO GET TWO FREE WEEKS OF BELL RINGERS!
Like what you see? Here are 9 weeks of Bell Ringer activities for the beginning of the year, and a second set for late Fall and Winter. (Two more sets will be created after that so that there'll be a year's worth.)
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