If you go to Bryce's website and look under Free Stuff, you will see handouts to further explain some of these ideas. Bryce starts off the year with La Persona Especial (his version of circling with balls). He gives the kids the words and structures they need to talk about themselves on the wall. Kids answer questions like "What's your name? What grade are you in? (I can't wait to use the French versions of these to get kids to start to understand the culture!) Where do you live? Where do you come from?" You start off with the first few kids just focusing on maybe 5 things and you QUIZ the other kids about what they know about each other. A quiz could be something as simple as "Tell me 5 things you know about Tammy." Our first quiz should be on the 2nd or 3rd day of class (more about this on the classroom management sessions)
Bryce said that he does his circling with balls this way and guides it to easy, high frequency vocabulary by starting with someone who is obviously an athlete or musician (look for a student wearing a jersey or with an instrument case...) That way, you know that your first special student won't want to talk about something with complex vocabulary (you can do low frequency vocabulary a little later, when the kids have more vocab to fall on).
Bryce also pointed out that we have to use numbers every day in class for those numbers to be acquired. A great way to do this is to ask athletes what their numbers are. Other ideas for follow up questions instead of just saying "Great! You play football! Who else plays football?" Ask about his/her number, position, favorite team, when is the next game, how long has s/he played, how many hours of practice per day, etc. Then, you can take that information and make it a big stinking deal by saying to the class: Class, John has a football game tonight at 6, so we're all going to look for number 18 and cheer him on. CLASSROOM CULTURE!
For the past few years, I have been doing circling with balls, but I was inventing crazy details to go along with the stories. For example, if John played football, we said that he played better than Joe Montana and that Ariana Grande saw him playing and fell in love with him. I think next year, I'll focus more on truths and save the inventiveness for our made-up stories.
Once Bryce has gotten through every kid, there's a unit test. Each student has to write 3 things about every kid in the class, and they can't write names or grades. In this way, we are validating EVERY student in our class and showing everyone their worth.
Bryce then shared some body language tips to show caring without a word. Things like a quick eyebrow raise, making sure that your eyes smile when you do, NEVER pointing with one finger... He recommends watching quick youtube videos on body language for the first few weeks of school to start your day.
He then shared a story of how a kid from his school told her dental hygienist (Bryce's daughter) that he was her favorite teacher, and he never even had her in class! I have had this same experience and I will say that even with my old way of doing circling with balls, I created a culture of acceptance in my classroom. My students were discussing something during a transition period at the end of the school year, and they were all discussing that my class is the only class where they know every other student's name. Wow. I can't imagine what it would be like to spend 50 minutes a day/5 days a week in a classroom with strangers. No wonder these kids are so messed up!!
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