Saturday, September 14, 2019

The POWER of Daily Warm-ups (bell ringers)

How is it that I've only really experienced the power of daily warm-ups this year, after almost two decades of teaching? 

I've used warm-ups to start class, off and on during my years of teaching, but this year is when everything has come together, along with my determination to prepare daily warm-ups and my mindset on what types of warm-ups to use for students to receive the most benefit from them. 

When the teacher is consistent in providing daily warm-ups it provides a comfortable and structured start of the class for the students. I greet my students at the door and they in turn greet me with that week's password. When they enter the room, they see the warm-up projected on the board. They collect the things they need from their backpacks, grab a clipboard (I have a deskless classroom), go to their seat, and boom, they're immersed in Spanish from the very start of class.

My suggestions for creating warm-ups are:
-be consistent! 
-keep it short 
-always...go over it with the students
-connect it with previous lessons
-personalize it to students
-make sure students will be able to complete it without struggling 
-don't collect it (that's right - don't do that to yourself!)

Some benefits of daily warm-ups are:

- Immediately immerses students in language that is comprehensible: the emphasis is on "comprehensible language",  which puts students at ease and instills them with confidence because they know they can be successful in completing the activity

- Sets the tone for the class: we're going to utilize every minute of the class period in experiences that are designed specifically with the students' success in the language as top priority

- Connects to the students: use sketches that students created, and conversations/photos from previous days; students understand their contributions are important elements of the class and they are appreciated! 

- Creates a familiar setting/comfortable routine: students know the routine and are immediately put at ease as they follow the routine (benefits both the quiet students and those that are filled with energy that we may wish we had 😂)

- Provides quiet time: students that complete the warm-up know they will have a few moments to relax after they complete the activity as classmates finish up the warm-up

- Reviews material from previous day(s): reinforces the material introduced/ discussed in the past, providing additional input

- Informal Formative assessment: as teacher moves throughout classroom and glances at students' work, it gives quick feedback on students' progress 

- Provides time for teacher tasks: take attendance, catch absent students up to date, etc, 

Below are examples of the warm-ups I've used in the last few days

1. One of the classes created this OWI (One Word Image). I used the warm--up for all three of the Spanish 1 classes the following day.



2. I used SpanishPlans' lesson "El Niño quiere un dragon" (free on TPT). This was the warm-up the following day. It's the first time students had to form the sentence from scrambled words so I did not put any extra words in the sentences that were not needed. 


3. I created this warm-up based on the conversation I had with students the previous day. The lesson is from Martina Bex's Somos curriculum, Level 1, Unit 1 (free on TPT).  

4. New short stories using previous introduced vocabulary. I don't require students write answers in complete sentences at this stage of their acquisition.


5. OWI reading created previous day. I taped the drawing of the OWI on the board next to where this paragraph was projected for students to refer to.


6. Unscramble sentences. Students did a similar warm-up the previous week (see #2 above). The previous day I had a substitute so students listened to the first half of a story I wrote and put on a video, and then read the 2nd half of the story and answered comprehension questions. This warm-up is based on the video & reading from the previous day.


Yes, I create a new warm-up each day, but NO, it doesn't take much time.  


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