CHAMPs and WBT, a Little Wedding!

Classroom management... sends shivers down the spine.  Picture in the Lion King when the hyenas say, "Mufassa".  It's always a challenge to be sure you're meeting the needs of every.little.firstie and getting them to buy into your class and school rules. 
So this summer while blog stalking perusing the blogging world, I came across First Grade Fever.  If you haven't visited Christie, you need to hop.right.over to her fabulous little site.  She had a post on Whole Brain Teaching which quickly reminded me that our curriculum director had sent us the same video Christie had posted on her site.  I was immediately drawn in again to the WBT method.  I quickly hopped over to the Whole Brain Teaching website and began reading up.  I was in love!  I thought/think it would be perfect for our little firsties. 
Well.... we also have a school wide behavior program called CHAMPs.  I have loved CHAMPs and it has worked very well for our little guys, but sometimes... it just doesn't reach all of them.  Here's a little snippet of CHAMPs that we provide to our parents:

The “CHAMP” acronym is specific and narrow in that it explains exactly what to do in each learning situation, so all students can be successful.   At the beginning of new learning activities or lessons, the children will receive an explanation, visual reminders, and modeling of how to be a CHAMP in each situation. 

This means:

• C = Conversation.  (May we have any?  If so, what kind?)
• H = Help.  (How do we get help?)
• A = Activity.  (What is the activity?)
• M = Movement (May we have any?  If so, what kind?)
• P = Participation.  (What does it look like?)

Do you love a wedding????  I do! haha  I just got that myself.  Oh my.... lack of sleep already is getting to the brain.  Back.on.track.  So we are going to do just that!  We are going to marry the WBT and CHAMPs this year since it is the district and building expectation that our students follow this procedure.  Are you as excited as I am?????  :)

As a team we sat down and looked at each letter, it's meaning, and then came up with a gesture just as you would do in WBT.  Christie's has AWESOME Rules and Call Backs as a FREEBIE on her site, ( I LOVE them because I have a secret obsession with polka-dots).  I printed off a copy of "Attention Grabbers" from Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera!  We are also adding a few of our own.  "Curious"(teacher says) "Firsties" (students call back) and "Champ" (teacher says) "Strong" (students call back)
We are so excited about this wedding!  I need to thank all the wonderful bloggers out there for the inspiration!

So, if you're using CHAMPs and want to try to marry it with WBT, feel free to print your FAVOR!  Every wedding needs one!
We'd also LOVE to hear how you use WBT or CHAMPs in your classroom!  :)

CLICK HERE  to grab this FREEBIE!!!

It is a wall set of each letter with picture reminders.

A little explanation of how we will use these rules. 

For 'C' we will say, "Conversation _______ (red, yellow or green)" then make the gesture of a finger to our lips for red, whisper hands for yellow, and talking hands for green. 

For 'H' we will say, "Help, raise hand" and make the gesture of raising our hand.

For 'A' we will say, "Activity, I can ____(state I can)" and make the gesture of a thumb to our self and then a thumb up.

For 'M' we will say, "Movement, sit (or walk)" and our gesture will be the signs for those movements.

Finally, 'P'.  We will say, "Participate and keep your dear teacher happy".  Our gesture will be framing our face somehow.  :)

Click HERE for the Teacher Cheat Sheet

Have a GREAT Tuesday!!! It's our Open House night. :)  I'm so excited to reveal my new classroom look. 

Come back for a visit tomorrow!  I will be posting classroom pics!

Maria