I love Whole Brain Teaching BECAUSE

On Friday I watched a You Tube video of Chris Biffle's podcast on teaching BECAUSE. This is the first full podcast that I have watched, and once again, I AM HOOKED! I had the pleasure of watching this one with my close friend and business partner, Megan, who also happens to teach right next door to me. We collaborate with each other all the time, and sometimes feel like our brains are somehow linked because we think so much alike. I was watching the video on a lull during conference night, she came over to see what I was up to, and BAM! We were intrigued and excited. The next morning we watched the full podcast together, took notes, made plans, crafted a sign, and bought supplies (some cute "because clapper gloves" from the dollar store).

Today, I introduced BECAUSE. And guess what? It was fun! And the students all met the learning goal of understanding that everything after the word BECAUSE is the reason (evidence). They were using beginning reasoning skills and having FUN doing it. I didn't use the PDF video because my computer is hooked up correctly for that and I'm not sure if it would be as effective for my students. So Megan and I both planned to take the basics of the PDF and teach it ourselves. Today was just the introduction and was all oral language. We used our Because Clapper Gloves all day long. "We are going to lunch now BECAUSE we are all hungry. We are going to pack up now BECAUSE it is time to go home". I was so excited to see that three students used the word BECAUSE correctly in their independent writing during Work Station time! I will post a picture of the gloves and sign that we made tomorrow, because they enhanced the lesson greatly.

Megan and I found pictures and wrote EZ Reader stories to go with the next two lessons of BECAUSE. We will model and practice how to use the word BECAUSE to find text based evidence. We bought some Because Clapper Gloves to put in a workstation and made some printables to use as a station. After these two lessons I will decide how and when to teach the Double Because and Clinkers. I will post more soon about how the next two lessons go. I plan on watching the WBT podcast about Evidence very soon too. I love Whole Brain Teaching BECAUSE it is so effective and brings such positive energy to my classroon. As Chris Biffle ended the podcast, so will I end this post..."Power to the Teachers!!"