When I think back to when I was in middle/high school, I remember how each class began with a “Do Now.,” or I believe other schools may call it “bell work.” Everyone would walk into class, sit down, wait for the bell to ring, and then begin class by answering 3 or 4 questions. It happened so regularly that I always thought that this was the “norm.”
When I was completing my first student teaching placement (which happens to be in the school I currently work in!!), I remember sitting down with my cooperating teacher as she explained to me and wrote down the structure of her lessons. As she wrote on a piece of paper, I saw her start with “1 -warm-up…2 -do now…3- review HW…” I remember feeling confused because I thought I had learned all about lesson plans and how lessons begin with a do now. I had spent time observing in several different school districts and every teacher began their lesson with a do now.
Although I was puzzled, I was intrigued to learn about this new type of activity she did to begin her class and I am here to teach you reading my blog! A warm-up activity is a 2-4 minute activity to get your class started. I use a warm-up activity EVERY day with my students to review what we learned the day before. I create activities that are engaging and involve students getting up out of their seats. I choose to do warm-up activities because I find it helpful to review material BEFORE asking students to apply it to the do now/bell work questions.
Examples of warm-up activities:
-Matching vocabulary (Words to pictures/Spanish to english/words to definitions)
-Reviewing verb conjugations (putting conjugations into the verb box/sentence fill in)
-Asking and Answering Questions (I pass around a ball and prompt students with questions for them to answer.)
I create all of my warm-up activities with Smart Notebook to make activities engaging!! In order to utilize the engagement features, you must have access to a Smart Board or Mimio technology.
Do you use warm-up activities or did you try it out? Let me know by leaving a comment below!
I like to use dados. en la pizarra apunto 6 verbos y les doy 2 dados a cada pareja de los chicos. Su tarea es conjugar los verbos. Otra cosa es una hoja de tándems o trinomios.
Ah sí! A mis estudiantes les encanta usar dados también!
I do a problem of the day which I call “probLLAMA del dia” Where students have to fill in the date in Spanish, write the learning target and have a question or task. The tasks may be a brain dump which is where they recall all they remember, translations, short answer questions, conjugate a verb or a 5 sentence paragraph and there are three questions (T/F, Multiple choice and short answer).
This works with my students because they can understand their learning target through the problamma del dia because it is the foundation of the class where lessons foundation is based of this 3-6 minute activity. I also love this because I take attendance, check homework and set the tone of my classroom.