• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

September 24, 2019 Instruction & Curriculum

Five Ways to Brighten the School Day

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Educator Barnes

Educator Barnes is a middle school dean and adjunct college professor. Previously, she served as an elementary library/media specialist, an elementary and high school literacy coach, a middle and high school English/Language Arts teacher, and a K-5 English as a New Language teacher. Shawnta is an education writer and editor for Indy K12, a publication under the Citizen Education network. She is also the winner of the 2019 Indiana Black Expo Excellence in Education Journalism Award.
  • Five Ways to Brighten the School Day - September 24, 2019
  • Opinion: Don’t Blindly Follow Edu-Celebrities - September 4, 2019
  • Veteran Teachers Need Choice & Customized Professional Development - August 3, 2019
  • Five Gems of Knowledge I Learned at the Annual Teacher Self-Care Conference - June 27, 2019
  • Copyright Violations in the Classroom: When Beg, Borrow, and Steal Turns into a Crime - May 29, 2019
  • Silent Compliance, not Honesty is Wanted in Education - March 7, 2019
  • Why School Father & Daughter Dances are Antiquated - February 10, 2019
  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Should Not Be an Inclement Weather Makeup Day - January 14, 2019
  • Teacher Attendance Does Matter, but I Still Unapologetically Take Days Off at My School - December 21, 2018
  • It’s the Most Stressful Time of the Year- A Teacher's Edition - December 19, 2018

School is hard. The demands are higher than the demands teachers had on them when they were students. The school day can become overly rigorous and robotic, draining the fun for students, but educators are resilient. Despite letting high stakes testing and other demands completely dampen their classes, many educators have fun ways to add a little sunshine to their day. Below, are suggestions from educators across America that you can try in your classroom or at your school.

The Late Late Late Lunch Show

Valerie Carlisle - Indiana

My school has five lunches, and I supervise the last lunch. During lunch, I walk around with the other monitors collect jokes from students on post-it notes. During the last five minutes of lunch, I read the jokes while trash is being collected. The kids love it.

SNAPS

Allyson Robinson - Georgia

I recently tried a riddle game with my students. They were really engaged, and I was shocked. The riddle game is called SNAPS. You say, “Snaps is the name of the game; the name of the game is Snaps.”  The first consonant of the next few phrases helps to spell the word and the snaps determine the vowels. So if I wanted them to guess cat, I would say “‘C’ome on; let’s get it.” Then Snap once for the letter ‘A’. Then I would say “‘T’ogether we can get it.” Vowels are: 1 Snap = A, 2 Snaps = E, 3 Snaps = I, 4 Snaps = O, and 5 Snaps = U.

Cryptoquotes

Dan McConnell - New York

My third-grade students are becoming code-writers and code-breakers. I start by giving them a chart that allows them to assign a different letter of the alphabet to the letters they want to include in a message. Then, they write their message in code to a friend who came up with the same code. Next, I show them how to work out a message when you don't have the key by looking for common double vowel combinations or double consonant combinations looking for easy to solve short words. Then, by the end of the year, they will be doing the cryptoquotes out of the newspaper.

Tongue Twisters and More

Riina Hirsch - Missouri

My students always loved writing their own tongue twisters and then having me or their peers try to say them three times fast. Also, you can paper ball all kinds of assignments: review questions, book recommendations, sentence starters, etc...and kids love throwing paper.

The Art of Conversation

Shawnta S. Barnes - Indiana

The Art of Conversation is a game you can purchase on Amazon. Each card has three questions on it. You can give each student a card to let them share one answer with a neighbor, or you could pick one question a day for everyone to answer during homeroom class or during morning meeting. I have even used this activity as an ice-breaker during School Dayprofessional development.

 

What would you add to this list?

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Save the Turtles: A Lesson in Teacher Excitement! It’s time to talk about the culture of fear around standardized testing The Danger of Honors Classes in Our Schools Teaching Money Concepts To Young Students
« Are We Setting Unrealistic Behavioral Expectations?
Teachers Modeling Friendship »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • "Let's Make This Happen": Following Student Interests to Interest-Based Mentorships
  • Want to Keep Special Education Teachers? Try Mentorship
  • An Idaho teen who won his school board election has a message for educators
  • Moving Beyond Diversity to Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging: Lessons from a Sunday Sermon

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.