This is the Year to Hype Up Your Lessons
My students cheered when I passed out protractors this year. CHEERED! Like loudly for the entire school to hear. All 20 of them. And it. was. AMAZING!Β
So, how did I get all 20 of my students to cheer for this little math tool? I hyped it up like nobody’s business. When we started our geometry unit I showed them the protractor and put my giant one on the board. I talked about how we had to learn about angles before we could use one. I told them they were going to be like little architects later in the unit and work with angles- measuring and creating them. I made protractors sound like the coolest thing in the world.Β
The hype worked. Students were excited and motivated to learn all about angles and came into class every day asking when they were going to get their own protractor. When the day finally came they could not control their excitement. After I passed them out and we got to work, students were so motivated to learn how to use them. As a class they truly excelled at geometry, and I think a lot of it had to do with the hype of that little math tool.Β
So how can you hype up your lessons? Here are some ideas:
- Tell students the endgame of a unit and get them excited to work towards that goal.
- Give students clues about the next novel you are going to read (perhaps one a day for a week).Β
- Talk about how much you love the lesson or activity. If you are excited, they will feed off of that.
- Give students examples of careers they can have with the knowledge they are going to learn.
- Talk about the ways they can use the knowledge they are learning in their own lives right now.
I hope this sparks some ideas on how to get your students excited about their learning! Hype up those lessons and have some fun!
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