Whole Brain Teaching-10 Finger Woo! and It’s Cool!

   If you’ve missed my previous posts on Whole Brain Teaching, you can click {HERE} to catch yourself up.  Just to give you a little background- I discovered it over the summer, watched some YouTube vidjas, attended a (free) conference, and fell deeply in love with WBT.  It’s a classroom management that totally works.  I feel like it is so much more than just management.  It’s a style of teaching.  It is a way of life in my classroom.  We use the rules, Power Pix, and several of the techniques.  I recently taught my students a few more Whole Brain things that I’d like to share with you.
   The first is the 10 Finger Woo!  If some one does a great job,gives an fabulous answer- you know what you consider awesome in your room-you give them a 10 finger woo!  the teacher says, “Class give so and so a 10 finger woo!”  And the class holds out their hands, kind of pushes their fingers toward the awesome kid, and says “WOO!”  In my room, we wiggle our fingers while we do it.  The WBT website says a “rolling 10 Finger Woo” is wiggling your fingers and rolling your hands at the person.  the teacher would say “Give so and so a 10 finger rolling woo!”  We are just doing the regular woo, maybe one day when I have an answer that knocks my socks off, I will teach the rolling woo!  This is easy and the kids love it.  Sometimes I give the entire class a 10 Finger Woo! if they have all done something fabulous.  With all WBT techniques, we practiced and I laid the ground rules.  We practiced 2-3 times and haven’t had any problems.  The children say woo in unison and I stressed that it is a very short woo, we don’t drag out the oooooo.  :) It’s a great confidence builder for those shy students. 
   The other thing I want to tell you about is the “It’s cool.”  When a student gives a wrong answer, the teacher quickly says, “Tell so and so ‘it’s cool’!”  The class simply says, “It’s cool!” and we go about our way.  We practiced this one a few times aw well.  We shrug our shoulders and say “it’s cool” very nonchalantly, like we’re too cool for school.  :)  The. kids. love. it.  The funniest thing happened after I taught it.  We went over it a few times one afternoon and i didn’t say anymore about it.  So the next day, I said the wrong page number, but then corrected myself.  One of my boys in the back piped up with a “It’s cool!”.  It cracked me up because I had totally forgotten about it.  This is a great way to ward off any snickering that might happen when a child gives an incorrect answer and it also makes them feel better about themselves and not be so embarrassed.  I don’t use it every time I get a wrong answer, but I try to do it every time a shy or struggling student answers incorrectly. 
   Like I said, Whole Brain Teaching is so much more than just classroom management.  It’s a style of teaching all it’s own and the great thing about it is that you can customize it to fit your needs.  There is no WBT police or hard and fast rules you MUST follow.  Pick and choose, Adapt it to fit.  Try it, you’ll like it or your money back 100% guaranteed.