Can We Bring Fun Back Into the Classroom? with Matt Halpern

Do you ever feel like it’s impossible to have fun in the classroom anymore? There are often so many “other” things to care about, that fun can be the last thing on our minds.

In this episode of Real Teacher Talk, I sat down with Matt Halpern to talk about why it’s a challenge to have fun in the classroom, why fun in the classroom is important, and how to bring fun back!

Matt is a joyful educator who draws on almost two decades of experience as a classroom teacher and literacy coach. He is passionate about making classrooms child-centered and putting the effort and work of students at the forefront. His love for teaching social-emotional skills and literacy often combines as he is always looking for new ways to help others become the best versions of themselves. A fierce advocate for social justice and equity in classrooms, Matt leverages the power of literacy and community to empower children. Matt is the author of the forthcoming A Teacher's Guide to Interactive Writing. 

If you loved Matt’s tips and want to learn more from him, make sure to head to his website for more! You can also follow him on Instagram to stay up to date with all of his tips and tricks!


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Transcript

INTRO:

Hey, I'm Kristen Donegan and you're listening to real teacher talk. I often say what's on a teacher's mind and my mission is this help busy teachers leave school at three so they can finally enjoy their life outside of the classroom. Why? Because I know how tiring it is to have a never ending checklist as a teacher and miss out on being fully present at home on real teacher talk, discover how to work smarter, not harder. enjoy teaching again, and still have plenty of time to shut off your brain outside of the classroom to do the things you love. sound impossible. I promise it isn't.

00:48

Hey, everyone, thanks so much for being here. It's Kristin from a real teacher talk. And I'm lucky enough today to have one of my friends who I presented with pre pandemic. Matt Halpern is here to talk about I know he, he knows a lot of things. But today we're gonna be talking about how to have fun teaching again. So Matt, welcome to the podcast. 

01:05

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. And even though people are listening, and I can't see, I'm happy to see you. I see that now. And I presented years ago, what was it? We're where we knew him? I'm sure. Yeah, we got dinner together quickly. And then I flew out and you presented the rest of the time. So I'm glad that we get to reconnect. I shared with Matt that so many teachers, right are really struggling, being back in the classroom or being excited about it. Because the last few years have been tough. And hack pre pandemic teaching is hard anyways. And so I was talking to Matt and I was like, What can we do to bring some fun back in the classroom? Because I know you're known for a lot of things. Before we get started, Matt, do you want to tell us a bit about you and why our listeners should even care?

02:06

Well, I'll tell you about me. I'm not sure if I can tell you what anyone should

02:12

say. But again, my name is Matt Halpern. And I was a classroom teacher for 18 years. And I have taught kindergarten, first grade, second grade. And well, I guess I lied, I wasn't a classroom teacher for all that time. I also was a literacy coach for two and a half years in there. And then I ended up going back to the classroom at some point as well, towards the end before I left. I live in Portland, Maine, which I always feel like I work for the Bureau of tourism, because I'm always trying to get people to come here. But if you've never been to Maine, it's beautiful. Come in the summer or the fall. I've just been traveling for work over the last couple of weeks. And I've been traveling a lot in the south. And you know, it's so hot and humid in the South. In the summer. It's just horrible. And Portland, you know, we're on a peninsula, we're surrounded by water. And it's even in the summer, it gets no, it might be 75 or 80. But there's no humidity. There's an ocean breeze. It's lovely. I love living here. And what else about me, I have a professional book coming out next year, called titles got, yes, it's called a Teacher's Guide to interactive write. I know it's not very exciting title. But it's going to be an exciting book.

03:35

There's going to be lots of pictures and photographs and videos so that people can actually see how I do it and how it works. So they can read the book, and then they can see it in action in the videos. So I'm excited about that. And you're an amazing presenter, so you know your staff.

03:54

Know, you're very, very passionate. No, you really do. I do. I will say that one of the things that I love, and we were talking about this before, I love working with teachers, I love helping teachers. So I left the classroom last year, because I had kind of been doing presenting in consulting as a side hustle. And it became really hard to do both to teach full time and, and I was getting more requests to present and consult and I just you can't do it. All right. I mean, you just can't. So I thought okay, this is it. I'm gonna do it. So now that's what I mostly do full time I go to schools, and I work with teachers. I go to conferences and present. And then I also do all kinds of fun things that I've always wanted to do. Like, I've recorded some songs and videos for teachers, you know, not, I mean, I'm not as good as Jack Harmon, but he's my, you know, trying to be Jack Hartman. I know, it's impossible, but I'm trying. And I've been writing in addition to my professional book, I've been writing some fiction, some picture books that I've been working

05:00

And I'm also not finished with it yet, so I'm not gonna tell you much about it. But I've been working on a novel for adults. Oh, my daughter is a teacher. So I saw your Instagram story. Yes, I love it. So you're living like your dream. I am doing all this creative stuff that I've always thought about, but I just never, I just never did it, I'd never had the energy to do it. So now I'm doing it. And it's a lot of fun. I love it. Well, good for you. And then we'll leave some links and things later where you all can connect with Matt. And if you want him to come to your school or your district, I know he has pretty books, but he can make something happen.

05:45

So now I'd love to chat a bit about why do you think that teachers just aren't having as much fun in the classroom anymore?

05:55

Oh, boy.

05:57

You know, you said a little bit before teaching is hard, right? I mean, just in and of itself, independent of other outside factors. Teaching is hard. If you want to do it, well, it's a lot of work. And then if you add on top of that things like the increased amount of testing and assessments that a lot of schools and districts and states are requiring curriculum that changes, right. It's like you have a curriculum, or you have things that you're comfortable with. And then every few years, it shifts, right. Oh, we're looking for a new math curriculum? Well, I knew the Old math curriculum. So that's more, you know, it's more work.

06:41

And, you know, depending on where you where you are, I know some people I've heard love their administrators, you know, I've heard people say that they're, you know, I was just talking to somebody on Instagram the other day, who moved to a new school. And she was saying how wonderful her principal was just, you know, above and beyond, and I know, wonderful principals. If, you know, I don't know if you know, Adam to Vico, like, he's like a rock star principle. When I look at him, and I see what he's doing at a school. I'm like, I want to work at that school. Right. But not everybody has had them like that. And if you don't, that can make it hard. And then now, I mean, you know, depending on when you're listening to this, but 2022, depending on where you live in the country. You know, there are states where they're really changing what it means to be a teacher. I know, you know, I mean, I can't remember all the states. But you know, some of these states are saying, like, you have to show your plans for the whole year before the school year starts, or Florida, now you have to get it approved, like get your lesson. It's wild. That is wild. That is the word for it. It's wild. And so those things, I think, suck the fun out of it. Because it becomes

08:07

I don't know, it makes to me when I hear all these things it makes, and we were talking about this a little bit before, you know, it's like, do we trust teachers or not? We went to college, we did our student teaching. We we've been teaching, even if you're a new teacher, you still went through your teacher prep program. You know, some people have master's degrees, and then we don't we treat them like they don't know what they're doing. And that's not even to mention the fact that we don't compensate teachers. Well enough. So when you add all that up? Well, it's kind of depressing.

08:43

You summed it up? It is, it's hard to sometimes to just want to have fun when you're like, I don't even know if I'm wanted here. I don't know, I don't feel respected. I don't feel appreciated. So sometimes it's like, Why do I want to go above and beyond? Or sometimes you're just so tired to even bring in some fun. You're like, let's just get this time where, you know, things come up. So what would you say to the teacher who's like, I want to have fun again, I want to like look forward to being in the classroom. But there's just no time to have fun. I guess what I would say, and people might not want to hear it, or they might push back. But let me explain it is you have to make time, right? Like you have to make it a priority. This is like from so long ago, there was this person that I knew that she was an acquaintance at a school I wasn't friends with her or anything. But she said something one time and you know, sometimes people say something and you hear it and you never forget it and you repeat it over and over to other people. Well, what she said was, we all make our own priorities. And she was saying in a meeting

09:49

you know, I don't even remember what it was but like I you know, I wasn't making something a priority that she thought I should but she was snarky, but you took a different meaning from it.

10:00

But it's true. I mean, it's like what you put the focus on what you prioritize is what becomes a priority. Yeah. For what supports that? Yeah. So I feel like one of the things that I talk to teachers about a lot of the time when I present or when I go into schools is looking at what you have to do. So I know for most people, they have some kind of curriculum that they have to teach for, for literacy for math. Depending on where you are, you might have a science curriculum or social studies or SEL curriculum, and we can't throw it away, right, like we have to teach what we have to teach. But what I tried to show people is, is there a way you can take that curriculum and make it fun, right? Or inject moments of fun? Maybe, you know, you can't, you can't throw it out and do something totally different? I don't think that you have to spend money. I don't think that you have to. And I'm not saying that you can't do this, or you shouldn't do this, but I don't think you have to have a room transcript.

11:05

You don't have a warehouse for all your stuff. I mean, I see some people and there are people that I'm friendly with online who, who you know, it's like, their whole classroom becomes Jurassic Park, or that looks amazing. And I bet it would be a lot of fun, but don't feel like you need to do that to have fun, or to be a great teacher. Exactly. I will tell you, in all my years teaching, I never did that. Not once, because I am not that creative. And also, I don't want to spend the money, because it's not cheap to do that. Right. And I also don't think it's necessary. So I'm going to tell you some ways that I think you can bring fun into the classroom that don't cost money, and they don't take a lot of work. Okay, are you ready? I'm ready.

11:59

Okay, so there's three things I'm going to tell you about. First thing that is my go to way to inject FUN into your classroom is music, period, the word music and a period. So what do I mean by music?

12:16

Singing, dancing, movement. Now, there's different kinds of ways that you can use music in the classroom. A lot of people will play a YouTube video, right and let their kids stand up there and watch the video. And there are videos that teach lots of skills. So you can and I love those videos. And I'm, I mean, I know I already shouted him out. But I'm thinking again of Jack Hartman. I mean, that guy has a video for everything. letter sounds, he's got a video sight words. He's got 20 videos, you name it. There's the video, math subitizing. He's got a video. And they're fun. Right? And it's easy. Now, I will argue that that's not the only way that you can use music. I do like to warn people. I don't love the idea of always putting a video on because I feel like

13:07

it takes kids away from the environment, right? So if we're just staring at a screen all the time, I'm not really engaging with the other kids in the classroom, or, or the teacher. So sometimes I like to just play music. So my No, this isn't free. I know. I said, everything's free. You don't have to do this. But the one place when people are like, What should I spend money on? One of the things that I think is a really good investment for your classroom is a Bluetooth speaker. And they have cheap ones, right? Like you can get a $10 Bluetooth speaker. I don't like to cheap. So I bought you know, I don't know, I want to say it might have been like 50 or $60. But a nice Bluetooth speaker that really sounds good and fills the classroom with music. And that allows you to listen to all those same types of songs. Without the video, you can even go on your phone, go on YouTube, bring up the video, but just play the audio through the bluetooth speaker. So again, free, you're not paying for the music, although I mean, most of that music is on Spotify or Apple Music, you know, the streaming services, which most people have that right, so you just make a classroom playlist. In addition to that kind of music. I also think that there's a lot of value in not all day long, but letting kids just listen to music, move dance, have like a two minute dance party, right? And again, there's tons of music on streaming services that you don't have to pay for. My recommendation is which I know people cringe and I do too. But there's a reason behind it. Kidz Bop because I know but here's the thing, you know that it's going to be appropriate right like you know they're not going to drop a

15:00

An F bomb.

15:02

And I don't want that, you know, like, I don't want to put on a song and be like, Oh my gosh, they're talking about something inappropriate. The other thing I will play a lot of times are old, like old these music, that's dance music like the Jackson Five or the Jackson Five, or like Stevie Wonder, because that stuff, you know, is not inappropriate. There's also a band that I always tell people about, and some people have heard of them, and some people haven't, but they're called Daft Punk. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, so Daft Punk is mostly instrumental music, like they might have, like a little bit of words. But it's like a phrase that repeats the whole song. So those songs are pretty safe. And just, again, make a playlist I you would use that kind of a release in the classroom as it can be a reward, like, you know, oh, my gosh, we all just read for 20 minutes independently, let's come have a dance party, right? Or it can also just be a release, like, oh, my gosh, it's Friday afternoon, and everyone's jumping off the walls, including me.

Let's put on some music and dance. So I just think there's something about music that is transformative, right? Use it. So use that to your benefit. And it's free. You don't have to pay for it. As long as you have Spotify or Apple Music, you know, otherwise, you do have to pay for it. Although I guess you can go on YouTube, and then you know, anything into for Spotify? Can I make a suggestion? What you just Yes. So when I began teaching, I would buy CDs. And I played on the CD player all the time. When that I bought that loved Oh, hold on, because you gotta like skip to the right track. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's when you would like burn songs steal from like, Limewire or something. And I would do that. So. So I haven't played that way. Then we moved to like, what was that thing called? And I bought, but then eventually, once we said, like, streaming, I would do this on Pandora. And the CD I bought, and then would use is called Rockabye. Baby. And it's the best it's like, I don't know, blink 182. The Beatles no doubt Metallica, like all the music you like, but it's instrumental. So like, in your head as a teacher, you're hearing the songs and just the best. So we always would do that. Or Jack Johnson children's. And it was just all throughout the day just sets the mood. Yeah, it just makes it so nice. The other thing, which I forgot to say about music, it depending on what grade you teach, if you're a person who teaches preschool or kindergarten, specifically, like little kids, nursery rhymes, right? Like, so there are CDs, or I had those children. Yeah. And you know what, I mean, people laugh, but my kindergarten kids, if I said, let's play farmer in the Dow, they would do that for like an hour if I let them just stand in a circle singing farmer the dough going in the middle to you know, the farmer takes the wife and all that and holding hands and making a circle. They thought that was like Christmas morning. It's good for them to know Nursery Rhymes and to practice them.

And so use that to your benefit. There are these CDs and or streaming, you don't have to buy the CD that have these nursery rhymes. And again, Jack Herer mentioned, send me a check, because I all I do is pump him up. But he has all the nursery rhymes that he's recorded, you know, in a little bit more of a contemporary way. So they're a little bit more fun. I would do a different nursery rhyme a week. And it would be like, we would learn it on Monday. And then we would sing it throughout the week. And then, you know, within a few months of school, you have this whole repertoire of songs that your kids know. And it helps with rhyming and helps with phonemic awareness. I mean, there's so many benefits to it. Your students who are learning, you know, English. Yeah, totally. Love it. All right, what else? Well, what's your second thing be to bring some fun. So my second thing is games. Now, when I say games, I don't mean like board games, although I love a board game. And again, if you teach kids that have, like a choice time, or that kind of thing, or even if you teach older kids, like inside recess, when you're thinking about things like that board games are really fun. And there's something about board games where, you know, there's rules that kids have to follow. So there that's important, but I'm not talking about that kind of game. I say, Make things again, again, everything in our class. Yeah. Think about what you have to teach and think. How can I make it a game? So here's an example. One of my students favorite games, which I don't know if people have heard of this or not, but I'll explain it. It's called jolly jump up. Do you know jelly Jumbo? Oh my gosh. This is a game that kids again. It's so simple. When I tell you, you're gonna be like, Okay, that is not that fun, but they think it's so much fun and you can play this game in any grade. I say

20:00

Like I'm imagining, so here's how it works. Basically, you have,

20:05

like an index card, and you have a bunch of them, right? So you need like, so okay, I said it was free, you have to buy a pack of index cards right? How much does that make sense?

20:15

For you go to your supply closet and you get indexed. So you have a bunch of index cards. And what you're going to do is make cards for whatever it is that your kids are learning about. So as to be like, I'm just going to use kindergarten as an example. At the beginning of the year, I would write the alphabet, I would write numbers like one through 20, I might draw some shapes on there, that's maybe some colors. And then you also make cards that say, Jolly jumper. And then what you do, well, there's a couple ways you can do it. If you have a document camera and a projector, you can do it under the document camera, that's really fun, because then it's big on the screen. But you don't have to do that you could just hold the cards up as long as everybody can see them. And when you hold the card up or under the camera, the way kids play the game is they're all sitting, they could be sitting on the carpet, they could be sitting at their seats, whatever works for both. And they would say a blue seven, you know, as I'm flipping the cards, they're called all shouting out whatever's on the card, and then intersperse our cards that's a jolly jump up. And when you get to a jelly jump up card, they all stand up and they scream or not screen. But you know, they shout a little loud, Jolly jump up, and they have to jump.

21:37

And the next card says slowly sit down. I mean, how fun is that? Again, it's like the most basic game in the world slowly sit down, and then you go back. And then what happens is you teach them with some really basic things, like I said, letter names, and colors and shapes and numbers. And then as you're teaching more things, you add those cards in and even maybe take other cards out. So you know, as I'm teaching them sight words, I start putting sight words into the deck. As we're learning how to scuba ties, I start putting that into the deck. If you're teaching third grade, I don't know I never taught third grade, I guess you could put like multiplication facts or whatever. Yeah, whatever it is. And so it's just a way to get them to review something. And it's fun, right. And again, they will want to play this game all the time, which obviously you're not going to play it all the time. But just things like that just making things a game. Another thing that I would do a lot of the time is same idea is I would give like a matching game where I would make cart. And again, I would just use index cards, and you can buy these people sell them like on Teachers Pay teacher's were. So if you don't want to make one and you want to spend money and save time, I don't have any like this, I should probably sell some but everybody else. So I'm not. I'm not I'm not getting into that game. But you can go and buy these matching games. But you could also just make your own and you don't have to spend any money.

And it could be like a picture of an apple and the letter a picture of a bat and a letter B and then you pass them out. Everybody stand up, find your match. You've just got them up and moving. And the other game, which is kind of like that is I have who has sure you played that. Yeah, it's the same thing. And again, there's a bunch of them online. I'm sure I bought a few over the years, because it's just easier when someone else has done the work. But you don't have to you can make your own right. Sometimes it's good to maybe buy one so you can see how the person made it. And then you can just make your own. And that's a really fun game too. And kids love it. So it's just, you know, playing making things into games. And also don't forget about I mean, I would argue up through maybe second grade kids love doing things like playing Duck Duck Goose. I still love it. Yeah, it's Yeah, I love Yeah, I'm like a kid at heart.

So any Yeah, I love it. And what you can do is, once you know that your kids know how to play a game like duck, duck goose, you can modify it like you can play. One thing that I would play with them is still I called it syllable Chase, which is basically Duck Duck Goose. But instead of saying Duck, duck, duck duck, we would say words and every time you would tap a word, you would be breaking it into syllables. So I mean, you don't have to do that. You can also just play Duck Duck Goose but okay, so then the last thing which when I say this, you're gonna be like, how's that fun that but I'm gonna explain it is books. Right? Okay, so maybe rethinking the books that you read and also the way that you read them and also the way that you have kids reacting or not reacting to you reading a book. So let me explain. Pick funny books.

25:00

Cool. I mean, obviously, every book you read is cannot be hilarious, right? But some of them can write. And I would argue, even if you're a person who teaches, you know, third, fourth or fifth grade, a book, like the book with no pictures, like readers would love, ya know, and there's so many funny books, my students favorite book every year was rhyming dust bunnies. I don't know if you know that. No.

25:27

You have to get that book for your own children. It's so stupid. But you know, like, kids love stupid. So they'll This is the premise of the book. There are for dust bunnies. Like, you know, you have to maybe explain what a dust bunny is. Because kids don't know what it is. They just look like little fluff balls in the book. But you know, a dust bunny is a real thing. So you explain what it is. And they're, they're rhyming dust bunnies. And so they all run except the last one. I forget what their names are. But they rhyme. It's like, you know, Todd, Rod, I can't remember what their names are. But they all rhyme. And then the last one, his name doesn't rhyme. And so they'll say, Okay, what rhymes with cat, then they all give something that rhymes with cat. And then the last guy says, a word that does not rhyme with chat, and the kids can still lose their reason that he's what he's doing is he's saying he's basically telling them to look out because the back is coming. And then the vacuum cleaner comes and sucks them all out.

26:28

But you know, they're in the vacuum, like still talking. It's just a silly book. But also rhyming, right? We use it to, especially at the beginning of, of the year, or even if it's not the end, we are just to talk about rhyming review rhyming, it's fun. The other thing I would say, is how you engage kids during your read aloud. So thinking about, are you letting kids do things like retell the book, right? Are you letting them do things like acting out? So you know, maybe you're reading a book and there's, you know, a scene that happens, whether it's funny or not, it's fun to act things out. So it also keeps them engaged. And it helps with comprehension. You can do things like, especially for books that are classics, or not even classics, but a lot of the emergent storybooks, you can find these online, you can let kids make puppets, like little stick puppets.

That was always something I would do, especially the first few months of school, you know, we would read a book like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and we would read it a few times, and the kids would all make these little stick puppets and they would practice retelling and they would do little puppet shows. That's fun, right? And most I don't want to say every book out there but books that are very popular. Like I'm trying to think of some of the books we've made stick puppets for what's your name? I can't think of a name the lady that Mrs. wishy washy. I couldn't think of her name. They I mean, those books are really simple books. Right? But if they're great for retelling, there's you can find some stick puppets. A lot of them are Willems books they're stick puppets for and those books are so good. Yeah. So just like rethinking how you let kids engage with books. Are you making your read alouds interactive, if you don't know what I know, we don't have that much time. So I'm not going to go into a whole rhythm around.

What interactive read aloud is. But if you don't know what interactive read aloud is, look it up? Because it's it's it's having kids answer questions and do things during the read aloud as opposed to just sitting there, which is much more fun. Right? It's, you know, just having kids being more active is more fun. It's more fun for them. It's more fun for you, because you're not up there doing all the work.

28:46

And the other thing I'll say about Yes, is especially again, for my pre K through second grade teachers, thinking about the balance between fiction and nonfiction. I think that, you know, just research has shown that especially early ed teachers lean more towards fiction. And fiction is great. I love fiction. That's what we've just been talking about. But kids love nonfiction. And what I find is the more nonfiction I read it, it opens up. Oh my gosh, like I don't know because they they're asking me questions that I don't know the answer to. Let's get some more books about, you know, armadillos and find out about armadillos. Now that's not like, we're not laughing and giggling about armadillos, but it's just more engaging. And often what will happen is what I will try to read if I read a fiction book, and kids have questions, that's my cue to get a nonfiction book. Right. So like I'm thinking I said armadillos, there's a really good fiction book called Milo armadillo, which I love that book. It's a story book about a little girl and she has this stuffed on a pillow. Well, I live in the northeast, we don't have

29:59

my

30:00

Kids didn't know what armadillos were. So they were asking me all these questions that I didn't really know the answers to. I know what an armadillo is. But so I was like, let me go to the library and get some nonfiction books about armadillos. And let's learn about them. And so that's fun, right? It's like, oh, my gosh, we're, we're being curious. And we're learning about the world. And we're learning about things that are interesting, interesting, you know, to them, that's what I got music, games, books are mostly free, right? You can get all your books from your library. If you don't utilize your school librarian, you're missing out. So like, when I needed those books on armadillos, I sent an email and I said, Hey, we would love some nonfiction books about armadillos. And the next day in my mailbox, in the office were like four books about armadillos. I didn't.

30:54

Ya have to have a school librarian. Tell me?

30:57

Oh,

30:59

well, okay.

31:03

If you don't, I would say, I mean, obviously, you could go on Amazon and order some books. But if you don't want to spend money, you want to go to the library or your public library. Remember, I'm trying to keep it free. I know, I know. And I would even add, I found the days you know, especially like during parent conference week, or especially October, November, when it starts to get dark. And you're like, Oh, this is like so hard. Scheduling some fun as well, where you're having fun with your kids. Like, I want to go show them why I'm the kickball champion, like why they call me white light. And I had to show them I mean, they really did.

31:41

So like, we will go do that. Or we'll go play tetherball or even just slide reading just sometimes remembering that our kids are still kids, and just doing kid things like we'll do art together. If people hear that and say, Well, I don't have time, or I have so much I have to do figure out how to make it work, right. So like, maybe what we're going to do around Thanksgiving is we're going to read this book called Run Turkey Run, which if you don't know, run Turkey Run, that's my favorite Thanksgiving book. It's hilarious, and the kids love it. And because kids love it, we're going to put on a puppet show as a class. And because we're going to put on a puppet show, we're going to do drawing and painting and cutting and gluing. Because we're going to make those puppets. And then once we make those puppets, we're going to practice by performing you know, retelling the story and then performing it for ourselves. Or maybe I record it on my phone and make a little video. That's fun. And so if you feel like you can't find a way to do it, again, think about what you have to teach your kids pause and think well, what's something I could do? That would be fun, right? There's a way to tie it all in together, always. It just takes a little creativity. But it just makes it more enjoyable. I know for me as a teacher, when I knew I had something fun we were doing during the day, or maybe you know, whatever standard was teaching was something I was a little bit more into. But if I knew it was just like the same old, same old, it's like, yeah, yeah. And I think if you can, like you said, if you can schedule things, and you don't even have to tell your kids, then it's a surprise. And then if something happens, and you can't do it, it's, you know, there's no disappointment. But, you know, try to find moments where you, like you said, change of scenery is huge. You know, again, depending on where you are in the country, and what season it is. And, you know, we can't always go outside, like where I live, it's impossible to you would not want to read outside, all right. But if you can, or when you can, oh my gosh, let's take our writing folders and go right out. So it's always the best. I loved that as a kid and my kids love it just to fresh air fresh air does wonders for your mood. And even if you're thinking how can I put this in as well. My last year in the classroom, we did morning meetings every day. And just sitting in the morning meeting circle with my kiddos and getting to learn about them that I'm getting to learn about me normally there was some sort of like activity or little quick game we would do just something like that really helps you connect with your students build that community and have some fun, life's too short. Right? Well, and the thing, I mean, I think people if they're not using a morning meeting format, I agree with everything you said and what's so special about it is that's how you start the day. So it's like even if you're in a crummy mood or you're tired or whatever, it kind of is a reset. And it's the first thing that you do and so I would urge people if they don't know what the morning meeting format is to just Google it right you can find it online.

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Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a way to do it. You know, there's components

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and it works. And it really helps like you said it, it creates this community in the classroom. And it's fun because what kids want is they want to be seen and heard. And that's what morning meeting is. And it's the first thing in the morning. Yeah, I love it. All right. My last question for you, Matt, thanks for sharing these ideas. You talk about fun. I know you talk a lot about writing and interactive writing. How can someone make it fun and engaging? Because I don't know about the listeners. But writing was my least favorite

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subject.

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So subjective, and it was so hard to me. So what would you say that I will? Well, so first, I'm going to tell you something that you probably won't believe. But I always tell people and I don't know if they believe me, but I tell them anyway, writing is my favorite thing to teach.

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And the reason it's my favorite thing to teach is because it is hard. And it's it's the hardest thing I think that we ask kids to do. Because you they have to, they have to orchestrate so much information. And they you know, it's like, it's not just enough to have an idea. Once I have the idea, I have to know how to put it down and have to know what what letters go together to make that it's a lot, right. So the whole point of interactive writing, is you provide scaffolding so that kids see how to write, they're doing it in a safe way. The way that I explain it to people is, it's like read aloud, right? The reason we read aloud to kids is to show them how the reading process works without them having to do the lift, the lifting and the load of decoding. Well, interactive writing is similar. It's I want to show you this thing called the writing process. But I'm going to do it with you. And the other thing about interactive writing, I think sometimes people don't maybe have a misunderstanding about. It's interactive, you're supposed to be writing. It's not kids doing all of the writing, especially if they're little I mean, I do interactive reading with preschoolers, and people are like, what? preschoolers? Yeah, guess what, when little Kristen comes up who's three, guess what she's going to do, she's going to write a K. Because that's the first letter in her name. And if she doesn't know how to write a que,

 I'm going to either offer her to hold the pen, and I'm going to hold her hand, and we're going to do hand over hand, or I'm going to write it with a yellow marker, and then she can trace it. And then she's going to sit down, and I'm going to write the rest of the word, it doesn't have to be this thing where kids come up and do all of the work. Now, I will say, in first grade, second grade, and even you can do interactive writing, and third, fourth and fifth grade, kids are going to do more of the work, because they can, but when they it doesn't, you know when they can't, or I shouldn't say can't when they're not there yet, you're doing more of the work. And so I think teachers just have to let go of this idea that, that it has to be perfect. And it has to go a certain way. And just do it and the way to get kids engaged. So here's my little secret. It's not really secret, because I talk about all the time, but my kids know that they have a job to do, even if they're not invited up. And if they don't do their job, they probably won't get invited up. So what's their job, they have to help. And they have to participate.

So the way that they help is that they listen to what I'm talking about with the student who comes up. And if the child needs help, I don't help I have kids help first. And we talk about helping not being telling, right? So you're I'm not just telling you what letter to write, how could you give someone a clue, or a hint without telling them and so that's some teaching that you have to do. And then your other job is when Kristen comes up and writes a que you need to be writing the same thing on the carpet. So the way you can do that is you can take your finger and you can with smaller kids, especially you can sky right. So every kid's hand is up writing that cake. You can write on the carpet, you can write in your hand. I don't do this all the time. But sometimes I give the kids clipboards and paper and you can actually be writing on the paper, the letters that that we're writing up on, on the chart that we're doing together. So kids love it because what it does is it lets every kid feel like a writer no matter what where they are developmentally or how well or not well, they're able to write with their teacher helping them they can all participate and so they love that. You're making me want to go back to Kinder when you're talking about skywriting

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Amber's doing all of that with them. What about making it fun, especially reluctant writers or to your writers who are struggling, because maybe, you know, they're struggling with phonemic awareness or whatever it is, and it's hard for them to get their thoughts down. So I think the thing that people have to understand is that just like a lot of things that we do with children, repetition is needed, right. And so part of the thing about interactive writing is, you have to do it, and you have to do it, often. You can't say like, oh, my gosh, this is hard, or I don't feel comfortable. So I'm not going to do it, or I'm going to do it like once a week, or, to me, I want to do some kind of interactive writing almost every day. And it doesn't mean that I'm doing a whole session, and we're making a whole chart, it could just be for a little bit, you know, it could be for this graph, that we're making it math for the title, I'm going to have some kids come up and help me write the title. That's, that's the interactive writing that we're doing today. Because what happens is kids have to go through the process of what you're talking about, of not knowing over and over and over and over. And so the more they go through that process, and you show them how and what to do, if they don't know a sound, or they don't know what letter makes that sound, that's when it starts to sink in. And that's when it starts to transfer to their independent writing. And so, the other thing that you have to do during an act of writing is you have to talk about mindset, like, what do you do when you make a mistake?

Or, you know, what kind of things can I tell myself? When I when I make a mistake? Or when I don't know, what do I do? Do I just sit there and give up? Well, that's not gonna help, like, that's not going to get it done. So what can I do? So again, I'm trying to show kids what they can do when, when I send them off to write independently. I know that doesn't sound like the most fun thing in the world. But when kids sit down by themselves, and they think, Oh, when I don't know the sound, I can look at the alphabet chart, because we just did that five times during that interactive writing lesson, right? Even in those rules. Yeah. So they can be success, your scaffolding what to do. Oh, when I don't know what to when I don't know how many words I can put, I can say the sentence and put a finger up? Oh, it's four words, you know, like, Oh, when I forget to leave a space, what can I do? You're showing them all these things, again, repetition. And I will tell you,

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my kids would write, like they wrote, because they felt comfortable. Taking a rest and writing is the rest.

42:44

The other thing, and then I'll stop talking about it, is that I use interactive writing to create a lot of the things in the classroom. And so kids look around the classroom, and they see there.

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Ya know, they see, I wrote that, you know, or I wrote that F in February, that's where we're tracking our birthdays, or whatever it is that we did. And so that makes the space feel like it's theirs. And that's fun, too. And I know you you don't laminate all that stuff, right? You just put it up, I don't laminate it, because next year, I'm going to make it again, right? Because the whole point is the process of making it is what makes it meaningful. So what I will tell people, as a little tip, if people are like, well, I can't start my room without having things up, you know, which I totally hear, you can put your things up and then replace them. Right? So maybe you have, you know, the months of the year that you that you printed or you bought somewhere or whatever.

And then later in the year, you're like, let's make our own, like we could make our own that look better than this. And then you like slowly take things down and put up things that kids have made? Well, because that's fun and engaging, though to for your students when they have that ownership. And they see that sense of community, and it creates a safe learning environment for them, which is the goal. Exactly what every I want every kid in that classroom to feel like they can be a writer, right? And so by having them come up, I mean, I've had kids who are, you know, you know, kids who are special ed kids who are nonverbal and all kinds of things that are able to come up and write because I'm helping them. And so that also sends a message like every kid in our classroom belongs here. Every kid has something to offer is valid. And look, every kid's hand can be on something that that we put up in our classroom. So I just think that's important. That's a really empowering thank you for sharing that. I wish I got to see you teach when you were in the classroom, but now we are lucky enough that you work with other schools all around the US

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So we will leave all your links and things so people can connect with you. But do you want to share any of them out right now, verbally? Basically, if you look up Matt Halpern education, that's my website, Matt Halpern education.com. And if you go to my website, you can find me on Twitter, and Instagram, and Facebook and all of that. And what you said, next year, when my book comes out, there will be lots of videos of me teaching. So you will be able to actually see me teaching in the book, which is kind of cool.

That's really cool. Well, thank you, Matt, for sharing ways that teachers can bring fun back into the classroom, especially if you're on a budget short on time, low prep, because who has the brainpower these days to think of all the things and sharing how to make interactive writing fun and engaging. So thank you so much for chatting with me chatting with everybody here and everyone else, like I tell you every week, I appreciate you being here. Taking time out of your busy day. Make sure you go take some time for yourself today. You deserve it, whether it's some frozen yogurt, a glass of wine, a dip in the pool, reading your favorite book, you need some time to refresh and recharge and I will see you all next week. Thanks again. Bye.

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Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Real teacher talk. I know how difficult it can be to balance teaching and home life. So if you are looking for additional support, I encourage you to head on over to easy teaching tools.com and get on our email list. You will receive our latest organization tips, classroom management strategies, engaging lessons, and even some freebies sign up at easy teaching tools.com forward slash 3pm podcast thanks so much for listening