Daily Fun with Your Board (and a way to get your students to look at it)

My side board:

What you can't see to the right is our agenda for the week - what I want them to pay attention to.  But we all know that students often seem to refuse to look at the board. So I found a way to get them to look.  The first way is with the holiday of the day.  

I have a whole calendar of author birthdays, character birthdays, English class related holidays, and then just random ones when I have no class-related holiday.  They like to comment on those.  If you want access to it, I believe this link will let you view it: 

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=dmhidG42M2RpMzU4YmRrMWVhcm1mcW5oc2NAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ



Puns are a great way to get groans, of course, but also to get attention. Every morning, I write a new pun of the day on the board. OK, I do this mostly every day. When I forget to change it, I hear it from my students. I have my list of puns printed out and I just mark them off as I go. Some years, I'll assign a student to pick the pun and write it on the board for me. If you want, you can use them with the link below, but first I'll bombard you with a few!

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Police have confirmed that the person who tragically fell from the 18th floor night club was not a bouncer.

Clones are people two.

A dog barks 900 times a day. This is a ruff estimate.

Fruit farmers eat what they can and can what they can't.

I'm taking steps to overcome my hiking addiction, but I'm not out of the woods yet.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/138WJ2uQJVJ7HO1yz-ENInyvkixqTRXvO/edit




You'll notice the Smartest Student list.  I did this on a whim a while back with no expectation of keeping it going, but it worked so well with my ninth graders that I started using it with my upper levels too.  What do you need to do to be deemed the smartest student?  Say something smart in class.  Do something smart in class.  Win a Blooket.  Wear a shirt of a team I pull for.  Anything.  I change it up often and I have had students take pictures of their name on the board to show their parents.  It's fun and I will have students do things and then argue why that should put them on the smartest student list.  That's a win in my book!

So, share your pun.  Share the holiday I don't have.  Share what works as board attention getters for you.  Or just say hi in the comments.  :)

Like these ideas?  You may also like these Cultural Literacy activities.