Do Now
What is this strategy?
As students enter your classroom at the beginning of each morning/period, you definitely want them to have a daily task to complete in order to avoid getting off on the wrong start. A great way to jump start and activate student's brains is to have a Do Now activity written on the board or waiting on their desks as they enter your classroom. Do Now is effective because it allows students to be productive even at the start of class and also already thinking about the instructional material for the day.
The 4 best things that you as a teacher can do to be sure that the Do Now develops a focused, efficeient and effective manner include:
1. Do Now should be completely independent work. Students should not need to rely on help from teachers or other students to complete the quick assignment. The Do Now should not be as challenging, due to the fact that the purpose is to reel students in and engage them, and also establish good habits of doing work by yourself and completing it in an independent manner.
2. The Do Now should be able to be accomplished in 3-5 minutes. After that, you as the teacher can go over the answers/responses and have students participate to involve engagement.
3. The activity should be a written assignment, not just reading, because this way you can tell when students are finished or if they are even completing the assignment at all. If students are required to write something, even if it is just short answers, they are more likely to be motivated to complete the task.
4. Do Now is also a great way to preview the material that you will be teaching during the day. If you are at the end of a unit, you could also use the Do Now as a way to review past material that the students have learned. Either way, it s a great tool to assess what students have learned or already know.
How/why does it work?
The main way to insure that a Do Now activity will work is to be consistent. Consistency is vital in many differeny aspects of education, and that can be proven to be true in regards to a Do Now activity. If a student expects to have a Do Now at the beginning of every class period, they will not be able to claim the exuse of "I didn't know we were supposed to do it!" These types of jump start activities also work well if you are extremely clear about what the students should be working on. Give specific instructions either written on the board or on a slip of paper on their desks. This is a great way to eliminate other excuses.
How can I implement this strategy in MY classroom?
There are so many different ways that you can implement this strategy in your classroom. Whether you decide to write the Do Now on the board or have it on a piece of paper on the students desk, you need to be consistent in that manner as well, so choose one or the other. Both strategies work well, but just remember that younger students may need picture diagrams to represent the directions of the assignment!
Here are some examples of Do Now activites:
Younger students (K-2):
-Tell students about a story that you're going to read and have them draw a picture representing what they think the story might be about.
-Simple math problems (addition and subtraction)
-Tracing letters or words that are dotted out
-Have pictures of certain vocab words and have the students write the word that the picture is representing
Older Elementary Students (3-5):
-Short crossword puzzles/word searches with vocabulary terms from the current unit
-Matching vocaulary terms to definitions
-K/W/L chart (know, want to know, learned)
-Have students write about a dream they had last night (creative writing of any type, too!)
As students enter your classroom at the beginning of each morning/period, you definitely want them to have a daily task to complete in order to avoid getting off on the wrong start. A great way to jump start and activate student's brains is to have a Do Now activity written on the board or waiting on their desks as they enter your classroom. Do Now is effective because it allows students to be productive even at the start of class and also already thinking about the instructional material for the day.
The 4 best things that you as a teacher can do to be sure that the Do Now develops a focused, efficeient and effective manner include:
1. Do Now should be completely independent work. Students should not need to rely on help from teachers or other students to complete the quick assignment. The Do Now should not be as challenging, due to the fact that the purpose is to reel students in and engage them, and also establish good habits of doing work by yourself and completing it in an independent manner.
2. The Do Now should be able to be accomplished in 3-5 minutes. After that, you as the teacher can go over the answers/responses and have students participate to involve engagement.
3. The activity should be a written assignment, not just reading, because this way you can tell when students are finished or if they are even completing the assignment at all. If students are required to write something, even if it is just short answers, they are more likely to be motivated to complete the task.
4. Do Now is also a great way to preview the material that you will be teaching during the day. If you are at the end of a unit, you could also use the Do Now as a way to review past material that the students have learned. Either way, it s a great tool to assess what students have learned or already know.
How/why does it work?
The main way to insure that a Do Now activity will work is to be consistent. Consistency is vital in many differeny aspects of education, and that can be proven to be true in regards to a Do Now activity. If a student expects to have a Do Now at the beginning of every class period, they will not be able to claim the exuse of "I didn't know we were supposed to do it!" These types of jump start activities also work well if you are extremely clear about what the students should be working on. Give specific instructions either written on the board or on a slip of paper on their desks. This is a great way to eliminate other excuses.
How can I implement this strategy in MY classroom?
There are so many different ways that you can implement this strategy in your classroom. Whether you decide to write the Do Now on the board or have it on a piece of paper on the students desk, you need to be consistent in that manner as well, so choose one or the other. Both strategies work well, but just remember that younger students may need picture diagrams to represent the directions of the assignment!
Here are some examples of Do Now activites:
Younger students (K-2):
-Tell students about a story that you're going to read and have them draw a picture representing what they think the story might be about.
-Simple math problems (addition and subtraction)
-Tracing letters or words that are dotted out
-Have pictures of certain vocab words and have the students write the word that the picture is representing
Older Elementary Students (3-5):
-Short crossword puzzles/word searches with vocabulary terms from the current unit
-Matching vocaulary terms to definitions
-K/W/L chart (know, want to know, learned)
-Have students write about a dream they had last night (creative writing of any type, too!)