Bell Ringers: How They Changed My Life and Why I Can’t Live Without Them

In the last couple of years I have gone through some teaching position changes that I never thought would happen to me.

I taught self-contained 5th grade for three years (that included my student teaching).

I knew nothing else, and honestly, at the time, I didn’t really want to. Long story short, I moved across the state  and took a 6th grade position that I *thought* was 6th grade self-contained. Turns out not so much…

SIXTH GRADE ELA DEPARTMENTALIZED POSITION

To keep it brief, when I was hired for my 6th grade position, not only was I told I would be only teaching ELA, but I was also told there was an issue with my teaching partner situation.

By December, I was on my 7th (YES 7TH) teaching partner. I was the only consistency our 6th graders had, but I was struggling when they were coming into my room after whoever was their math and science teacher that day.

I had always loved Harry Wong’s First Days of School, but again, my classroom management had been “manageable” until I was into this new position.

In general, my homeroom was okay, but the second class (who had a different teacher almost every week), was making me lose my EVER LOVING MIND. I’m talking literal wrestling, yelling, not getting ANY supplies… Just shear chaos. It was miserable for all of us.

CONTROLLING WHAT I COULD CONTROL WITH ELA BELL RINGERS

My homeroom came back to me at the end of the day as well… and that was also a super tough transition. I knew that I had to change though and had to try and control the things I could control. This is not always easy, but I have become very reflective and flexible in my short teaching career *survival of the fittest friends. Also, I really had mostly wonderful kids, so I knew it really wasn’t their fault.

Harry Wong talks about kids needing to have something to do right when they get into class. They need structure, routine, expectations, etc. You know the drill… My instinct was morning work, but hello middle school. No time to do that and no time to grade.

WHY I DECIDED TO USE BELL RINGERS IN MY CLASSROOM

Bell Ringers were one of those things I had always heard about when I taught elementary, but never really needed at that time. In fifth grade we did morning work. This worked in self-contained for a couple of reasons:

1. They were ALL MINE all day long. One of the biggest adjustments for me (going from elementary to middle) had been the switching of classes… and switching classes in my previous situation was SUPER tough.
2. We formed consistent routines. If we needed to change something I could because it just affected us.
3. I had no copy limits at my first school (THE WORST). Morning work, and even some bell ringers take copies, and I just didn’t have that option at my new school.
4. I could “grade” the morning work when I had time. There were a million other things that my 5th graders cared about being graded than their morning work. My 6th graders only had me for ELA, so they knew if I wasn’t grading consistently they didn’t have to try that hard.

So, I created ELA Bell Ringers, and swear I’m not product pushing, they changed my life. Here’s why:

• I made them all notebooks that had a section for bell ringers only. I spent a weekend buying the composition notebooks, making the tabs, and gluing them in.

MODELING THE BELL RINGERS TO ENCOURAGE SUCCESS

I modeled the heck out of how bell ringers should look:

• I knew that I would probably have to slow down to a crawl in December to teach my 6th graders, but nothing else was working so I was willing.
• I wanted the bell ringers to take 3, maybe 4 minutes… but I knew that it would take a week or two of 10-15 minute modeling each day to get to that point. So I did.
• In theory, I wanted it all to fit on one page, but knew that wouldn’t happen with some of my #hotmessexpress students, so when I counted out the pages for Bell Ringers (yes, I counted the exact number of pages for each week) I gave a front AND back page for each week of bell ringers.
• So for a school year, they would need about about 38 pages (just to be safe).

HOW I GRADED THE BELL RINGERS TO SAVE MY SANITY

In the picture, you can kind of see how I graded, and this was HUGE for my 6th graders, and simple for me.

• I learned quickly that I had to be diligent about grading or they wouldn’t do it.
• Eventually, I didn’t even have to check. I started letting the first 3-4 students who did quality bell ringers work, grade their classmates. They would just stamp for me. It even made some of my super reluctant workers get theirs done, because even 6th graders want to grade!
• Eventually I just bought some stamper markers (instead of initialing because you have no idea how much time that wastes) and then it was really fast!

BELL RINGERS AS A CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TOOL

I am honestly not looking for “real” instruction here. I don’t want you to think Bell Ringers are a waste of time, but I found that when I did morning work, I WANTED them to finish the work because it was very much a review of what we were learning. That means sometimes I HAD to teach the morning work (ugh). Not my goal.

• With the Bell Ringers, they teach the kids something, but nothing requires me to “instruct,” because I need that time for attendance and such.
• The Bell Ringers were the same, but varied ha! What this means, is that they did the same format every week, but the type of Bell Ringer changed every day and the content changed every week. They didn’t get bored, but they always knew what to do. This is what a week of bell ringers looks like.

WHAT WERE THE RESULTS OF IMPLEMENTING BELL RINGERS?

ROOT OR AFFIX OF THE WEEK BELL RINGERS FOR QUICK WARM-UPS

I made these bell ringers to be the perfect fit for this very short morning time. Since their original creation, they have also become 100% digital in Google Slides.

You can get my:

•  Root and Affix of The Week Bell Ringers by clicking here or…
• You can even try them out FREE for three weeks by clicking here. 
• If you are a subscriber, these are already in your free resource library.