Ways to Make Bell Ringers Meaningful In Middle School

Shhh!  Did you hear that? It was the second bell. They’re COMING.  Skipping, tripping, sauntering and marching right down that hallway. Are you ready for your students? Because  make no mistake, they are ready for you! In an instant, the classroom goes from empty and silent to bursting with energy.

Let’s face it: we teachers all hope to begin our day with a calm, quiet, and orderly class. Unless those procedures are thoroughly taught and consistently upheld, though, we don’t always get our wish.  Our students, despite their protests, crave routine and structure. Their behavior asks for order – a reliable routine helps learners know exactly what is expected of them.

You can start your class period or day off right with bell ringers that get your students settled and give learning experiences that count! Here are some ways to make bell ringers meaningful.

Start each day (or period) with a bell ringer routine

Bellringers are a simple way to create and maintain this routine.  Each day when students enter the classroom, they will find directions for bell ringers in the exact same place. The beauty of this beginning activity is that it is not reliant upon new instruction.  Students can check in, make a lunch choice, and get down to business, even through the morning announcements. My bellringer bundles for ELA focus on a different area or skill for each day of the week!

Avoid “busy” work with bell ringers.

Making the most of the time we have is a critical part of teaching. There are many ways to quickly engage students in the classroom. The key is focusing on academic tasks rather than simply busy work. Coloring is not usually the best use of academic time in a middle school classroom, for example.  Bellringers can take many forms and be used to review all kinds of content.

Get focused with bell ringers.

Bellringers can help to get students focused right away. They can deliver the message that the classroom is a place of work not of just hanging out. If you’re going to talk, stay in the hall, but if you’re ready to learn, come on in and get busy!

Review academic content.

So what is a meaningful bellringer activity? Working through four or five math problems from yesterday’s lesson is a great way to spend ten minutes.  Other activities might include answering a few questions about the class read-aloud or summarizing the prior day’s learning in science. What we’re going for here is critical thinking – not just regurgitating vocabulary words by finding them in a word search. I love using Wednesdays to focus on sentence review addressing the CCSS 4-7 language standards. Reviewing grammar with bell ringers is a breeze with Wednesday sentences of the week ELA bell ringer bundle.

Start with words of inspiration.

Students appreciate authenticity, and everyone loves a quote. Quotes can be very engaging, and can really get the reader thinking about deep meaning. What does the author mean by this quote? Can you relate this quote to your own life? Another way to address deep meaning is to practice making inferences.  Students can spend a few minutes upon arrival interpreting a picture and writing inferences about it. In my classroom, we take Friday ELA bell ringers for the quote of the week. You’ll find these quotes in the ELA bell ringer bundle.

Efficiently using students’ time in a meaningful way sets the tone for learning for the rest of the day. Use this time wisely, and you’ll see crazy class periods turn into time well spent.