The Self Nurtured TeacherTM
The Self Nurtured TeacherTM
Posing “Would You Rather” prompts, or questions, encourages critical thinking skills from students to determine which of two different, yet equally favorable, choices they would rather make.
Students are shown the visual and asked to choose between the two options. This is where critical thinking skills come into play because many students might really want to do both options. They must weigh the pros and cons in their mind to ultimately choose one.
The example below is from my Would You Rather Prompts for Kindergarten or First Grade google slides and is one of the October slides. Presenting choices that are relevant to the season, weather, or school happenings creates an even more engaging experience for students.
Decision making is one of the five core competencies for Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Would You Rather Prompts help integrate SEL development with the use of engaging prompts that generate discussions, opinions, and learning extensions (such as data collection, compare & contrast, and writing).
Here are 3 simple ways you can use Would You Rather Prompts during the school day:
There are 4 parts to a responsive classroom morning meeting:
During the sharing aspect of morning meeting, students are talking about something significant to them. This is different than show and tell. During sharing, students are not bringing objects in. It’s a time to learn more about each student and build classroom community and unity.
Would You Rather Prompts are a fun and low risk way to have students share. When introduced in a way that values all answers and being a person that makes a decision based on what they prefer, your classroom becomes a place where different points of view are valued and celebrated.
I suggest using a Would You Rather Prompt no more than 2 times a week to keep this strategy fresh and interesting. If you’re not sure how to structure this or other responsive classroom morning meeting plans, I create 4 week monthly already done for you morning meeting plans with Would You Rather Prompt slides already embedded. I’ll be adding the upcoming months soon, but right now you can get SEPT Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting Slides for Kindergarten (or first grade) in my TPT Store.
The turn and talk strategy has many benefits and can be used throughout the school day.
This strategy works well because students can share their ideas with one other student to start. That way each student is given a chance to have their voice heard even if not in the whole group discussion. Turn and talk also helps ESL students develop their language acquisition in a low risk way.
Number sense is an important part of mathematics instruction, especially in the elementary years. Would You Rather Prompts are a great way to collect data in an engaging way to kick off your math block. The choices do not need to be math related. Instead, pose the question and record the responses with tally marks, or whatever data collection system you may use.
This simple 2 minute strategy has now given you an amount for each choice that can be used for:
By using an engaging Would You Rather Prompt to start math, students are getting primed for taking about numbers without realizing it. It’s a way to show how math concepts are used in everyday life.
In my Would You Rather Prompts Google Slides, I’ve included editable tally boxes next to each choice.
TRANSITIONS! If your class is challenged to transition between tasks or leaving the classroom (i.e. lunch and recess), bring them to do a Would You Rather Prompt. You could bring them to the carpet, to their table or desk spots, standing in line…wherever works for you to get them together and settled before moving onto the next thing.
I spent many years randomly thinking of prompts and putting ones together the day of. Although it’s not a challenging concept, it still takes time to think of the choices and getting them ready to present. 5-10 minutes each day adds up to a lot of planning time lost each week.
I finally decided to work smarter, not harder, by putting 100 Would You Rather Prompts into google slides that would take me through the year. There are 10 slides for each month Sept-June. That’s about 2 slides a week.
I put these google slides in my TPT store for other busy teachers (like you) that don’t want to take the time to create the prompts and want to have them ready to go. You can grab yours here:
