However, I DO have a magician's hat and I do use it as a prop to get attention and to motivate learners. Here are 3 examples of how I use my magic hat:
On the first day of kindergarten each year, I show the children my magician's hat. It is filled with balls of white playdoh. I tell the children that I heard somewhere that if they can make their playdoh change color, it means that kindergarten is going to be a really fun place. This is not an original idea of mine. In 2001, HBO produced a mini-series documenting an entire year in a kindergarten classroom. I must give credit to the clever teacher, Jennifer Johnson, for this creative activity. Anyway, unbeknownst to the children, I have buried a small nugget of Playdoh in the center of each white ball. As the children smash, squeeze, and roll their ball, a new color appears along with all sorts of excited voices! It's a great ice-breaker activity. I got the recipe for white playdoh HERE. After the kindergarteners play with it for a short while, they each put it in their own personalized ziplock baggie and use it at school for several weeks. Properly stored, it actually lasts all year but I think it probably gets pretty germ-y after a few weeks so we dispose of it.
During the first month of school, the students start learning to read one another's names. One activity to promote this learning is selecting the daily classroom helper. I write each student's name on a sentence strip taking care to write the letters in the names so that 6 letter names are longer than 5 letter names which are longer than 4 letter names and so on. I put all the names in my magician's hat and announce, "Watch me pull a rabbit out of the hat!" When a lot of voices call out, "No!" then I agree, saying, "You are right! I am NOT a magician. I'm a teacher. I pull WORDS out of my hat." After I pull out the card with the name of that day's helper, we do a number of activities to compare that name with other names on a pocket chart. You can read my post "Helper Charts" to learn more.
My third example of how I use my magician's hat is a mathematical one. At the end of all of our numeracy-based lessons, I pass out a simple exit ticket to each student. I actually prepare two versions of the exit ticket so that neighbors receive different versions. This makes it a little harder to copy off of someone. I wear my magician's hat while they complete the exit ticket on their own. After a student finishes her exit ticket, she stands. When everyone at her table is standing, that group comes up and puts their exit tickets in my magician's hat. After we are all gathered on our mat spots, I pull out an exit ticket, make sure it was correctly done, share it with the class, and that student gets to be first to exit the room for recess (or at the end of the day.) I do keep track of who has been thusly rewarded so that everyone gets a turn. This is a culminating activity that is fun and educational, of course.
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