ATTENDANCE, PLEASE!

One of the favorite jobs in my kindergarten was “attendance.” One child each day got to call roll and mark their friends as “present” with a check or “absent” with a zero. I would often encourage the child taking attendance to say, “Good morning (child’s name)” and to have the child respond, “Good morning (child’s name).” 

                 

I was looking through some old notes on creative thinking and I remembered I used some of these other techniques to call roll. For example, I might ask, “What color best describes you?” and the children could answer the color as I called their names. (It’s amazing how some of their answers matched their personalities.) Questions like these encourage all children to “think outside the box” because there are no right or wrong answers. Here are a few starters:

         If you were an animal, what would you be?
         If you found a genie in a bottle, what would you wish for?
         If you were a candy bar, what would you be?
         What is the theme song for your life?
         What book character would you like to change places with?
         If you found $100, what would you buy?
         If you could go on a magic carpet ride, where would you go?
         Happiness is…
         If you were the teacher what would you do?
         How old would you like to be?
                         

                               
*You could also use the above statements to make a language experience chart or use them as writing prompts.