PAT (Preferred Activity Time) Fridays

From our game "Mono Malo" where kids look for
the "Mono malo" and the rest of us count in Spanish
while they look! Based off of Bryce Hedstrom's "el bebé feo" game.

This year, I have been trying out something new after wanting to for awhile.

Don't get me wrong.  My classes are generally good as far as behavior.  I have kids who don't always look at me or try to put their heads down like in any class.  I do my best to point at the expectations and remind them when they fail them.  Letting them know that is what I expect of them because it's part of their 50%.

But I teach at a school where we use Block Scheduling (4 - 90 minute periods every day)

What I found was that classes were really long and although I've found ways to break it up, it was hard to keep the steam going all year.


I tried to get the kids to buy into doing things for class and not waste time in transitions.  So for time on task, we get 1 minute of PAT for every 10 minutes on task.  They'll also get PAT for leftover time when they accomplish a task (get a worksheet, put back their free voluntary reading books, etc)

They bank this time until Friday and then they have PAT, where we play little (not highly prepped) games to review information from stories or practice other things like numbers, the alphabet, etc.

The good:

• I do have some kids who really enjoy it! They will come to class and say, "Oh right, there's PAT today!"
• this has also been a time where we do group activities, which has helped the kids get to know one another more in class (since they might not know anyone!)
• it can be really fun
• great thing to have on Fridays since the energy level is already high

The bad:

• each section will have a Friday class every other week!  That's way too spaced out.  
• sometimes because it's every other Friday they might get 45+ minutes
• I don't always do a great job of keeping track of their minutes
• some weeks at this school, there might be a day off and then the same class has PAT two Fridays in a row

Room for Improvement:

• maybe PAT every day that they have accumulated that same day... or every 1-2 days
• I almost need someone in class to count down the minutes and bonuses and write them on the board for me and record them on a chart...

For more information on PAT, check out Fred Jones.