Classic Joke Tuesday

Q: Why do seagulls fly over the sea?

A: Because if they flew over the bay, they would be called bagels!

{Who doesn't love a good cheesy joke?}

I am constantly looking for & incorporating new engaging activities in my classroom. I think the Ellen Degeneres show is hysterical & while I do not have time to watch her every day, I do follow her on Twitter - where she does weekly Classic Joke Wednesday. This is something I look forward to and one day I thought, if I look forward to it then I am curious how having my own Classic Joke Day would work in my classroom for behavior management.  Let me tell you...it works FABULOUSLY! 

Each Tuesday morning I write a joke (with many grammatical mistakes such as capital letters in the wrong places, misspelled word wall words, incorrect punctuation, etc) on the board.  During morning meeting, we work as a class to correct the joke.  Once the joke is written on the board correctly, the joke is left on the board for the rest of the day (rewritten in a small corner so it doesn't take up too much space).  Even though the students REALLY want to know the answer, I tell them I cannot tell them the answer/if their guess is correct until after we have packed up for the day.  This has worked WONDERFULLY all year & {fingers crossed} it will continue to.

What I love best about this is that it takes up NO extra time at all as I do a morning message most every day!  A writing and reading lesson that serves as a behavior management tool, YES PLEASE! 

Also, while I get many of my jokes from the Ellen website {I do have to sometimes search through until I get an age-appropriate one} I am ALWAYS looking for a good joke - if you know of one, I'd love to hear it!