Popsicle Stick PQA

I picked this one up from the elementary classrooms I subbed in.  When students came in, they had certain "housekeeping" chores they needed to do before getting to work on an activity already prepared for them.  I loved subbing in these classes because students had a routine that got them ready for learning and in the "school" mindset.  Often, one of these routines was to move a marker with their name to another location as part of a choice.  For instance, one class had a can with Popsicle sticks with all of their names on them, and they had to move the Popsicle stick to another can to indicate whether they had cold lunch or their choice for hot lunch.  What I loved most about this was that it made attendance easy - I simply wrote down the names of the Popsicle sticks that were left!  I hadn't figured out an attendance routine I really liked, so I was determined to figure out how to incorporate this into my classrooms.

It dawned on me that this would be an excellent way to lead into PQA!  I could have a question written on the board - either a question with words they know or a question with new words and translated - and multiple choices.  As students come in, they know they'll need to read the question and move their stick to their choice, then get started on a warm-up in their notebooks.  Then, we could do PQA and a discussion based on their responses.  It could be as simple as observing how many students chose each item (counting practice!) and moving on, or you could dive into a full PQA lesson.  Either way, routines are established that prepare students for learning, attendance is taken care of, and you have a starting point for discussion!

Note: I would generally double check or read off the "absent" names.  It's easy to double check whether the correct names have been moved by doing a quick head-count and comparing that to the number of people absent. If there's a discrepancy, then some sort of discipline would be in line.  In my class, to avoid a "who did it" issue, I'd likely take away some of the marbles they've earned as a class.