Bellringers: A Warm-Up Activity for Braille Students

• Given a variety of topics, such as school subjects, nature, games, sports, movies, foods, etc., students create one question per topic. They must have five topic choices.
• They advance three lines between each one, because I am going to cut them apart.
• I then emboss a copy with the students' questions on them.
• Each day, the students will read a different bellringer, which they will discuss and then braille their own responses.
• Once completed with the bellringer of the day, they put a separation line.
• Students learn the different ways to ask a question and also learn to develop higher-order thinking skills in the process.
• The teacher (me) reads the bellringer, checking the braille, and sometimes the peers check each other's braille, too.
• I have a daily helper and that person is the one who reads the bellringer. 
• I give 10 points per bellringer’s answer. I don’t care what the answers are (unless they are supposed to relate to a factual question), but they have to refer to the subject and I count off for format and braille boo-boos. 1 point off for each. So in one bellringer, a student can get anywhere from a 5-10.  If more than five errors, I just stop at 5. Each day we address the errors made and their goal is to avoid that mistake with next braille.

Example from St. Patrick's Day:

Sample Questions for St. Patrick's Day Bellringer:

• Monday:  If the 4-leaf clover is said to bring good luck, what does the 3-leaf clover bring?
• Tuesday:  What if there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, what difference would it make?
• Wednesday:  What did you think St. Patrick's job was?

Sample Answers:

• Some answers for #1: “A three-leaf clover would not be worth much.” “Three times the luck!”
• #2: “It’s not going to make any difference if there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow because you can’t reach it anyway.” Another wrote: “ It would make a whole lot of difference if a pot of gold is in a rainbow, if I found it, I would be rich.”
• #3: “St. Patrick was a preacher.”  Another: “ St. Patrick was a farmer.” Answer: “I don’t know what St. Patrick did, but he must have known a lot of people.”

High school students wrote these questions, but a teacher can get so many great questions from all ages and they really like to try to answer questions that their peers wrote.