6 Types of Science Bellringers to Start Your Class

The first few minutes of class will determine the atmosphere of the rest of the class period. If the students are milling around, talking to each other or gathered around your desk, it can be very hard to bring them back to task.

Science bellringers help the students learn responsibility and accountability while you use the first few moments of class for attendance and any immediate needs.

Why Use Bellringers?

I am a big advocate of accountability from the beginning of class until the end. I also don’t believe in testing being the only way students contribute to their final grade. I give students points each day upon completion of bellringers, daily rubrics, etc. If you are thinking that sounds like a nightmare keeping track of all these points it is not!

I do what I call “reverse grading”. I only write down the students who did NOT complete the activity. Later, I can go back and fill in my gradebook.

I am particularly fond of bellringers that summarize what we have been working on in class.  They can also give me an idea of past knowledge at the beginning of a unit. 

How Do We Keep Bell Ringers Organized?

My students have digital notebooks so we simply have a separate Google Slides notebook just for the bell ringers. I have seen other teachers divide a notebook, with the back section meant for answering questions from bellringers. You can also hand out half sheets of paper and recollect them.

A template can be created where a week’s worth of bell ringers are in one place. My classes are shorter on Fridays so I tend to only do four bell ringers a week. Dividing a page/slide into four sections works out perfectly for me. 

Types of Bellringers

In order to keep the students from becoming bored from one style of bellringers, I have pulled together several categories of the types of activities you can do. I prefer to have the activity echo what I am doing in class, rather than an isolated, random assignment. My allotted time for content is very limited, but I still believe that an activity at the beginning of the class is important.

I have broken the categories down into:

• Preparation for the day
• Review of previous material
• Skills practice
• Critical thinking
• Reflection 
• Assessment

First and foremost, the procedure for the beginning of the class must be modeled during the first few days, or even weeks, of school. Students won’t automatically understand that they must quickly enter the classroom, access the bell ringer and get to work on it right away.

Category #1: Preparation For The Day Bellringers

• Single statement where the students predict the outcome of today’s lab based on reading the lab procedure the night before.
• Students define keywords that will be used for the upcoming class.
• A list of the lab materials with a checklist for them to gather equipment and be ready for the lab.
• Ask a question that will determine the amount of previous knowledge students have of the concept.
• Break a pretest down into smaller sections.

Category #2: Review Warm-ups

• Multiple choice questions about the information from the day before.
• Label a diagram. (example: Label the Skeleton plus many more in my Science by Sinai store)
• Practice any equations or calculations from the last few days. (example: Take problems from this acceleration practice worksheet)
• Recap the conclusion of yesterday’s lab.
• Questions from previous bell ringers.
• Let students write test questions.
• Sentence on the board and students write a paragraph to support it.

Category #3: Skills Practice Science Starter

• Read and interpret a data chart.
• Read a paragraph and summarize the main points.
• Review Punnett squares or other processes.
• Graph data on different types of graphs.
• Measure something with a ruler, elapsed time questions, analog clock practice, find the mass, density, volume etc.(measurement bundle)

Category #4: Critical Thinking Bell Ringers

• CER image prompts- Students study a photograph and develop a claim, gather evidence and then support the reasons for their conclusions.
• Ask students to prove true or false statements.
• Short video with questions.
• Have you ever seen…? Tell about it. 
• Read a short story and they write multiple choice questions.
• Mystery photographs- observe and answer questions.

Category #5: Reflection Warm Ups

• Journal entry about yesterday’s class.(student journal)
• Question of the day- this can be related or unrelated to your unit.
• Opinions about a current event topic. (Not political)
• A private note to the teacher about any needs they have.
• Let students write about something interesting they learned lately outside of your class.

Category #6: Assessment Science Starter

• Short 10 question quiz. (example: Use part of this FREE quiz on the skeleton.)
• Fill in blanks quiz from yesterday’s class.
• Have students explain the outcome of a recent lab.
• Questions from the State Standards practice tests.

Conclusion

There are many places to buy the science bellringers online but I prefer to tailor mine to my specific needs. Once you have created a year’s worth of bell ringers, they can be reused. 

I have also had early finishers create bell ringers, which they love to do!