Jack Johnson's "We're Going to be Friends" is cute some for an assembly, or class slideshow to promote friendship and positive interactions between students.
Wordle (as previously blogged about here), is a web tool which creates beautiful word clouds.
I have used Wordle twice with my students; the first as an adjectives activity where they had to think of words that described themselves, and the second as a Warm Fuzzy activity, where each child was assigned a partner they had to describe and create a word cloud for. These were printed off and laminated for classroom display.
I LOVE this display poster detailing student's group work behaviour expectations.
It makes a great reference particularly during Literacy Group work as students are expected to work together completing different activities, all in the same room.
I'll never forget one of those chain emails I used to get all the time when I was younger; this particular one was about a student named Mark Eklund who carried around a slip of paper in his wallet of nice things his peers had written about him during a school activity.
Every year now, in my class, we complete what I like to call, a "Warm Fuzzy", where students write something nice about each of their classmates, to make them fell all 'warm and fuzzy' on the inside.
Sometimes the students take these home laminated, but I have also displayed them to remind students that we are all friends and that we are all special.
Found this quote on Pinterest and jazzed it up for classroom display.
Sometimes the little ones can't seem to understand why some accommodations are made for some students, be it academic or behaviour. By being honest and reasoning with them, I have found that despite age, most kids understand that others experience more hardship/difficulties and accommodations need to be made so that all have the tools to succeed.
We had these gorgeous wooden trees in each of our rooms at my workplace last year and I wanted to use them for something other than dressing up my book corner. So I turned it into a behaviour chart!
Each student had an 'apple' (I edited mine from Sparkle Box) and they were arranged around the centre of the tree.
Those with beautiful behaviour were allowed to move their apple up the tree whilst those exhibiting unacceptable behaviour had to move down the tree.
Ever heard the story of the philosophy professor who filled a jar with rocks? He asked his students if they thought it was full, and they agreed it was. He then tipped smaller pebbles into the jar and they slid between the larger rocks. The students thought it was full now. The professor then poured sand into the jar and it filled up all the remaining cracks in the jar. The professor likened these items to life, saying the rocks were the important things that made their life complete (family, love, health); the pebbles were other things that matter (job, house, car) and the sand is all the small stuff in life (insignificant things). If the professor had filled the jar up with the sand (smaller, insignificant stuff), there would be no room for the rocks or pebbles, similarly if he had put the pebbles in first there would be no room for the rocks, and so on. The moral of the professor's story was to pay specific attention to that which was critical to one's happiness in life. His message was to take care of the 'rocks' (priorities) first, and all else would follow.
In teaching this concept to my students, we literally completed this task; students filled up a jar with items and then discussed the important things in life and identified the insignificant things that hold us back from being happy.
Told to them at the beginning of the year, the story was a great reference throughout the remainder of the year; to always look at the bigger picture and to not take things in life for granted.
'Please', 'thank you', 'I'm sorry', 'may I?' 'excuse me' and 'you're welcome' .... all good manners we want reinforced in the clasroom. So here's a little display I purchased from Dominie: it's the Garden of Good Manners!
Student of the Week: a great incentive for younger children.
I
bought this wall display at Dominie and have it displayed year-round.
One student is chosen weekly (based on good behaviour or focus on
academic work) to have their name displayed. They are also given a Star
Student sticker and a small merit award to keep.
(Hint: laminate the stars! I also use sticky-back velcro dots instead of blu-tak on the poster)
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