Throwback Thursday: Making Rules

Happy Thursday!

Joining with Cara at the First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday


I'm going to post about using Responsive Classroom to making rules. I'm actually going to combine 2 posts...one where I talked about it over the summer, and the one where I had pictures from the school year :)

August 19, 2012

As I get closer and closer to going back to work (my sympathies if you're already there!), I start thinking about rules and classroom management. I know a lot of you are doing Whole Brain Teaching, which comes with own set of rules, and some of you already have rules in place, but I thought I would share what I do (after all, isn't that why we all started blogging?)

I may have mentioned this before, but I have been trained in Responsive Classroom (for free! There was a trainer in one of the districts I worked in, and you better believe that I was one of the first people to sign up for it!). I use their approach to help me create the classroom rules with my students. It is a multi-day process, but I find kids are usually really good the first few days (the honeymoon effect :), so we don't need them. The best part of the process (in my opinion) is that the kids create the rules. And they can never say that's not fair since they came up with them!

The first thing I do is to talk about what my Hopes and Dreams are for the school year. Hopes and Dreams are things that I want to accomplish, or what I really what to learn about this year. I find that if I talk about my expectations for what I want to learn about, I get better responses from the kids.  There are some books to help kids with understanding hopes and dream to give them a better example.

Then I have the kids create their own Hopes and Dreams, and we display them in the room for the whole year. I've used balloon cut-out the past few years, but this year I am either going to use clouds or stars. There are MANY different ways to display Hopes and Dreams, depending on your style, grade level and kids.

Creating Hopes and Dreams is a one to two day process. The next day after we create our Hopes and Dreams, I ask the kids to share them and ask them what kinds of rules they think we need to make sure that everyone can reach their Hope and Dreams. I write their suggestions down on chart paper or sentence strips. Last year, my kids came up with 60 + rules!

Now comes the fun part. The next day, (after you have cute apart all the rules...this is why you might want to use sentence strips!), tell the kids that we are going to sort the rules, and see if we can find some commonalities so we can come up with a couple of rules, instead of trying to remember all of them.

Amazingly, all the rules the rules they come up with will fit into 1 of 3 categories: Respect for self; Respect for others; Respect for School/Materials. I always add on an addtional one...To have fun and try our best while learning. I always try to frame them in the positive, as I think the kids respond better.

I also model the rules for them whenever we do something (That's a big part of Responsive Classroom, interactive modeling, and it's just good teaching practice!) and ask the kids to show me the right and wrong way of following the rules.

Last year my rules were: Be a Good Learner and Thinker; Be a Good Friend; Be Responsible for School and Materials and To Have Fun While Learning.

These cover a multitude of things. That kid who is throwing things...not being a good friend or respecting materials. The kid who keeps talking out? Not being a good learner/thinker or a good friend.  That kid who can't work in groups and is always arguing with partners (I had like 7 of those last year!)? Not being a good learner or a good friend.

I always type these up after they are agreed upon, and have the kids sign them. I then display it with our Hopes and Dreams around them. From time to time, I remind them that they came up with the rules, not me, so they can't be unhappy with them.

If you are interested in learning more, I highly reccomend that you get this book:

Clicking on the book will take you to its Amazon page.

I hope this helps some of you! Please, if you have any questions, let me know, or go check out the Responsive Classroom website. Please note that RC has not contacted me or that I am being compensated in any way...I just truly believe in their methods!

September 3, 2012

Then we did the posters that I saw on Confessions of a Teaching Junkie . Some of their answers were so cute! They all agreed that school was important for learning and the future, and a lot of them thought that our classroom should be quiet (we'll see how long THAT lasts!) A lot of them wanted a teacher who was fun, funny, and nice. One friend said supportive and challenging, which I found interesting. We also talked about how they could help others learn, and how they could help themselves learn. Listening, focusing and paying attention were major for those :)

I used that activity and their Hopes and Dreams from the day before to segue into our rules. I told them in order to get those things done, we need to have rules. I explained that they were going to create the rules, and I would write down whatever they said. I used sentence strips to write them down (a change from last year, when I used chart paper, but sentence strips work better).

They kept those rules coming! One friend told me that they have never had so many rules in their classroom before. When they had exhausted their brains, I had them do a fun activity while I cut the rules apart. They came up with over 50 of them!

They aren't in any specific colors, I just grabbed a stack of strips and kept writing!

After they finished their activity, I wrote three words on the board. Me, Others, School/Supplies. We then read through all of the rules and decided which category it best fit it.

When they had all been sorted, we talked about how we could come up with ONE rule for each category that would say the same as the others. I guided them a little on the wording, and we all gave a thumbs up if they agreed with that rule.

Thumbs up all around for the three rules, and I told them I wanted to add a special one...Keep Miss M happy and have fun learning! They all said that was important (and, if they do something that isn't covered, I can ask them if it makes me happy. No happy, no do!)

 Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Throwback Thursday: Morning Meeting

Happy Thursday!

Joining with Cara at the First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday


I'm going to post about Morning Meeting-one of my favorite things! Unfortunately, due to the amount of kids I had in chorus and band (that of course took place first thing in the morning), I wasn't able to do Morning Meeting all year (although the kids missed it! I just didn't feel right doing it with 1/2 the class) Hopefully next year!

This is from July 18, 2012:

On one of my posts awhile back, I mentioned that I do Morning Meeting. I've had a few questions about how I run my Morning Meeting, so I thought I would share with you what I do.

The Morning Meeting format that I use comes straight from Responsive Classroom, which I was trained in a few years ago.

The are 4 sections to this Morning Meeting. Overall, Morning Meeting should be anywhere from 10-20 minutes, depending on grade level, things you choose to do/focus on, and attention span.

Every meeting starts with a Greeting. Students should be either greeted by the teacher, or each other every day. Greetings can be anything from a quick handshake, to a ball greeting. If you do not have a lot of time to devote to Morning Meeting, having a short Greeting is a place that you can save some time by doing something quick.

Greetings are important because it helps the children feel welcome and that they are appreciated and part of the community. New greetings should be introduced and modeled before having the students do it on their own.

The next section is Sharing. Students share something about themselves. At first, I would recommend a group share, which is asking a question and having the students respond (favorite color, food, etc.). I would slowly move to individual shares, where students could share whatever they wished (although I would limit that number of students who would share in a day, probably no more than 3 a meeting).

Sharing is important because it helps the students feel a part of a the community, and that we really care what is going on with them and their lives.

The third section is the Activity, which is a game that you play with the students. It's great community and team building, and usually gets the students up and moving and their brains working. Activities should be introduced step by step and modeled thoroughly.

The last part of Morning Meeting is the Morning Message. Depending on your grade level, your Message will look different. The Message lets the students know what is upcoming in the day, things they did well yesterday and can be a part of the activity, if you ask a questions on the bottom.

A lot of teachers also use their Message to practice sight words, grammar, fill in the blanks and more. Especially in the younger grades, the Message should be read a couple of times, once by the teacher and then as a group read as the class. In the older grades, you can move the responsibility of reading the message from the teacher to the students.

So those are the 4 parts of my Morning Meeting. I have a few book recommendations if you are interested in starting Morning Meeting. It takes a bit of time to set it up in the beginning, but it is well worth it and a great community building activity!

If you can only buy one, this is it! It has the structure, and greeting and activities in the back!

This is also another good resource.

Great for Activities, leveled for grades

Gives a good idea on how to structure your message for different grade levels

Really good resource, split up by grade level, has plans for the first 6 weeks

If you click on each book, it will take you to its Amazon page.
I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any more questions, please let me know!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Throwback Thursday: Interesting Interviews

Happy Thursday!

I really should be packing (I move into my new apartment next week!! :), but am procrastinating by looking at blogs and hooking (not on the corner ;).

Joining with Cara at the First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday



This is one of my first posts from June 8, 2012:


This Monday we had a Reading/Math Share for our staff meeting (with prizes!). We were instructed to come with an activity/something to do to show and explain to our peers. 1st, 3rd and 5th were sitting at tables while 2nd and 4th walked around to 'see' all of the ideas. After about 15-20 minutes, we switched.

I wanted to share with y'all what I shared with my co-workers (we're all peers, right?). The 3rd and 5th grade teachers were really excited about my idea, and asked for the template so they could use it in their classrooms! (Which makes me feel really good since this was my first and last year at this school, and makes me feel better about myself as a teacher)

What I shared was a way to do character interviews. It's a really good way for students to think about character traits, summarizing, inferencing. The finished product looks like this:

What you do is read a story (or have the kids read a story) (this is the one I read for the example...it's a very cute story!)

Have the students pick a character from their story. They are to 'interview' their character, asking them questions about their feelings, experiences, etc. They then have to answer the questions the way they think the character will answer the questions based on the meaning they gain from the story. Here's the kicker...they only have 4 questions!

They make a foldable and they have 4 panels to ask and answer their questions. The questions go on the outside of each flap, and the answers go on the inside of each flap.

In the center of the foldable (the part they glue down to the back paper) they draw a picture of the character they interviewed.

The kids really enjoy doing this because it is like an arts-n-crafts activity, but they still get to show their learning. You might have to be careful though...some kids get really involved with the drawing and forget about the 'interviewing'!

We did this after we finished our fairy tale unit, and I had the kids pick their favorite fairy tale character. They did such an excellent job on them and some of their questions were really creative and in-depth.

I got this idea from this book, which I HIGHLY recommend for any and all teachers. Mine in the 4-6 version, but they also have a 2-3 version as well.

This was one of my first purchases after finding out I was teaching 4th grade (most of my experience and books are in the K-1 grades), and well worth the price ($18.99 through Amazon, and I think that you get also get it through Teacher's Express (watch for their Dollar Deals!)).  The book also has some recommendations how on to use this foldable in different content areas as well. I hope you found this helpful!


I hope you enjoyed it!


Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn