Implementing Morning Meeting~{It's my BIGGEST Blog Series Ever!}

Through the end of August, all of September, and part of October, I will be focusing my Saturday mornings at Tarheelstate Teacher on the Community Meeting {aka Morning Meeting}. I have been working really hard on this blog series and I'm so excited to share with you all that I have planned. I LOVE thinking and talking about Morning Meeting, so this series is putting me in my "back to school" zone!

I love, love, love morning meeting and the community that it creates in my classroom. My first days of school will be spent having many community-building conversations with my students under the umbrella of the Community Meeting. I hope you will follow this series and learn more about why I'm dedicated to the community meeting!

1) Why I Devote Classroom Time to Community Meetings
2) The Design of My Community Meeting Program
3) Why Have a Theme-Based Community Meeting?
4) Materials and Resources for Preparing for Your Community Meetings
5) Launching Community Meeting at the Beginning of the Year {or anytime!}
6) A Look at Day by Day in the Community Meeting
7) Scheduling the Community Meeting
8) What if “I Still Can’t Fit it In!”?
9) Problem Solving Classroom Issues: a structure for when you need it!
10) (Do you need to) Justify Your Classroom Meeting?

I'll come back to Life, Love, Literacy to link-up the blog posts as they go live each Saturday, but it'd be great if you go ahead and follow Tarheelstate Teacher on bloglovin' and you won't have to worry about missing a thing!

Did you see this? It's my "first day of school" step-by-step community meeting lesson and it includes free student journal pages and bulletin board materials!

And did you grab this free list of my favorite back to school read alouds? I took it with me to the library this week to start collecting read alouds for my first few weeks of school! 

~Morning Meeting Made Easy! Set 1 Ready~

It's finally finished! My Morning Meeting Made Easy set is ready to go for your classroom community meetings!

First, let me say, I call my morning meeting by a few different names: morning meeting, classroom meeting, and community meeting. Having our classroom meeting in the mornings doesn't always fit into our schedules, right?

Last year, I decided to try a theme-based morning meeting and loved it! I created a list of themes for personal development, came up with related vocabulary words, and found quotes to match the themes. I created posters for each theme so that I could display our community themes all year for us to refer back to. I also used key read alouds to initiate my discussions with students about the theme. From this idea grew "Morning Meeting Made Easy." Not only does the set include the posters for each theme, but I created student journal pages and teacher overviews that suggest read alouds, possible activities, and videos or songs that connect to the theme. This product is seriously READY to GO, except for grabbing the picturebooks! I'm so excited to have this set completed because Morning Meeting will be so much easier for me to plan for this year!

My morning meeting may be a little different than what you are used to seeing (google morning meeting and you may find calendar lessons, name games, get-to-know you activities, and morning messages). I have found morning meeting to be more typical of a lower-grades classroom, but I wanted my morning meetings to focus less on getting to know each other and more on getting to know ourselves and more about humanity. How do humans treat each other, why do we act the way we do, and what can we do to act more like how we believe we should? I also use classroom meetings to problem solve any classroom issues that have popped up.

My first morning meeting set focuses on belonging, kindness, compassion, conflict, and perseverance. I think all of these themes are important to discuss at the beginning of the year!

The shift in how I use and plan for my mornings meetings actually aligns perfectly with what I have done in past years with personal goal setting. For each theme, students have a journal page where they self-reflect and set a personal goal for improving in that theme. At the end of the week, students return to their goal to reflect on how they have improved or how their thinking has changed. (Students should have lots of ideas and opportunities to make improvements on the goal because you have continued the conversation all week!) Through our classroom meetings, I encourage personal improvement, character development, and community building.

Each theme's journal pages include a cover page with the theme, quotations, and key vocabulary, a self-assessment/reflection page, a 3 questions and illustration page that helps students analyze the theme and think of real life examples, and a quotation and video reflection sheet. Other goodies include sheets for making connections between read alouds and quotations, word brainstorms, and beginning middle, and end sheets. You will surely see many ways to extend the lessons and journal pages for your students. These journal pages are meant to support your instruction and classroom discussions.

To have a quick reference for teaching through each theme, I put together teacher overviews. Instead of having to search for read alouds, videos, and related songs to use, you have a quick list to get you started and can add to this with books you are already familiar with.

In my next post, I share a day-by-day possible teaching sequence. Two sets of Morning Meeting themes are now available. If you want to check out the theme sets up close, you can download my belonging set freebie!

Peek at My Week~Back to School Tomorrow!!

It's finally time! 

Here's a peek at my upcoming week! 

 

Farley’s Currently for the Classroom for JULY (I plan to use Currently every month this year! These will be great assignments to post in the hallway and I think Kiddos will love to see what was happening for them month to month.

  

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have fallen in love with morning meeting. Last year, I tried to squeeze it in from 8-8:15, but this year, I want to give it more time on the schedule, so I have blocked off 8-8:25. I have also begun working on a "Year's Worth of Morning Meeting Themes and Ideas" so that teachers can have a morning meeting resource ready for the whole year. This is going to take a little while to complete, but what you see above are the themes I am introducing this week. Basically, I want to have a quote, key words w/ definitions, read alouds, and videos/modern songs to match each morning meeting theme. In the future, we will focus on one theme for a week, however, I plan to introduce 5 important "beginning of the year" themes this week and spiral back to them in following weeks. I hope to get to belonging, kindness, perseverance, and legacy during this week's morning meetings.

Here's a peak at my morning meeting bulletin/display boards. I love the clothespins because I can just take down an old theme and put a new one up. (I also plan to have a display board in the room of past themes so that they stay on our minds). By the end of the week, we will definitely have identified a few classroom goals.

In addition to focusing on a theme per week, students will also have "Morning Meeting" journals this year. This will hold their reflections on the quotes we talk about and reflections on their personal goal setting. Who knows what else will end up in these notebooks--I'm sure we will have some classroom issues that need to be solved, so our brainstorms will also go in these notebooks. Basically, morning meeting is a therapeutic time to focus on being better human beings. I CAN'T WAIT to start our mornings like this! This week I will introduce each theme with a read aloud:

Launching Reader's Workshop Plans:

The goals for reader's workshop are simple this week. We won't have a ton of time to launch the full workshop with independent reading, but we will:

-learn about ourselves as readers (and share that with the teacher)

-discuss how to have our best reading life ever

-learn how to use our classroom library by understanding how it is organized

-set up our book bins with books that we are interested in reading

-set up our reader's workshop journals

-identify a book that is an "old favorite" and a book that we abandoned or struggled to read last year (won't this assignment give you sooo much info about your readers?) These books will be important in two future lessons I plan to do

-leave school with a "just right" book

-learn to set ambitious goals for our daily reading lives

Monday: Quick review of what it means for a book to be "just right;" explore classroom library and discuss how it is organized (maybe split class in half to work with two small groups and then come together to discuss these topics)

Tuesday: Read Alouds Aunt Chip; "I read Because sheet"; discuss ideal reading space and encourage students to create this space at home tonight

Wednesday: Aunt Chip; T-Chart: Reading is the best for me when/I don't enjoy reading when

Thursday: That Book Woman- How to Choose a Just Right book, finding books we love

Friday: Richard Wright and the Library Card (reading is a gift; people in the past have had to fight hard to receive this gift)

After lunch, we have a 20 minute block before we go to specials. I plan to do the following "fun" read alouds during this time.

When the kids return from specials, we are going to spend a lot of time on our first chapter book read aloud: Wonder by RJ Palacio. And, then we are going to organize all of our notebooks and materials.

Math and Writing will be my two subject areas that take a little while to get started. At some point, we will cover/decorate our writers notebooks and do at least a few journals/lists of writing ideas/etc. In math, I will definitely do some multiplication facts games to see who needs to study more and perhaps we will do something with our Common Core Math Mathematical practices, which we call norms.

It is a BUSY week for sure!! Are you exhausted yet? If you are still on break, lucky ducks! Although, I am pretty excited to get back into the swing of things and to enjoy this first week of school excitement!

Reading Tests: Questioning Lessons

Earlier this week, I shared my Thinking Through Reading Tests materials, including Reading Question Sorts for Grades 3-8th based on the NC ELA Released Test. (Since the test questions are Common Core aligned, I believe the sorts will be useful to many other states as well).

What’s the purpose of having students sort questions independent of reading the text?
Allowing students to closely analyze questions helps them to make generalizations about the types of questions they can predict will be on the test and that they can expect for specific genres. Yes, you can do the sort for them and hand them a list of questions, but allowing them to come up with generalizations about the test questions takes your “test prep” from teacher-centered to student centered and considers testing a “genre” or “type of text” rather than an unpredictable “test.”

Today I wanted to share how our questioning lessons are going.
Day 1:  I had students work in partners to sort the questions into categories that made sense to them. It was interesting (and telling) to see what kind of categories students came up with on their own. I went around from group to group listening to their ideas and pushing them to reconsider some of the questions they had placed in different categories. (We completed this sort prior to the kids reading the text--based on my experience, you can decide what kind of question MOST of them are without reading the text yet.)

Day 2: I gave students a copy of my Question-Answer-Relationship handout. I went through each type of question (which was review from last year) and then had them meet with their partner again to sort the questions into these four categories. Now, not having read the text, there are a few questions that fall between two of the types of questions.

Day 3: During minilesson,  I gave each student two of the question cards and decided to start the lesson with the ones I had leftover. (Totally random, no strategic planning here). I called out one of my questions and we discussed where we would place it~"Right There/There and There," "Inferencing," "Overalls," or "Apply Prior Knowledge." Then, I asked students to raise their hands and share if they had a question like the one we had just categorized. Students read their questions one-by-one and we decided as a class if it fit the category. We continued until we had grouped and classified all questions. You can see our findings in the picture below. Each of these categories helps students tap into what skills and strategies they should use to answer the questions given. For example, if I have an overall question, I am going to pull from the beginning, middle, and end of the text (or a specific paragraph).

Here's how our questions fell into the categories:
"Right There/There and There"
* Literal Questions-We can go right back to the text and put our fingers on these.
Example: "Based on the selection, how did Roberto get to see the game?"
* Compare/Contrast Questions (need us to use information in two different places in the text)
Example: "How are butterflies and mosquitoes different?"; "Which statement shows a way some insects are similar to spiders?"

"Inferencing"
* Interpreting Figurative Language questions, using context clues for unknown words, and comprehension questions that go beyond the literal
Examples: "In paragraph 19, what is meant by 'Roberto's heart was in his stomach"?; "In the selection, what can be inferred about how the people viewed the old man?"; "What does the word shabbily mean as it is used in the text?"

"Overalls"
* Main idea, summary, theme, generalizing, author's point of view, etc.
Examples: "Which statement summarizes the theme of the selection?"; "What main ideas are supported by the selection?"

"Apply Prior Knowledge"
NONE!
***We talked about how none of the questions on our test would be true "prior knowledge" questions and that all of the questions were text-dependent. Now, when we take our SCIENCE EOG, ALLLLLLLLLLLL of the questions will fall under "prior knowledge." Interesting findings!

What are some ways I can use the questions for sorting?
• I think all sorts should be completed with partners or in small groups to encourage students to discuss what they are noticing and negotiate the categories.
• Allow students to sort the questions into any categories they see and then discuss as a group. (This would work well before you have introduced any of your Question-Answer-Relationship lessons and your “how to answer questions” lessons)
•After teaching your QAR lesson, have students re-sort the questions into the 4 categories (“Right There/There and There,” “Inferencing,” “Overall,” and “Apply Prior Knowledge.”) Within the 4 categories for QAR, see if you can come up with different types of each category. For example, “overall” questions include main idea, summarizing, theme, etc. while “inferencing” questions also include context clue questions because you use the text and your mind to infer word meaning.

My full Thinking Through Reading Questions Bulletin Board/Minilesson/Questioning Strategy Materials can be found here! 

Thinking through Reading Tests~FINALLY!

 My test prep product is finally ready to share. I have created a "Test-Prep" Minilessons Bulletin Board that I use to review strategies for reading comprehension that I have taught students all year long. This board allows me to move from what students KNOW about reading in general to how that applies to reading for a reading test.

This method considers “test prep passages” as another reading genre that students develop an understanding of how the test/passages are designed. (I’m sure you have done this all year with poetry, nonfiction, realistic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, opinion-based articles, etc.) Together, you and your students discover how a test is put together AND how what you have taught them to do all year as intelligent readers still applies in the setting of “test reading.”

My version of Question-Answer-Relationship is based off of the types of questions on our Reading EOG. All questions can be classified as "Right There"/"There and There," "Inferencing," "Overalls," and "Apply Prior Knowledge." Once studnets realize what question type they are working with, they can then go about the appropriate steps to figure out the right answer. I love these four types because it helps me remind my students that there are questions that ARE NOT directly answered by the text. The test will require them to THINK (at least a little) for themselves and use the knowledge they have learned.

I use a 4 step method to help students when they are finally answering questions. (WE do ALOT of work before we ever touch the questions!) I guide them through learning how to reword the questions (when necessary), mark out the obviously wrong answer (or 2), collect clues for the other answer choices, then make an educated decision (not a guess!) based on the information they have collected. Students are also required to write evidence (for or against) for each of the 4 answer choices. By the time they do this, they have typically figured out the right answer. You may decide to only use one of these questioning strategies (as I have in the past).

We are still in the beginning stages of our test prep because I know what my kiddos were capable of last year. We are still reading our independent books and I am conferring with students during our independent time. I'm sure we will dabble in reading and answering some of the passages this week, but I didn't want to get them started to soon (as 5th graders) and then have them burn out closer and closer to the test. Our first few lessons this week will be analyzing the types of questions they will be asked and talking about how we should think to answer those types of questions. I have typed up all of the Reading EOG questions from 3rd-8th grades for a student sorting lesson. This is included in the test prep download, but I have also uploaded it as a freebie (since I didn't write the questions myself, but made the sort so that we could use the questions in a different way). You may want to check out the grade levels before and after you as you work with students. I was uber surprised that 5th grade had no text-based features types of questions (we have NO NO NO graphics in our released set at all), but looking at 3rd or 4th (can't remember), they did have some text-feature based questions. Of course, I don't want my kiddos to be surprised by anything.

Although I am preparing my students for testing (3 weeks away), I have lived by this ALL (of-my-teaching-career) YEAR!

Sorry if this post is choppy or less-than-explained! But, I spent almost~the~whole~day trying to get this product together (and ready for me to use this week!) so I really wanted to get it shared with you all!

~Writing Riddles for Mini-Research: Minilesson Magic

Common Core requires that students perform mini-research projects throughout the year. The part that I have trouble with is how something can be "mini" while also "meaningful." I tend to dig deep on our writing units. How can we write smaller and make our kids smarter writers at the same time?

Warning: This post is going to be long because my kids' writing riddles are too cute not to share! Check them out, then read about how we got to this point :) 

One of the intents of my plans with our Human Body Systems unit was to have students complete a research project on a disease of interest. My goal was to encourage healthy living as an outgrowth of our Human Body objectives. However, it is the end of the year and we have a LOT left to do. I felt a little lazy making this decision, but I decided not to launch a huge, in-depth research project. But, I did come up with what I think is an AMAZING idea for my classroom because of its ability to meet many common core objectives, to transfer fluidly to a 1-1 classroom environment next year, how it connects with my students' LOVE of celebrating and sharing their writing, and how it capitalizes on our love of task-card-like learning modes. What am I talking about? "Writing Riddles for Mini-Research." It will be ALL-the-RAGE! :) I promise! <3

How did I get my students started? I wanted to use their curiosity about the human body to my advantage. I created a simple "Wonder" sheet. I gave students 4 categories for generating topics: organs and other body parts, habits, diseases, and curiosities. (You can click to catch it for free from my google docs!)

 After brainstorming, students circled their top two choices (or wrote them in the bottom block on the worksheet). I then went through each one and approved their topics. I just wanted to make sure everyone studied something different. Next, we spent one day in the lab researching and one day in the lab typing. Here's a sample of my favorite Writing Riddle paragraphs:

What is "Progeria"? 

What are "the kidneys"?

What is "the brain"?

What is "ear wax"?

 What is "motion sickness"?

What is "eczema"?

What is "the appendix"?

What is a "muscle cramp"?

What is a "heart attack"?

What's a Writing Riddle? 

After reading those great examples, I'm sure you've got it, but basically, students write paragraphs  in a riddle-like format. (For once, I encouraged my students to be a little vague!) Once the paragraphs were drafted (we use a wikispace as a writing portfolio), I went into our wikispace and cut and pasted all of the paragraphs into powerpoint slides. Then I added cute frames to make the paragraphs a little more jazzy (but in a rush, you could just pick a cute font and move on!). I also included a number on each slide (you could also do this by just writing a number on each if you don't have time for a huge production).

How will we share our writing riddles? After printing all of the slides, I will set up an around-the-room task-card like reading/writing celebration. Students receive a worksheet with all of the questions listed. As students move around the room reading each card, they decide which question the riddle paragraph answers. For example, if I read #8 and know it is describing a heart attack, I would write #8 beside of the question "What is a 'heart attack'?"

Writing riddles...why I love it:
I was perplexed by the idea of "short research" called for by the common core. I mean, I get that it can be done and that what we often do in science or social studies (using our textbooks) can be considered "short research." However, I also interpret short research to mean short-term research projects that still culminate in some type of product created by the students. Short research should still be purposeful and have a sharing component. (See why I was perplexed? I can rarely do something small-scale and feel like it was meaningful to students). Wow! In our "Writing Riddles" project, I got all of that and more. In total, it took students about one day to research, one day to type, and it may take us two days to have enough time for everyone to read most of the riddle paragraphs. I can't wait to do this next year~~more often and with more topics. How much better will my students be at synthesizing researched information and turning it into interesting pieces of writing?!?!?! (You can already see some of the creativity coming out in some of the examples above.)


W5.2 Write informative/explanatory pieces to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
W5.2d Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
W5.6 With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills.
W5.7 Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
W5.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
L5.1-3 All Conventions of Standard English and Knowledge of Language Standards are included in this activity
L.5.6 Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal contrast, additoin, and other logical relationships (e.g., however, although, nevertheless, similarly, moreover, in addition.

Room to Grow Objectives (Future Minilessons): 
W.5.2b Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.
W.5.2e Provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented. (Some students concluded in interesting ways, like the one who wrote about car sickness).

Next year when we are 1-1, it might make sense to have students post their Writing Riddles on our classroom blog. This would allow them to include other aspects in their research, like multi-media components, images, and diagrams from a web-based source. I'm thinking, students could have the Writing Riddle Post set up with their paragraph, the reader could make their guess, then have a video and/or image link to click on in order to reveal the answer and learn more.
* SL5.5 Include multimedia components (e.g. graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.

Anyone else SUPER EXCITED about the possibilities of this little idea? (I can't wait to use it a million times next year and see how it evolves!)

Since this is a new idea that I have tried with my class, I am linking up with Tried  it Tuesday. Hop on over to check out more new ideas from other great teacher blogs.

PS: Those super cute polka-dot frames are from. Graphics From the Pond: http://frompond.blogspot.com

Smorgasbord--There's a lot going on!

Wow! I have so much I want to share with you all.

It's a smorgasbord of what's been going on in the classroom, new teacherspayteachers products, classroom community and character ideas and updates, SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! on Friday (well, a dusting, but a day off!), stress about paying taxes on TPT earnings, excitement about the 2013 Clutter-Free Classroom Challenge, and a special announcement tomorrow's Top 2 For Tuesday that you WON'T want to miss! Yes, I have slacked off on Monday's Minilesson Magic and Top 2 for Tuesday, but I will get them rolling again, now that we are two weeks into our 3rd quarter.

For this post, I will focus on an update of Building a Classroom Community and Building Character. Read here if you missed my post about having my teaching heart split wide open. I spent the first week back focusing each morning of our reading time on building our classroom community and discussing kindness. I used three read alouds to create opportunities for discussions about having an open heart and sharing kindness.

We used:

 

First, I used Somebody Loves you Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli (how exciting to read a book from Jerry's wife :). We mainly talked about how Mr. Hatch could choose to have an open heart or a closed heart. In receiving the box of chocolates, he had opened his heart to the world and was more aware and conscious of other people's needs. I talked about how we can choose to be conscious of other people's needs and that if we just pay attention, we will see places where we can choose to extend kindness. 

Next, I read Each Kindness by Jacquleine Woodson (author of The Other Side). This book was destiny! It was sitting on a shelf in the library when I went to pick up Mr. Hatch, and I thought, hmmm...kindness. Let me read this! If you have ever read The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes, this is along the same lines, but in picture book form. From amazon.com:

"Each kindness makes the world a little better.

Chloe and her friends won't play with the new girl, Maya. Maya is different--she wears hand-me-downs and plays with old-fashioned toys. Every time Maya tries to join Chloe and her gang, they reject her. Eventually, Maya plays alone, and then stops coming to school altogether. When Chloe's teacher gives a lesson about how even small acts of kindness can change the world, Chloe is stung by the lost opportunity for friendship, and thinks about how much better it could have been if she'd shown a little kindness toward Maya."

After our read aloud, I talked about how Chloe wishes she would have done things differently and said a lot to Maya. We talked about apologies and forgiveness. Chloe doesn't have the opportunity to apologize to Maya, but we do. Then I did something AMAZING! I had students create a list of apologies for their classmates. They had to write them down on a sheet of paper. I gave everyone a list of classmates and they worked through it to think about anything they needed to apologize for. I also made a list of specific apologies for students (hey, I AM NOT PERFECT!) 

As students worked and thought, I voiced over. "You might need to apologize for something the person doesn't even know you did!" "Think about this year and last year." "The things we need to apologize for sometimes keep us up at night. As soon as we apologize, we can stop thinking about it." "You might need to apologize for something even if that person is your best friend." "If anyone feels like they need to apologize for something to the whole group, feel free to say it now." After about 25 minutes, I told students they would now have the chance to apologize to one another privately. I explained that they were not allowed to stand near someone who was apologizing and wait. This would be rude. I explained that it was important to give everyone who is apologizing space to feel comfortable to say what they needed to say and get it out. While I was going around saying my apologies, I also was being the teacher (and trying to overhear some of them). It warmed my heart to hear kids say things like "I'm sorry for when I talked about you behind your back." "I'm sorry for not always being a good friend to you."

It was AHHH-Mazing! 

AHHH-MAZING! A lesson I will NEVER forget. And, I don't think many of my students will either. I think I taught them something that a lot of grown-ups don't even know how to do right. I even explained to them that as soon as you say "but I did it because..." you have stopped apologizing and started excusing. Keep the excuses out of your apology and remember that you can't change another person, you can only change how you act and respond to them.

The next day, I gave each student a plastic heart from the dollar store. I told them, this represents love and kindness. Each of you gets to choose whether or not you hold it tight or whether you pass it on to another person. I told them that if they choose to pass it on to another person, they must tell them why and then explain 

"This heart represents love and kindness. You can choose to hold it tight and keep it for yourself, or you can choose to pass it on to someone else. If you pass it on, you have to tell them the same."

I explained to students that by holding on to the heart and not letting it go, we actually had less love. The heart is symbolic of what we have to pass on and by passing it on (with the plastic heart or in other ways), we are actually increasing the love and kindness in the world. By the time we got together the next day, one of our hearts had already made it through the after school teachers, to another two students, and back to a student in our classroom. How awesome!

Towards the end of the week, I read Oh, the Places You Will Go. This was my book to remind them of how tough life can be, and that sometimes we might find ourselves on a dark road where we can't even remember who we are (who we used to be). I told them, "you might not even know how you got on the dark road or how to get off of it. You might find yourself on the dark road and not even realize you were on your way down it." I told them it was hard for me to give them any advice about the dark road, because everyone's dark road will be different, but I had a few strategies for them. 

1) When you realize you are on the dark road, find those people who remember the YOU that you are right now. The people who see the good in you will be able to remind you of who you are. These people might be best friends, teachers, parents, preachers, grandparents. Decide who those people are right now. 

2) Read Oh, the Places You will Go for some advice. It might help you when you are in your dark place. 

On Friday, I introduced Spy Reports. (I'll post more about how this went and show some examples in a future post). But, let's just say they were SUPER DUPER EXCITED! We have had two Spy Report sessions since, and I can already tell they will be looking forward to it each week! 

At some point in the week, I told my students "Who you are is "good people." (I know this is not grammatically correct). The phrase "good people" is common around our town. You hear "They're 'good people'" or "They come from 'good people." "They's some good people." I told them, in my mind and memory they will always fall into the category of "good people." I know who they will grow up to be will be "good people," but we need to work on bringing out who we are on a regular basis. We need to let the "who we are" on the inside SHINE OUT on the outside every second, moment, hour of every day. Now, this is a TALL order (for me too, not just my kiddos), but our continued conversations and reminders or our goal to be who we are in the most positive sense will continue to help us all grow in how we treat the people we encounter inside the classroom and out.

I hope some of these ideas will help you to build a classroom community. This is just a taste of what we did for a week. Lots more is going on, but these lessons (in January of teaching kids for a year and a half already) have set a foundation for the rest of the year that we have together and hopefully for my students' transition to middle school.

Don't forget to tune in tomorrow for a special Top 2 for Tuesday announcement!