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 Individual Sets~

Now available! I have uploaded individual materials for my Morning Meeting Made Easy Set # 1 and Set # 2. Remember that TpT's Teachers are Heroes sale starts tomorrow and these will be discounted too!

Although you may purchase my morning meeting themes as individual resources, I highly recommend purchasing them in Sets. In order for these themes to gain momentum, multiple themes should be implemented in the classroom. I have found it extremely valuable to consistently implement multiple themes because I find the nuances between them allow for great connections between texts, conversations, and the generalizations {big ideas} we make in our discussions. In life, words and concepts are often used interchangeably, but each has it's own definition~kindness and compassion for example, perseverance and achievement, etc. I loved moving from Belonging (it's a freebie!) to Kindness and then to Compassion. These are also found in my set # 1 bundle together (and the belonging theme set still comes through as a freebie with the price).

Another {BIG} reason to plan a trajectory to implement multiple themes is to help develop students' understanding of themes that are found in literature. The Teacher Overviews for each theme include at least 5 suggested picturebooks (suggested songs and video resources are also  provided for most of the themes!). These units lend themselves to comparing and contrasting multiple texts on the same theme. For example, during our belonging unit, we found that characters often try to change themselves to fit in or belong, however this rarely worked out to give them the belonging they wanted. Other times, if the "outcasted" character saved the day, they got a huge sense of belonging. We talked about how that was a sweet way to end a picturebook, but real life doesn't always turn out that way. {Can you say POWERFUL messages for upper-elementary/middle school kiddos to be discussing and realizing?}

Morning Meeting Made Easy Set # 1
Morning Meeting Made Easy Set # 2
Morning Meeting BELONGING Freebie

Purchase Themes Individually:
Compassion Theme
Conflict Theme
Perseverance Theme
Kindness Theme
Compromise Theme
Happiness Theme
Achievement Theme
Individualism Theme
Integrity Theme

Common Core Connections:

~~Morning Meeting Made Easy~Set 2 Ready!~~

Finally!!!! My second set of Morning Meeting Made Easy themes is complete! This makes me super happy because I have had the draft in the works for MONTHS and it's been one of those projects that has been hanging over my head a little.

If this is the first you are hearing about my Morning Meeting Made Easy sets, let me tell you more! 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 posters for each theme, but you get 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 USE instantly, except for grabbing the picturebooks!

My first set of Morning Meeting Made Easy includes the following themes:

You can check out my detailed post about teaching through the theme of belonging earlier this year. (It includes my daily plans! At that time, I had not yet completed my student journal pages, but you have them ready to go AND my belonging set is offered as a FREEBIE download on TPT and TN!) Best of all, you can also use this as a mini-literacy unit on theme. It is SO ready to go and the discussions are SO rich. {Belonging has to be my most favorite theme to teach through} :]

You may also purchase themes as individual downloads, but I highly recommend going for the whole set (they are cheaper as a set, of course, and I believe that using many of the related themes helps spiral back to previous conversations and helps build your students' understanding of theme even more--leading to growth in your classroom community.)

Compassion Theme 

Conflict Theme
Perseverance Theme
Kindness Theme
Compromise Theme
Happiness Theme
Achievement Theme
Individualism Theme
Integrity Theme

Here's a closer look at my Kindness student journal pages. (All included in the kindness download or the MMME Set # 1.)

Happy Friday! We have been out with three snow days in a row and have a two-hour delay for Friday. Gotta love being a "Tarheelstate Teacher!"

Belonging Theme Lessons in Action~Morning Meeting Made Easy

My goal at the beginning of the year is to introduce the classroom community themes that I plan to focus on throughout the year. Then, I plan to spend at least a week exploring each theme in more depth with my students. This week, we focused on belonging. {My students use a marble notebook for Community Meeting. I used the coverpage image to create stickers on labels for them to place on the front of their notebook). 

I have a quick 15 minutes each morning before my students go to special area classes. As I think about morning meeting for the week, I know that I will have some quick days and on other days, we will have a longer block of morning meeting that continues after students return from special area classes. Morning meeting can take as little or as much time as you have, but I think it is nice to have the flexibility in my schedule to have some days that are quick and some that are longer where I can push for deeper thinking  and discussion. You will see this alternating change of pace in my week's outline below.

I had already read aloud Big Al by Andrew Clements during the first week of school. We watched how Big Al, the ugliest fish in the sea, tried many things in order to fit in. When a fisherman's net captures many of the fish, Big Al saves the day and gains a sense of belonging. Finally, he has the most friends of all the fish in the sea.

On Monday, I quickly shared our focus theme for the week, shared the related quote, and went over key words. I post the theme, quotations, and vocabulary on our "community themes" bulletin board and give students a copy in a journal page format. Then, students complete the self-assessment and goal setting pages. (I print these as 1/2 pgs for students to glue into their marble notebooks).

Tuesday/Wednesday: After introducing the theme to students, I spend time building the theme with as many examples as possible through read alouds. I read aloud Babushka Baba Yaga by Patricia Polacco on Tuesday and Wednesday. If I had pushed it a little, I could have finished the book in one day and read Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli. However, the beauty of my morning meeting is that I can spiral back to these themes again and again, adding new texts to push students to add to and enhance our understanding of the theme with another author's take on it. (For example, when we do return to Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch, I think that we could learn that sometimes a person's isolation keeps them from having a sense of belonging, but if they could or would step outside of their shell and take a risk, others are more than happy to welcome them with open arms.) You can see what we learned from the other stories in the chart we made on Friday.

Thursday: We watched The Lost Thing and discussed how what we saw in the video related to our belonging theme. (There is SOOOOO much to talk about in this video. I could do an entire week of lessons just on it, but I mostly stayed focused on the idea of belonging in this lesson, knowing that I would be able to go back to it and use it later in other lessons. For example, why is "the lost thing" a lost thing--who says he is 'lost'? Is it really lost? Do we have to find others like us (or assimilate) to gain a sense of belonging? What does "the lost thing" symbolize? etc. This is a rich video for "close reading" lessons! It is also sending a message about individuality in a society of sameness, so I plan to use the video again during our Individualism theme.)

Friday: We have met many characters this year that have tried to gain a sense of belonging (especially this week with it being our theme focus), so it was time to start comparing our story lines and identifying generalizations. Students worked to fill out this simple chart and then we created a class chart on the smartboard. This was one of our longer morning meeting lessons this week. We could call this stage "synthesizing" :).

Drawing Conclusions and Going Deeper: Since completing our chart took a little while, we are going finish up our belonging theme on Monday by reviewing the information we put into the chart and drawing conclusions about belonging as a theme and a desire. I have lots of questions for my students, but here is what I hope they notice:
-In stories, sometimes characters "save the day" and gain a sense of belonging from that act. Is this realistic for a student who does not fit in or seem to belong?
-Does changing yourself to fit in with others seem to work? (Is this "fix" long-lasting? Is this fix of not being ones "true self" sustainable?)
-Is it possible to accept others for who they are, give them a sense of belonging and love, without expecting them to change to fit our idea of "normal" or what's popular/cool?

I love having "The Lost Thing" as an example in the mix of our analysis because how he gained a sense of belonging is much different from how the Baba Yaga and Big Al gained a sense of belonging. (Basically, the narrator finds a place where other things look like the "lost thing" and drops him off there. Instead of the "lost thing" actually being accepted into mainstream society, he goes to live with others of his kind.)

If you want to pick up my "Belonging Freebie," it's in my teacherspayteachers store. Morning Meeting Set 1 and Set 2 are now available.

This week (and probably next), our theme will be Achievement because it's mid-way through the quarter and time to set some goals. I'll post about those lessons soon!

PS: I am working on Pinterest boards for each of my morning meeting themes. If you decide to start implementing theme-based morning meeting lessons, you can follow my boards to have all of the video resources in one place. I will also be adding other goodies I find that may not be linked in my Morning Meeting Made Easy product.
Follow Tammy's board Belonging (Classroom Community) on Pinterest.

~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!

My Article was Published on a National Blog!!! Resiliency in the Classroom!

Wow! I am so super busy, but I wanted to share with you some exciting news. Recently, my principal asked me if I would like to write an article on resiliency for ASCD. ASCD promotes "whole child" education. The organization believes that "Each child, in each school, in each of our communities deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. That's what a whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement really is."

I hope you will head over to ASCD to read my article titled "Why Resilience is Critical in a Learning Environment." Right now, it is at the top of the main blog page! I just had to pinch myself!

Morning Meeting: Goal Setting

I love love love morning meeting! I feel like during this 15-20 minute block, I get to teach to change the world, the reason I became a teacher in the first place. This year, I decided to devote a few more minutes to morning meeting and to focus my morning meeting on one theme all week. I even decided to have students keep a "Morning Meeting" marble notebook for our lessons. Focusing on one concept all week has worked out well to develop a better understanding, and I feel like the themes we have touched on so far--kindness, belonging, legacies, compassion, and goal setting--have really stuck with students.

I began with themes that I thought were critical for kicking off our year, use them to piggyback on things we are learning in readers' workshop, and to focus on issues we are having in class. (In comes "conflict" as a theme this week because it became evident that we needed to have a "classroom community" and how to deal with conflict conversation).

Last week, our morning meeting lessons focused on personal goal setting. We discussed how important it is to take our dreams beyond "wishes" by learning how to set goals, develop strategies and plans to achieve them, monitor how we are doing, and adjust course as needed. It is important to remember that goals can be achieved by asking for others to support us (I think we sometimes forget this). It is also important to believe in ourselves and to make sure FEAR does not hold us back from pushing ourselves forward.

We watched the video titled Finish Strong earlier this year. It contains many inspirational quotes and a great message about persevering through adversity and challenges.

During the viewing of Finish Strong, we decided the Anatole France quotation was our favorite.

This quote reminds us that when setting and achieving goals, dreaming is as important as action, believing is as important as planning. Keeping faithful and continuing to work towards our goals is important no matter the adversity we may face.

Each morning meeting focus includes key words. Goal, Accomplish, Strategic, and Intentions are our key vocabulary words for Goal Setting.

To come up with two goals to focus on, we brainstormed ideas for four different categories: academic, character, personal, and behavioral. Students then chose the top two goals that they felt were critical for their success this year.

I believe that in the journey of being human, the true goal of any individual is to work on ourselves to the point that our inner self shines through on the outside--that our actions represent who we believe we are on the inside. I love having morning meeting each day because it gives us time to talk about how to help our true selves shine through. I think goal setting is a crucial classroom conversation that needs to happen on a regular basis. It is embedded throughout my classroom routines and language and we reflect on our goals (just two) once a week. Students write about what they have done so far to work on their goal and their plan for moving forward. I encourage them to believe that just because you did nothing to work on your goal last week does not mean you should quit. (This is true for weight loss, exercising, giving up smoking, and more!--just because we fall off of a wagon for a few days DOES NOT mean we should stay off of it for the rest of our lives. We have to learn to release any guilt so that we can move forward.)

What personal goals are you working on? Can you share your triumphs and struggles with your students so that they can see how a "goal setter" thinks? What strategies help you through the hard times? My students have followed me through the journey of National Boards and my "work-life" balance goal of being more healthy by exercising more and achieving teacher-weight loss!

I am working on a pretty extensive set of morning meeting focus materials. I hope to have these ready soon! Keep following along as I share more of our morning meeting lessons. Our next morning meeting theme is another great one...CONFLICT!

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!

Peek at My Week: Show me the Plans!!!

Hi Everyone!

Spring break, now over. I nearly laid in the bed all day (well, until 11:30). Then did some blog-stalking-pretending-I-was-planning-procrastinating. I watched an episode of undercover boss and cried when the boss gave a kid a full-ride to college so that he wouldn't have to work and go to school at night. Wow! If only everyone felt as grateful as this kid to be getting his education paid for. As happy as he was, I cried because I knew he was getting an opportunity for higher education that he wouldn't have otherwise. {Did you know I'm a softy?} I finally talked myself into a run-jog, walk-around-and-look-at-the-birds around 5. Now I sit here needing a shower, needing to pack my lunch, needing to pick out tomorrow's outfit, and needing to finalize my plans for the week so that I can link up with Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten blog for her AWESOME Peek at My Week linky.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited about our upcoming quarter, but I always get a little paper-bag hyperventilating when it feels like we are starting so many new things at once. I know I will be fine by Tuesday, and seriously, I am planned-and-ready for tomorrow, so calm down!

If you take a close look at my plan...you.will.find.some.holes. Seriously, I am a 3-day planner. I want to see how things go and then re-organize. I have some ideas in my mind (usually) but I wait to make final decisions on what comes next based on what my kiddies do. So, don't-judge, please :)

If you click on the images above, it will take you to a google doc where you can click on the hyperlinked plans. (Can't figure out why the google doc does not allow you to click on hyperlinks, but if you download, you can get them that way).

I made these plans in word and converted them to a PDF. Then, I watched Deedee's video about how she makes her visual lessons and she does it in powerpoint. You know I love to make stuff in powerpoint over word but I thought word would be easier for these lesson plans...I might be converting over to powerpoint next week! If you haven't hopped over to see Deedee, you definitely want to check out her blog and the other bloggers that are giving a "Peek" at their week.

Focus Focus (Easy as Hocus Pocus) Strategy

Rounding out 3rd quarter, coming around the bend. I think some of you all are already on Spring break. My 3 weeks break starts on Tuesday after one school day and a teacher workday. WOOT WOO :) 

Is this the time of year that it seems your students are in need of a break? A few weeks ago, I found that my students were having a very challenging time listening, focusing, and treating each other with kindness. COME ON GUYS!!! This is the time of the year when I think I am supposed to be getting the most done--3rd quarter, pre-state-testing, still have major things to learn, and hey, I show up to work hard! Why aren’t my students doing the same?

Well, one thing I realized is that I had dropped the ball on morning meeting. With so many snow days and late starts, we stopped reflecting on our behavior and stopped setting new classroom goals to work towards. (Honestly, my kiddos repeat themselves every day when reflecting on morning meeting goals, and we had achieved perseverance in math for the most part. And my kiddos are DARN NEAR perfect...But hey, isn’t it better to give them the time to repeat themselves each morning--what went well yesterday, what needs to be better today--than for me to constantly have to repeat myself?)

Let’s just say the trade-off of cutting morning meeting this quarter turned into a week’s worth of lengthy morning meetings focused on problem-solving the issues we were having.

First, I had students reflect on what they wanted out of the classroom. “When you show up to school at 8 am, what are you looking to get out of our day?” In one morning meeting, we discussed these hopes and dreams.

Next, students listed the main issues they felt we were having. Next, we went around our circle and told our top two. While students were reporting out, I was taking notes and tallies. These were our issues:

* socializing/side-conversations

* getting off topic

* talking out

* group not getting along

* having fun at inappropriate times

* joking/purposely bothering people

* learning time being wasted

* not wanting to learn-motivation

* not learning enough time

* too many noises

* rudeness to teacher

* too many distractions

Wow! Does this list sound familiar?

We were able to group the issues into two main problems:

Kindness (how we treat each other)--I learned we were having problems at recess that were spilling over into our afternoon learning time and focusing-issues like too many distractions, side conversations, people joking, lacking the motivation to learn, talking while the teacher is talking, etc. all relate back to a lack of focus.

In comes our FOCUS reminder sign. 

While students did most of the problem solving in our next class meeting, I already had the idea of our FOCUS reminder. When I say FOCUS, students know to get it together. This doesn’t just mean focusing on me, but focusing on the task at hand, focusing on anyone who is talking, and being motivated to do their best with their best focus.

How do I use the FOCUS sign? The class starts out at O. (I simply place the clothespin on O). With extremely great focus, they can move up to an F, but with poor focus, they move down to a C, U, and lastly an S. In a given subject, they can always move back up the FOCUS sign. They can move down to a C in one minute, and immediately be returned to an O with appropriate focus. So far, no tangible consequences or rewards come from this strategy. It is meant to be motivating within itself. Pride in our accomplishments and compliments from the teacher should be reward enough!

Now, what if the kiddos are just having a bad day? With my strategic, wise teacher thinking, I decided that the FOCUS sign would reset to O for every subject. Students might think I am just being forgiving or easy on them, but I am really using reverse psychology AND helping them REFOCUS for a new subject area. By saying that I know they are going to RESTART their focus, it isn't like they have to move back up from a U or C during a new subject. They already start at O and just try to maintain it. (I'm not sure if I am explaining the beauty of this well, but I hope you "get" it :)

I found that focusing at transitions (from quiet reading to a whole group math lesson) is one of our biggest challenges. Now, I feel dumb putting that in writing because DUHHHH! but sometimes I think we (I) forget to give students time to refocus because we (I) am rushing to the next thing we need to learn.

As I write this, I once again feel like I am doing "beginning of the year" stuff. But, I am starting to learn that kids need us to revisit "beginning of the year" lessons ALL YEAR LONG. When I'm frustrated with my kiddos (behavior, learning, etc) I eventually come around to "what can I change to help them change?"

OH.....AND I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU ANOTHER AWESOME PART OF THE FOCUS SIGN....It can travel with us!!! This week, it went to the computer lab with us :)

You can download the FOCUS templatefor free here. I hope you can use the FOCUS sign, and STAY TUNED for a MOTIVATING classroom management strategy that my students and I came up with, including how I am dealing with those "stinkers" who just can't seem to control themselves no matter what I've tried (or can they??? :). I am putting the finishing touches on multiple themes for my positive management strategy and can’t wait to share (something soooooo simple) with you. Look for it tomorrow! 

(PS-The cool chevron frames in my FOCUS logo are from Mrs. Dixon at Teaching Special Thinkers and the swirly purple frame is from the 3 AM Teacher. Be sure to check them both out!)

Spy Reports Pictures: Friday Flashback: Linky

Today I am linking up with Amanda from Teaching Maddeness for her Friday Flashback Linky Party and Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday.

  

I have been wanting to share some Spy Report (free download) examples with you and had time to take some pictures this week. We started these two weeks ago when we returned from winter break. Remember my new-found mission of making sure I focus some of our time on kindness and character---I was reminded that "Show, don't tell." is the best way to learn, meaning that I need to make sure that I give students opportunities to develop kindness, show appreciation, give apologies, and practice being the kind of person I want them to grow up to be.

Here are some of my beautiful favorites....and we are just getting started!

 This student used tagxedo.com (like wordle) to create his Spy Report. I really like the way he used the tagxedo to brainstorm and then wrote examples and reasons why he used those adjectives. (I think this is a great way for a student who has trouble elaborating to do their spy report.

 I love this spy report because it is creative, bright, and thoughtful.

 This spy report is a pop-up basketball because the recipient likes basketball. Very creative.

This student chose to write in the format of a real "spy" report. Notice the real fingerprints all around the document and the type-set that looks like it was typed on a typewriter.

 

And....this one is one of my FAVORITES so far. Is it because it is about me? I think so. Is it super creative? Absolutely. This student chose to write a Ms. Russell (that's me) pie recipe. (Have you read Enemy Pie? We did last year and used is as a creative writing possibility for our writer's notebook--write different kinds of pie recipes.) Look at that "It leaves an unforgettable impact on your tastebuds...It goes above and beyond the pie standard." What I LOOOOVE LOVE LOVE most about my kids' spy reports to me is that they really do get to know me and describe the "true" me in their reports. (I'm also crazy, intense, high strung sometimes--but they pick the best qualities to write about!:)

Why I love this assignment:

* This assignment really allows for student creativity. While I teach genre studies during writing workshop, Spy Reports allow students to write in whatever mode they want and express their creativity and voice as a writer.

* You will see amazing things happen with reluctant writers. As they feel the “warm fuzzies” of sharing what they appreciate about someone and hear good things about themselves, they really buy into this assignment.

* One week, you will have a student use a really creative genre, the next week, many students will have written in this same mode. Writing ideas spread like wildfire!

* Because this assignment happens each week, you should see major growth across the year. Things that you place importance on in your regular writing instruction (grammar, spelling, vocabulary, painting a picture, dialogue, etc.) should show improvement in spy reports.  

Grab my SPY REPORTS directions (including tips for the teacher) for free from my teacherspayteachers store. It is a word document so that you can modify it for your classroom.