Hey there, As we get ready to head back to school I of course start thinking about that first week. What can I do differently, what worked last year, how can I spice it up, etc. One activity that always makes the schedule of course is to create our classroom rules or expectations. I typically read aloud a story all about rules like "No David" or "Officer Buckle and Gloria" they all focus on the no. So our great list making conversations always end up with a lot of "Don'ts." Over the years I have not only shortened up our list, but tried to make a point of positivity in our rules. … [Read more...] about Back to School Rules
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Teaching Compassion in Action
3 community service projects and activities for teaching compassion in the classroom My school community has always done a good job of promoting outreach projects, but to ensure that kids are really taking away all that they can we need to provide more deliberate instruction on what it means to be compassionate and the impact that just one person can have. I have always loved doing community service projects within my room such as food drives, various clothing drives, and a favorite of mine, putting together craft kits for our local children's hospital. Many of these units in my room have … [Read more...] about Teaching Compassion in Action
Kindness Read Alouds
Hey there, I don't know about you but I have always had one main rule in my classroom and it is to be kind to others. Even more so now I want to make sure my students understand not only to be kind but why and how we can be kind to others. We have a decent social skills curriculum in our district, but I wanted to be even more intentional with the teaching of kindness and compassion. So I did some digging and found a few great kindness read alouds to help me teach and model kindness in my classroom. These are the books I started with... After reading “What Does it Mean to Be … [Read more...] about Kindness Read Alouds
Mapping Fun!
Hey there! So last week we started our unit on mapping and landforms. Our social studies curriculum is unfortunately rather bland and leaves little hands on practice for our kiddos. So reviewed all the main components that my nuggets were expected to know by the end of the unit and I created some interactive games and activities to help reinforce all the necessary mapping skills they would need. Next, I went into town and found a variety of different city maps. The local train, bus station or city center are great spots to pick up maps. You can also go online … [Read more...] about Mapping Fun!
