Wednesday, 22 August

Wednesday

Wednesday started out really well with students saying good morning and greeting me warmly when they got to school. Students immediately went to art class, and Blake and I plowed through almost all of our planning for next week! It was awesome, and a very productive morning!

In light of the struggles yesterday, Blake and I decided it would be a good idea to do some kind of classroom community building activity to encourage some camaraderie between classmates, as a lot of the trouble is clashes between students that are blown out of proportion and preoccupy the students. 

I did a lesson on compliments. To start out, we defined compliments; What is a compliment? Is it good or bad? etc. A few kids were under the impression that compliments could be good or bad, and that was definitely something that I had to clarify.

After defining a compliment, students all got a piece of paper. They all addressed it in this way:

Dear Member of our classroom,

After writing the greeting, students were instructed to write a compliment to someone. The compliment was directed to be about someone's personality. Each student wrote a compliment about someone's personality. After writing it, they folded the paper over, so no one could read it. Next, they passed the paper to the person next to them. Everyone then wrote a compliment about someone's schoolwork. They folded it, and passed it. 

We added a total of four real, serious compliments (which were all quite wonderful). Several of them were:

You are a good listener.

You are good at concentrating.

I like how you are a leader.

You always work hard.

As emotional as I am, hearing some of my students read out those wonderful compliments was absolutely perfect, and I definitely almost lost it and cried! That would have been embarrassing...

Anyway. After writing the four real compliments, we then got to the part that would appeal to them as 8, 9, and 10 year olds. We got to write some silly compliments. I gave the examples of:

I like the way you braid your nose hair.

Your ear lobes are very flattering.

Your big toe helps you balance very well.

For the most part, my students didn't really need help coming up with silly compliments. Some of them were;

Your feet smell very nice.

You can jump really high.

You have nice ears.

In a class of 22, with a variety of students who regularly demonstrate poor behavior choices, there were only three letters that had something inappropriate written on them. None of which were terribly bad, just not compliments. 

Even with those few let downs with the letters, I deemed the lesson a success, and I really do think it had a positive impact on the kids today, as today was a much smoother day than yesterday.

I still struggled with some behavior problems with the students, but I'm told I'm doing well. I think I'm doing okay, but I guess I'll just keep working. 

Tonight I'm heading out to dinner with Kylen and a friend of hers from school:)

Tomorrow, I'll be taking students to 'Hoop Time' day, which is basically an all-day basketball tournament. I don't have any idea how it's going to work, so I'll let you know tomorrow! :)

Thank you, and Lots of love,

Megan