Moseley House Sign

A few fourth graders helped paint a Moseley sign for our hallway when they completed other projects early. The final product looks really good underneath our House Point posters. Each letter in the sign correlates to a House we have at our school. Each House in our school stands for a certain character trait and we meet regularly in House Meetings to learn more about each other, learn ways to display good character, and more. The students can also earn House Points for a friendly competition based on things like attendance, grades, and behavior.

Rachel's Challenge Rally

Our district emphasizes acts of kindness among the students and staff through Rachel's Challenge. Rachel's Challenge was started by the family of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine shooting. As a part of their challenge, students recognize acts of kindness by recording them on paper chains. The paper chains are all linked together. Our district recently had a Rachel's Challenge Rally where all schools brought their chains. The football field was full of chains. It was a sight to see!

Moseley Supports Special Olympics

The students raised money during May to support Special Olympics. Students who donated the first week were invited to participate in a water balloon fight. During the second week, students who donated were invited to throw a pie at one, or both, of our principals. The school raised over $2,000 for the Special Olympics. The Grand Prairie Police Department, who sponsors the fundraiser, visited Moseley on their annual torch run to show their appreciation for what the students had done.

Rainbow Days

Each Monday a volunteer from Rainbow Days comes to each first grade class to teach character education and life safety lessons to the students. Ms. K., our fantastic volunteer, teaches the students lessons such as who the boss of their body is (their brain), the safest seat in a car (the back), when you become an adult, and ways to say "no" to drugs and alcohol. The lessons are taught through engaging stories.

Rosie Sprout's Time to Shine

In reading we read Rosie Sprout's Time to Shine to work on comparing character traits. After reading the book the class created a Double Bubble Map to compare the two main character's traits and then they created a graphic organizer for one of the characters.

Assembly Line

In Social Studies the students learned about working together as a team to accomplish a job. They learned how certain jobs are specialized to do a certain job or task. That certain job or task is then joined with someone else's specialized job to complete a whole. They learned about the concept of an assembly line. They then worked in small groups, an assembly line fashion, to create bracelets out of yarn and cereal. Each student had a specialized task including measuring the yarn, cutting the yarn, stringing the cereal, and tying the bracelet. When some of the groups did not complete the tasks and not each group member received a bracelet, we had a brief character education lesson related to our Social Contract. We discussed that when we don't all follow the rules or do our jobs it can affect other people doing their jobs.

Rainbow Fish

As a part of our weekly character education lessons, which we call Mindful Mondays at our school, we read Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. As we read the book, we discussed how it is important to share but that does not always mean giving away everything you have nor does it mean others always have to give you things. We also discussed that we should care for one another. The students then colored a Rainbow Fish of their own.

Mindful Mondays: Respect

Our school has started a new way to incorporate character education into our weekly curriculum: Mindful Mondays. Last week our focus was on being respectful to peers and not just adults. First the students were presented with the word "respect" on a piece of paper. Then a few students were asked to cover the word with toothpaste. Once the entire word was covered, a few other students were asked to put the toothpaste back in the tube. As hard as they tried, they could not get it all back in. This led into a discussion about hurtful words. We discussed that it is easy to say mean, hurtful words to our friends but it is not so easy to take them back. We talked about the importance of saying your sorry when you truly mean it but that saying your sorry alone does not always undo the damage caused by the negative words.

Rachel's Challenge

Our school, in an effort to reduce bullying, participates in Rachel's Challenge. If you are unfamiliar with Rachel's Challenge, I encourage you to check out their website. The students recently visited the library to watch an informational video about Rachel's Challenge and to learn about the importance of being kind. At this time they also signed a banner to show that they accept the challenge to be kind and not to bully. Each time a student was caught being kind, a paper chain link was added to our class chain. All grade levels brought the chains to our Pride Rally to show how many acts of kindness had been witnessed so far.

If I Were President...

In honor of Presidents' Day, the students wrote why they would be a good president. I was proud that they used our Capturing Kids' Social Contract as a frame of reference for what good character should look like. I was also proud that they understood that a president should have good character. After writing, the students created a picture of themselves to go along with the writing on a campaign poster.

Rainbow Day Lessons

Each Friday for the last several weeks and for the future few weeks, the students will be taught character education lessons by a guest teacher, Ms. K. She visits our class for about thirty minutes to teach social skills lesssons such as how the brain is the boss of their body, where safe seats are in a car, etc.

Classroom Helpers

To help the students learn responsibility, we have classroom jobs. The classroom jobs range from being the trash helper (taking out the recycling and checking the floor for scraps), door helper, light monitor, materials manager, teacher helper, computer helper, library helper, cd helper, calendar helper (lead and teach calendar during math with support of teacher), and substitute helper (helps with a job if the assigned student is absent). The helper jobs change each day so the students learn a variety of life skills as they help their classroom community.

Capturing Kids' Hearts Social Contract

Each year the students at Moseley create a Social Contract in each of their classes. The students discuss in small groups how they want to treat their friends and teacher and how they want to be treated by their friends and teacher. They then write the words on our class Social Contract. If several groups list the same word, we put a check mark by it. This shows us which things we find the most important. The students then create a happy face of themselves to place with the Social Contract to remind them of how it feels when we all treat each other well.

Rainbow Days

Each Friday for the next few weeks, our class will have a guest teacher, Ms. K. Ms. K. is a part of a program called Rainbow Days which "teach children and youth a set of essential life skills: skills to help them learn how to cope with difficult family situations, resist peer pressure, set and achieve goals, and refuse alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs." She teaches through read-alouds, discussions, and hands-on activities. You can learn more about their program by visiting their website.

Affirmation Tree

As a part of our writing this morning, the students wrote affirmations to one another. Writing affirmations is a part of Capturing Kids Hearts. Capturing Kids Hearts is a relationship building program we use district wide. As Flip Flippen of Capturing Kids Hearts puts it, "If you have a child's heart, you have his head." The students wrote affirmations on ornaments that we then added to our tree in the hallway.

Better to Give Than Receive

Today we read Auntie Claus by Elisa Primavera as a part of our study of character traits. As we read, we discussed how the main character, Sophie, was acting. We then created a Thinking Map to chart how she went from being selfish to selfless. We discussed the main idea of the story which is that it is better to give than to receive. The students then created gift shaped graphic organizers to write down four ways they can give to others.

Character Parade

To celebrate Red Ribbon Week (which just happens to fall around Halloween time, ha!) the students got to dress up as their favorite book character and walk in a parade throughout the school. The theme was to "Show your character and say 'no' to drugs." So that all students could participate, we decided to have a grade level theme based on the Laura Numeroff books. Our class dressed up as the black cat from If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, Ms. Goolsbay's class dressed up as If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, Ms. Pollard's class dressed up as If You Give a Moose a Muffin, and Mrs. Linnabary's class dressed up as If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Below is a slideshow of our class showing their character during the parade.

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Red Ribbon Week

Last week we celebrated Red Ribbon Week with various activities including wearing red, white, and blue to say "United We Stand Against Drugs" and wearing our favorite team shirts to say "We Team Up Against Drugs." The first grade theme this year was "First Graders 'clothes' the door on drugs!" Each class decorated their door in a "clothes" related item and slogan. Our class slogan was "We give drugs the 'boot'!" You can learn more about Red Ribbon Week and ways you can talk to your child about this important topic at the National Family Partnership. Ms. Terry, the counselor, talked with the students about the history of the program as well as the importance of saying "no" to drugs.

Rainbow Lessons: Character Education

Over the last six weeks we have had been having Rainbow Lessons in our class led by a fabulous teacher, Ms. K., each Friday morning following Pride Rally. Rainbow lessons are curriculum based character lessons to help children learn how to cope in difficult situations such as peer pressure. To learn more about their program, you can visit their website.