Guidance Lesson

Our school counselor, Ms. Coffman, visited our class recently to teach a guidance lesson. She teaches the students about various topics including safety, respect for one's self and others, and bullying.

Our Buckets Are Running Over!

As a part of Capturing Kids' Hearts, we have affirmation buckets in our class. When students finish work early or during our Guided Reading/Daily Five time, the students can write one another positive notes. Right now we are working on using the phrase "I like the way you..." to start the affirmations which leads them to be specific in their compliments. As you can see, writing affirmations has really caught on. These are just from one day!

Mama Bear

For Valentine's Day, one of my students gave me a very funny gift... a teddy bear wearing a shirt saying "Mama Bear." So, you are probably wondering "why is that funny?"

Here is the story.... As a part of our classroom management, I tell the students that when they are misbehaving "Mama Bear" is going to come "growl" at them and that I would rather "Mama Bear" not have to come out. It is a light-hearted way (yet serious at the same time) to to remind the students to check their behavior when they start to make the wrong choices. As all parents and teachers know, there are times when we have to "growl" at the students. And when I say "growl" I mean giving them "the look" and "the speech" about how to behave and what I expect. I remind the students then when they misbehave and Mama Bear has to get onto them, they become grumpy like a bear who was woke up too soon from hibernation and so does Ms. Bishop. When the students see another student starting to misbehave, they quickly tell them "You don't want Mama Bear to come out!" This is just one of the many strategies I use as classroom management. The students really seem motivated to do what is right; they think the concept of Mama Bear is funny but at the same time they know they don't want Mama Bear to growl. Now we have a "real" Mama Bear to remind the students to behave!

Fellow teachers, what classroom management strategies do you use in your class?

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.

David Goes to School

To help elaborate on our Social Contract  and to learn the parts of a book, we read No, David! and David Goes to School by David Shannon. Before reading, we talked about the parts of a book. We discussed the purpose of the title and the need to stay on topic. We also discussed the role of the author and the illustrator. To help us remember their roles, we sing these songs to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell":

The author writes the words,

The author writes the words,

Hi-ho, the derry-o,

The author writes the words.

The illustrator draws the pictures,

The illustrator draws the pictures,

Hi-ho, the derry-o,

The illustrator draws the pictures.

After reading, we discussed the things that David did in the book as non-examples of how to behave at school. We discussed how David would have been different if he had a Social Contract to follow. The students then created their own book cover about them going to school. On the inside of their book, they wrote at least two things they can do at school to follow the Social Contract.

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.

Affirmation Station

At our campus, we use Capturing Kids' Hearts as a part of our discipline and guidance plan. As a part of that process, students are taught how to receive and give affirmations - both verbally and in writing. In the past, my students wrote the affirmations and would place them on the corner of the receipients' desk. Other people in my school have used bags to place the affirmations in but I have found that I do not have enough room for this in my class. So, this year, I am trying something new. In our class we will have an "Affirmation Station." In the station, each student will have a pocket (a library checkout pocket that can be found at most educational supply stores) with their name on it. At the station, there will be various colored pencils and index cards for them to write their affirmations on. The students can write affirmations as morning work, when they finish work early, or at stations. The affirmations will then be put in the receipients' pocket which can be picked up during Reading Workshop and Literacy Stations or at the end of the day.

Capturing Kids' Hearts: Social Contract

In our class we follow a Social Contract to help the students and me work together to achieve positive behavior. A Social Contract is part of the guidance procedures we use at Moseley through the program Capturing Kids' Hearts. To create the Social Contract, the students divided into four groups and brainstormed on a Circle Map how they thought they should treat their friends, how they wanted to be treated by their friends, how they thought they should treat the teacher, and how they wanted to be treated by the teacher. After creating the Social Contract, the students each signed it. They also created faces of themselves to hang with the Social Contract. As a part of the program, the students are taught to "check" their classmates behavior in a positive, constructive manner. They are also taught how to affirm one another both verbally and in writing. Below is the Social Contract that our class created together.