Building Community
The main things I do in my classroom to build community is:
Arrival 1. Morning Greetings (I stand at the door and say good morning to every child as they enter the room) 2. Morning Meeting (we sit in a large circle at the front of our classroom) 3. Daily Check-In (students complete this as their morning work, I have different ones for all 5 days of the week) Dismissal
1. Afternoon Meeting (we sit in a large circle at the front of our classroom) 2. Daily check-out (students fill out and complete at their seats, I call is "Strive for Five" because they are striving to show all 5 of those behavior traits each day) 3. Afternoon Closure (I stand at the door and say fun silly sayings as kids leave my room...Toodaloo Kangaroo, take care polar bear, ect.) |
There are many variations on a morning meeting, this is what works for me.
Rules - we recite our classroom rules and our daily affirmation Morning Message - we chorally read the morning message (Good morning class, today is Tuesday, Oct. 3rd. When have you felt bold?) Little Visit/Share - students share with their elbow partners their responses to the question posed in the morning message. Fact of the Day - today in history, animal facts, unique vocabulary terms, ect. Devotion, Prayer - I have a children's devotional book with a devotion for every day of the year, then I take prayer requests and we pray together. Greeting - the student helper selects a greeting from a list and we all greet each other on our way back to our seats. |
As with morning meeting there are a variety of ways you could run an afternoon meeting in your classroom.
Shine/Polish - we think as a class and discuss what something we did today that we really shined at as a whole group, and what is something we could polish up and do better at tomorrow. Peacemaker - a student shares an example they saw of another student being a peacemaker that day. Questions jar - I have a jar filled with a variety of questions that help us reflect on our day. We pull one and they share. Daily Reflection - Students close their eyes and reflect on their day while I ring a bell. Ring 1 - they close their eyes Ring 2 - they think about how they are feeling on a scale of 1-5 as today ends Ring 3 - open their eyes We share out....anyone feeling a 1 or 2? anyone feeling a 3 and wants to share? Anyone feeling a 4 or 5 and would like to share? Prayer - We recite the virtue verse and prayer of the month. Activity - If we have time before pack up we do a classic camp game or short game...poison dart frog, around the world math facts, spelling sparkle, ect. |
Student Engagement
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is one of my absolute favorite times of the day. This is our class's time to refresh, regroup, and reset ourselves to power through the rest of our day. Typically I do mindfulness with my class when they return from lunch to help settle them back into the classroom environment. I use a different technique each day of the week to keep it fresh for my students.
I have know teachers who utilize mindfulness at their start of their days, but with doing morning meeting each day I haven't found it necessary to start my day with it and utilize it in the middle of our day when stress tends to run a little higher as kids are getting more and more ready for the day to end but we still have a lot of work to do.
I have know teachers who utilize mindfulness at their start of their days, but with doing morning meeting each day I haven't found it necessary to start my day with it and utilize it in the middle of our day when stress tends to run a little higher as kids are getting more and more ready for the day to end but we still have a lot of work to do.
Monday
I utilize tapping with my students each Monday. I write an affirmation on the board. Once I see every student settled and tapping our first tap point I ask them to take a breath in...as we exhale we say the affirmation. Then we move to our next tap point and when I see everyone is there, I ask them to take a deep breath in...and we say our affirmation again on the out breath. We continue this process until we have completed the entire tapping session with all the tap points in our sequence. |
There are many resources out there to find ideas of positive affirmations you can use with children. I am certain if you quick search for positive student affirmations you will find a list that will work for you. Below is the link to a free set of affirmations I found on teacher pay teacher. |
Tuesday
Typically on Tuesdays I utilize a "script" these scripts are simple meditation scripts that take only a few minutes. I simply read through the script as the students silently close their eyes and visualize whatever the script is asking of us. |
Wednesday
On Wednesday's I take a break from teaching mindfulness and utilize a video. There are many great organizations and people who have put together wonderful mindfulness sessions for kids and post them to youtube. Some favorites of my students are "Cosmic Kids Yoga, Zen Den" videos. Another great youtube channel for mindfulness sessions for children is "The Mental Health Teacher". There are also some great videos on GoNoodle that promote mindfulness.
On Wednesday's I take a break from teaching mindfulness and utilize a video. There are many great organizations and people who have put together wonderful mindfulness sessions for kids and post them to youtube. Some favorites of my students are "Cosmic Kids Yoga, Zen Den" videos. Another great youtube channel for mindfulness sessions for children is "The Mental Health Teacher". There are also some great videos on GoNoodle that promote mindfulness.
Thursday
Thursdays are special days and I created a google slide set for these sessions. We do sound mindfulness! I linked in youtube videos for a variety of relaxing sounds and will add more sounds as the year progresses. I play the sound then select the specific Breath Timer that my class uses from the slide set (my 4th graders use the 4 second breath timer) The links and gifs in the google slide set were not created or developed by me. I simply accumulated them into a single location within the slide deck so they are easier to find and utilize in my own classroom. |
Friday
On Friday's we do chair yoga! At this point (beginning) of the year I have my kiddos only do chair yoga. They are just too squirrely and unbalanced for full body yoga to be calm and relaxing. Hopefully as the year progresses we will get to that full body yoga stage, but for now we will do it from our chairs. |
Reflection
At a later date I will photograph my calm corner and share with you what I keep in the calm corner basket that the kids use to help reset their minds when they are struggling with their emotions.
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Celebrating Success
Individual
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Whole Class
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