Reestablishing Classroom Community After a Break

The first day back at school after two and a half weeks of relaxation and family fun... ahhhhhh. 

If your students are anything like mine, it's a very exciting day where everyone is very excited to see each other, but also a little nutty and restless. With four students still on vacation, and a new student who arrived a week early (I already adore her- she is the sweetest little girl from Saudi Arabia!), I wanted to find a way to ease us back into school routines and expectations, while putting us back into a community frame of mind. 

At the beginning of the year we did an activity that I found on Pinterest (I can't find it again! If you know who originally posted the idea, please let me know so that I can give credit!) and will keep a part of my beginning-of-the-year routine for years to come. Before the students came in I hung posters around the room, each headed with one of the following questions:

1. Our classroom should be ___________ everyday. 
2. School is important because...
3. What should students in our class do to help our class run smoothly?
4. To reach my goals this year, I need to make sure I...
5. What does Miss Streisel need to do to help you learn and grow?

Three of the girls deciding on classroom expectations

We spent some time moving between posters independently with a marker, adding initialed ideas to each poster, and then talked about our ideas before setting our hopes and dreams and our classroom rules. 

Today I brought the posters back out and again hung them around the room. I told them about how much I love the beginning of a new year, my birthday, and a new school year because they're all times to look at where I am, think about what I love about my life, and what new goals I want to set for myself. The same is true for our classroom- a new year is the perfect time to reassess our community and our environment! This time, I told them that they could add a new idea to each poster, or they could find their idea from the beginning of the year and leave themselves a comment. After a little while, two little angel girls came over and told me that they were finished, and asked if they knew who had written certain comments and had seen them do very well on something or work hard on a goal, if they could leave them a 'good job!' message. I love these thoughtful little bambinos (bambini... sorry... I like the sound of bambinos...). Afterwards, we had a great talk about how we'd move forward this year. Hopefully in the next few months, our classroom will become/continue-to-be the joyful, fun, organized, tidy, creative, and kind classroom my students need!

Bright Ideas: When You Need Three Extra Minutes

With last year being my first year teaching, I often found myself needing a few extra minutes to read over a lesson plan, gather materials, or just pull myself together. I found a quick, easy way to keep the kids engaged and give myself those extra few minutes. 

More often than not, my students are anywhere but their desks. We usually meet on the carpet in front of the whiteboard, and when asked to meet, the first question they ask me is always, "Circle, rows, or blob?" Circle is self-explanatory, rows are facing the whiteboard, and blob is usually facing my read-aloud chair. For this activity, I have my students meet in a circle and call on one student to be the teacher. I give my teacher (with the rest of the class listening) a question to reflect on. The teacher has his or her classmates raise their hands to reflect on the question. For my more shy students (or language learners), simply calling on classmates is more than enough of a responsibility. For the leaders of the classroom, they love offering feedback to their classmates. To be considered for the position of teacher next time (this happens a few times a week), students need to behave exactly as they would if their real teacher (me) were a part of the circle. This means raising hands to be called on, staying on topic, and actively listening to their peers. Being the teacher is a highly coveted position, so everyone is typically on best behavior during this activity.

You can have students reflect on anything you want. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. What is one fact you've learned so far about landforms/inventors/explorers/what-ever-your-current-unit-of-study-topic-is?
2. What book are you currently reading?
3. What are the properties of a polygon?
4. What strategy could you use for solving a given math problem?
5. What features might you find in a non-fiction text?
6. What is your CAFE goal or strategy and how are you working towards it?
7. What did we work on yesterday in math?
8. Give one fact you've learned about the Scientist of the Month. 
9. What book are you currently reading? What do you like about it so far?

It is usually an academically based question, but sometimes is also social curriculum related. In our school, we use Responsive Classroom and focus on a value each month, so sometimes the question is based on those ideas.

1. How will you stay balanced this month?
2. What does active listening look like?
3. What went well during our last activity (or recess/art/cleanup/etc.)?
4. What are our classroom rules? Why is that rule important?

Sometimes we also use this time for peaks and valleys or compliments and appreciations. More on those at a later date!

Activities to Encourage Enthusiasm for Reading

It's very challenging to start a career overseas. Not just start a new job, but an entire career. I am obsessed with Italy and feel so blessed to be here, but answer me this: how tough would it be to start a teaching career where there is absolutely nothing even close to Target, Jo-Ann Fabrics, or Dollar Tree? Shipping anything from Amazon (even UK) is a challenge because all of my packages are sent to school, and it's a challenge to find books in English (Ikea is great though!). That said, I was BEYOND excited for our biannual book fair last week! I've been trying out a few new activities this year to spark interest in reading, and am really pleased with how my three most recent activities have gone!

1. The 40 Book Challenge

Inspired by Donalyn Miller's "Book Whisperer," I've challenged my students to read 40 books this year. We've been working for about two weeks now and it's been so exciting! My students record each book that they read on a chart in their portfolios. They also add a sticker to our genre graph. I made a few changes to the genre requirements, as well as made a language amendment to the rules (I only have two native English speakers and want to respect and nurture first languages while also encouraging my students to read in English). I have been struggling with putting requirements on reading. My kids love Geronimo Stilton and Beast Quest; am I being terrible by forcing them to read something else? Last week we sat down together and talked it out. I told them that I want to expand their reading horizons and help them to find new interests and was so encouraged by their responses! Most said that within the last few weeks they'd already found a book from a genre they didn't usually read that they loved! We decided that we're open to changing the requirements at a later point if we need to, but for now we like the way the challenge is structured. 

2. New-Book Auction 

I went nuts at the book fair. I think I spent almost 100 euro during my first trip, and then went again a second time! But I'm so pumped about every book I bought, and so were my students. We took some time to go through each one together, reading through the backs and hearing from anyone who'd read the book before. Afterwards, each student was given five tickets, and we held a Chinese auction for the books by bidding for which we'd like to borrow for a week. We just finished studying probability, so it was interesting to talk about chances if you put all tickets in for one book, or a ticket in for five different books. After everyone had a chance to bid, the auction began! I absolutely loved how excited they were! The best part was when a student won more than one book. Since they could only borrow one, they had to choose which book to borrow for the week. This made things extra exciting because even if you lost out on the book you wanted most, you never knew if that book would end up being auctioned a second (or third!) time! In the end, I had a room full of eager and excited readers!

 3. Speed Recommendations

I haven't come up with a catchy name for this one yet. Basically what we did was speed dating with books. Each child picked a book that they wanted to recommend to their classmates. It had to be a book that they loved, that they thought their classmates would love, and that they thought might be new to their peers. I had them fill out a short form to prepare for the main event, where they wrote out  the title, author, and genre, a short summary (no spoilers!), and a brief explanation about why they thought their peers would like the book. You can find the worksheet I used free on my Teachers-Pay-Teachers site! We lined up in two rows, facing a partner. For the first few round, each partner had one minute to "sell" the book to their partner. After we'd gotten the hang of it, we moved down to 45 seconds. If your partner recommended a book you thought you'd like, you would write it down on the back of your paper. After each round, everyone would scoot over a spot to meet with a new partner. Logistically, I need a better plan next time. With each person scooting, they always skipped over someone. Next time it will work better for sure! Anyways, everyone came away with a few books they couldn't wait to read! The two books that seemed most popular were "Awful Auntie," and "Tuesday's at the Castle."

Taking some time to explore some of the book's
awesome features!

So many students loved the sound of "Little House on
the Prairie!"