New book by Molly Bang!

I'm sure most of you have seen When Sophie Get's Angry: Really Really Angry

and I was so excited to get When Sophie's Feelings Get Really, Really Hurt two years ago.

So imagine how excited I was to see a new Molly Bang book on the Scholastic Preview!

This looks like the perfect way to explore mindset and perseverance. Here are some of my ideas for using the book.

1) Do an author study. Read more about Molly here.

2) Combine with a "power of yet" activity and bulletin board, like this FREEBIE from Lone Star Classroom. 

3) Partner with your favorite perseverance game like the Target dollar spot ring toss or create your own ring toss.

4) Get younger students excited by showing this video:

5) Explore Pinterest and tell me your favorite partner activity!

Attendance Awareness Month

September is Attendance Awareness Month!

It's been a busy month, but here's how we celebrated:

1) School wide challenge:

Our PTA theme this year is "sweet." This made me think of pop rocks which lead me to our "attendance rocks challenge."

*Each class with get an attendance rocks sign and letters to spell out “rocks.” I used Savvy School Counselor's Attendance Rocks Packet to get us started. I used her cover to make signs for classrooms and then I gave them each cut out letters to spell "rocks." 

*If a class had perfect attendance that day they stuck a letter on your sign. When the class spells out the word “rocks” they let me know and they won a book for their classroom library or other prize. 

*If they got "rocks" they had a second challenge, focusing on tardies.

Just like before they added a letter each day they had zero tardies. When they spell out “rocks” they got a book prize. 

Lessons for November- friends, safety, empathy, decision making, thankfulness, and bullying!

It's almost time for Thanksgiving break!!!!! Until then, here is a little about the fun we are having in class..

K-
We are talking about being a good friend.

Intro: We started out by reading "Let's Be Friends" on BookFlix.

Next, we watched "Rainbow Fish" on Storyline Online to talk about how good friends put others first and share. 

The class shared examples of good friendship skills that I wrote on starfish and fish.  To end each student decorated his/her own rainbow fish that we put on our bulletin board: "We are all friends in our school" (get it school haha!) 

Need more: Check out the word match on Book Flix:

1st Grade: Our character education word of the month is citizenship. We are reading "Michael, Recycle!" This is such a cute rhyming book and it has a lot of big vocabulary words for 1st grade, like crusader! 

In the past I have used this amazing Rhyme, Define, Rhyme pack by Speech Snacks I found on TPT.

I really like it, but I think its too hard for 1st grade. I would definitely use it for 2nd or 3rd. If your students are up for the challenge there are rhyming cards in the TPT pack- you could hand them out to each child and them find the partner whose card rhymes with theirs. There are also some great discussion cards you could play Quiz Quiz Trade with. 

First, we read and slowly discuss the book. I let the students turn and talk and share their ideas and answer questions. Then at the end the students draw what they would do at school if we had a "Be Greener Campaign." 

Lovely Bulletin

Check out this cute bulletin board by my former librarian. I love that the hearts have the call # for each book on them. (She's so smart.)

Best Bulletin Board Ever

Our music teacher did this today.

I really need to step up my bulletin boards.

Find the courage to stand out

Sorry I haven't posted in a while; I don't remember a school year starting out quite this crazy. Although, maybe they all do and I just mentally block them out each year to stay sane.

Needless to say one thing I haven't had time to do this year is update my bulletin boards, but a precious miracle occurred and the art teacher had a student helper that needed a few extra work hours and she volunteered to do my board. I think it's perfect!

Currently- I am getting to know you.

One of my favorite parts about Beg Borrow Steal is her "currently" idea.

From Beg Borrow Steal

I love this cute, quick activity for so many reasons. First, it's like a live journal. It would be so much fun to keep all of these in a journal to just flip through. Second, it's an idea just made for counselors to steal and use. Here's how I have used it:

Before you bark...

Here is my version of the famous THINK bulletin board....

New Year, New Resolutions

YOU MUST READ: http://pittiesincity.blogspot.com/

Thanks to one of my favorite new blogs, http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/, Pinterest I found this adorable worksheet for students to reflect on the previous year and plan for 2013!

So, I had my kids in 4th-5th grade fill one out today and we made a super bulletin in the hallway to share.

Happy 2013!

Our festive dog!

I used the cards to spell out the date.

I still have more cards to add!

Some answers were super sweet. Greatest lesson learned "Love is above all." LOVE my kids.

Some were thoughtful and heartbreaking. "Hardest thing about the year: losing my dad" wrote one 4th grade student who lost her father this year.

My attempt at making blue dog festive.

Top Dog Bulletin

As part of my character education program each month I ask teachers to nominate a "top dog" in their class that  exemplified the word of the month. (Here is a list of my character education words: http://www.cityschools.net/discovery/filtness/Site/Top_Dogs.html)
 I honor those students by placing their names on a bulletin board for all to see and creating a "top dog" certificate. They love it! Next year my plan is to have the top dogs eat breakfast together to celebrate.

Our Student Council board in August

Look Whose Been Spotted