Building a Community

 Our pacing guide has "Good Citizenship" listed for the first month of social studies instruction.  Well, we can only go over our classroom rules so many times.  After I think we've spent enough time on our classroom rules, school expectations, and basic safety stuff, we dive into our study of "community."  Not only is the word "community" foreign to most of my kids, they have varying levels of experience with a school environment.  Throughout the past week, we've been building up our classroom community. We made this "tree" of our classroom learners.

We have had 2 Fridays in our school year so far, and I am proud to report that on both days we concluded our day with our class meeting.  This was a time for us to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly.  We celebrated our successes and made note of how we can make better choices.  We close with our secret handshake. 

My goal for the school year is to promote problem solving skills.  When we've had some bumps in the road (behavior-related), I remind each student that they have two choices.  Then I spell out the two choices.  They have been able to assess and apply decision making skills successfully. WOOHOO!