First two weeks in review!

We have had a great start to the school year!  The students in Mrs. Worthy's class came ready to learn and have done a fantastic job learning our classroom norms and have worked extremely hard to build a strong community.  Two specific things we are doing to ensure a strong classroom community are morning meetings and "drops in a bucket".  We start every morning with a morning meeting.  During our meeting we make sure that everyone is greeted.  We are focusing on making eye contact, a firm handshake (but not too firm!), and speaking in a clear voice.  This has been a great way for us to get to know each other and learn each other's names! 

"Drops in a bucket" is something that I have done in the past.  We talk about how each person has an imaginary bucket inside and that people can fill up your bucket with nice words and gestures.  On the flip side, people can also dip from your bucket by saying or acting in a negative way.  Each student in class has a bucket on the bulletin board where others can drop nice notes/compliments.  Students get to take their "drops" home each Friday.  A quick story, last Friday morning I noticed a student peeking in all the buckets.  I just watched her and quickly noticed that she was making sure that every person was going to have a drop in their bucket to take home over the weekend.  So sweet!

We sat down as a class on the second day of school and made our classroom expectations.  We then sorted each expectation into the different areas of our school mantra.  The students loved this because it helps them to have ownership over the expectations...they aren't just a meaningless list that Mrs. Worthy created!

I know already that this is going to be a wonderful school year!  I am looking forward to all that is to come!

Thanks for stopping by Room 506!
Mrs. Worthy