Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Building Blocks of B2S- Week 2


Welcome to the second week of  The Building Blocks of  B2S! I am linking up with Stephanie from Mrs.D's Corner this week to talk about building relationships in the classroom.


My school does this amazing thing called, Spring Training Camp each year in June. It is hard to motivate myself in June, on the LAST week of school to prepare to meet my new students for the first time. As a grade level, the teachers work to prepare next years classes, so for me, this means deciding with my team, which students should be grouped together for second grade. Then the big day arrives, first graders visit second, and the kinders come to us! My room is always half packed and a big mess during this time! So the new firsties still get their moment of surprise at meet the teacher night! Read more about that from B2S-Week 1, here.


Its a a pretty neat concept, it works pretty smoothly as well. As teachers, we pretty much know which group is ours, but we see all four classes and are each able to discuss how we saw the class working together and make recommendations for changes. Of course, students move away, and new students show up in August. But its great to have a baseline idea of what your class is going to need in the following school year. 


Once school begins, I am able to remind students that we met in June, we can talk about the short and fun little activities we did last year! I usually read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom because its familiar, short and fun for a June read aloud. The firsties in training then make a chicka chicka tree with their name on it. They cut out small letter tiles & glue them on. Now this sounds super simple, but in reality, I am taking notes on how students work independently, who they chose to sit by, their cutting/gluing/following directions skills, and the ability to write/color/spell their name.

 Once August rolls around, its great to be able to look back on those notes during back to school week. I teach these three simple rules during back to school. I find they cover everything that could happen while being more proactive & positive that "KEEP HANDS AND FEET TO SELF" that may work for some, but these work like a charm in my classroom, to read more about these rules, click here. To grab the rules for your classroom, click the picture!
 

On the first day of school, I always read The Kissing Hand By Audrey Penn. The Kissing Hand read aloud helps students acknowledge their feelings about summer ending & returning to school. I like letting students know that all feelings are okay, but there are proper ways to handle them. 


I take a picture of each student with this sign & we make a class book of first day feelings. I LOVE looking back at this one throughout the year. To read more about how I use this book, click here.


There are so many ways I try to build relationships & foster good character in the classroom, I think I could rant about it for days. I hope these ideas helped! 



Make sure to swing by the other awesome bloggers who are linked up for Building Blocks of B2S to see how they are building relationships in the classroom!


Image and video hosting by TinyPic

2 comments:

  1. I love your respect signs. Respect is SO important! I like that your signs say respect yourself and the school! Both are so important (in addition to respecting others).

    I think it's really neat, too, that you guys have Spring Training Camp! Even though I have the same kids every year, I can see how beneficial it would be for a general ed teacher to meet all of his/her potential students!

    Thanks for linking up :) Give the furbaby backrubs from me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great activity to do at the end of the year! I am sure it helps get those students get over the fear of new room ,new teacher.
    Great respect signs!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...