Essential Agreements

Here are the students working on their first cooperative group activity.  Each student has an important role in the group.  The goal:  to come up with what we think is important to have a great class.  How do we think the classroom should look like, sound like, feel like on a daily basis.   The students wrote individual with words and pictures their ideas.  Next, we sat as a whole team and decided which one of the choices we agree is the best choice.  From that our essential agreements were born!

Morning Meeting

We begin each morning with a meeting where we greet each other and then do a fun activity with the whole group.  It is a great way to start each day.  The students are all smiling and laughing with each other as we learn our names and learn how to listen to our friends.  We end with what we now refer to as "chime time" this is a method from the Hawn Foundation: http://thehawnfoundation.org/mindup/ to help students calm their brain.  Through this program the students are learning about the parts of the brain and how they work.  We will be completing Mind up lessons throughout the year.

In the beginning...

I usually show up at the classroom in August to begin unpacking, but this year my room was done early YEAH!!  So in between Writing Camp and Presentations at Rice I was able to swing by and begin the transformation of the year.  In the beginning it's hard to believe that we start with literally a blank canvas and then the students change the space as soon as they enter. 

  They make the classroom- a classroom!!