September 30th, 2022

In today's lesson, we talked about respect. Respect is a topic I cover in all grades during the first month of school. Student's benefit from a reminder on how to treat adults and other student's once they start getting back into the swing of things at school. We typically see behavior begin to increase around late September and October. It is my goal that teaching these skills during these months will help remind student's of our school expectations so that everyone feels happy and safe while learning.

We began this lesson by doing a four corners activity where students rated themselves on these three statements:

1. I feel respected at school

2. I show respect at school

3. It is important to me that everyone feels respected

Students went to the corner they felt was true for themselves. The corners were:

Corner A: All the time

Corner B: Most of the time

Corner C: Sometimes

Corner D: Never

Students were able to reflect on themselves and gain some understanding by looking around the room and seeing where their classmates where standing.

Next, we did an anchor chart activity where students came up with ways we show respect. We wrote down what we thought respect looks like, feels like, and sounds like.

Once we created our definition of respect, we did some group work. Student's were put into groups where they were given "Rude or Respectful" scenarios and had to decide which it was and state why to their group members.

Our 6th graders are our oldest students in our schools. We expect great leadership from them and they take pride in that responsibility. A quick refresher on how to be respectful to everyone in our building helps students continue learn to hold themselves accountable and creates a positive enviornment for everyone!

September 9th, 2022

In today's lesson, we discussed emotions and empathy. By 6th grade, student's can identify and name various emotions and feelings in themselves. The next step is identifying the emotions of others' in order to empathize with them. We looked at various examples on a power point. I asked students to observe the people in the powerpoint and make guesses about what they think they were feeling based on their body language.

We talked about how there will be times when someone is going through a difficult experience that we don't understand. However, even if we have not been through that exact experience, it's likely we have felt similar emotions. A few examples we discussed were the loss of a family member or pet. While some of us have not had to experience loss, we do understand what it feels like to be sad or upset. We can empathize with those feelings and learn to respond to people appropriately.

Next, we played a game of emotions charades. Students were placed into two teams. They were given a stack of cards with various emotions listed on them. Their team needed to act out the emotion and the student with the emotion card on their head needed to guess the emotion correctly. The students had a blast with this! It got pretty competetive!

Another fun day in 6th grade!

September 2nd, 2022

This week in 6th grade we worked on the importance of goal setting! We started class with a fun game. I brought in two stress balls and a crate. Students were divided into two teams and each time had to set a goal of how many times they could make the ball into the crate. The winning team earned candy! Each time set their goal and quickly learned that it wasn't quite as easy as they anticipated. They were given a chance to adjust their goal and try again. Both teams were much closer to achieving their goal the second round.

We used this opening activity to spark a discussion about how goals often need to be reviewed and reflected upon then adjusted in order for us to be successful.

We reviewed the SMART goal powerpoint. Students were introduced to the acronym SMART last year in guidance.

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-Oriented

We discussed how all good goals have each of these elements and if one is missing, the goal is not complete. Student's were then asked to come up with their own SMART goals for the year. These were added to their leadership binders and we will review them in the spring.

It was another fun day of learning in 6th grade!