Specifically, I will…

Work on understanding my student’s personalities, where their strengths and weaknesses are

Rationale:

I want to know everything that I can about my students. By knowing more about them, knowing what their home life is like, knowing their personalities, and what they respond to, and what their strengths and weaknesses are, I can better serve these students and better teach these students. Creating this strong and personal relationships with my students allows me to become that much better of teacher.

Action Plan:

1. Students will complete an activity where they use the letters of their names to come up with adjectives to describe themselves. They will then get to decorate their name poem with a mosaic frame.
2. I will be sending home a letter to parents that I am in the classroom and will be working in their child’s classroom for the semester. I will also be sending notes home throughout the semester on when I see their child doing something popular.
3. Students will be completing a flag about themselves. This will include information, such as birthday, age, color, animal, subject, food and what they want to be when they grow up.
4. Students will be writing an autobiography about themselves. They will include information, such as siblings, home life, age, favorite food and favorite thing to do.

Resources:

1. Idea came from my Cooperating Teacher, but I modified to fit more of what I wanted. I included the mosaic art piece.
2. Letter to Parents – I wrote myself. I got the positive notes to send home from Teachers Pay Teachers. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Parent-Notes-EDITABLE-FREEBIE-3049729
3. Student flags were purchased from teachers created resources.
4. Autobiographies were my idea.

Outcomes and Results:

1. The name poem we did alongside a story in our Journey’s book, My Name is Gabriela, about Gabriela Mistral, a famous Spanish author that writes poetry. We also were learning about adjectives at that point. The students really enjoyed brainstorming different adjectives that could be used to describe a person. We also had to look online for some different ones for letters such as y and z.
2. The students really loved having notes sent home with them. I printed these notes on bright paper and they were so excited to be able to show their parents the notes. The ones that I sent home the most were ‘____was caught working hard”. These ones made all of the student very happy.
3. We did have a little bit of an issue with the flags. The students were so excited to hang them up that we hung them up right away as they finished them. We hung them on the closet door by the door to the classroom. The issue that we had were other kids smearing or erasing other people’s flags. We had a whole class conversation about respecting other people work, but the students that got their work messed up were obviously upset.
4. The autobiographies were really the students first time writing a narrative story, so I gave them more or less a template to follow. They had to tell me several things about themselves, but they all started with My name is….. I really enjoyed reading these and learned many things about my students that I did not know before.

Reflection:

Overall, I really enjoyed these activities. I plan on doing a lot of them next year in my own classroom. I learned many things about my students, including about their temperament and self-esteem. I would really like to do the name poems again next year and feel that they could work for almost every grade level. The positive notes home was a great hit. I had a couple students come over and tell me that another student was being helpful or kind and if they could get a note sent home. If I do the flags again, I will have them laminated so that the other students can’t mess with them.

Specifically, I will…

Work with students on what is expected of them each day in the classroom. By using vocabulary, such as respect, kindness, polite, and positive, students will become used to this vocabulary. By creating an environment of respect and making the classroom a safe place for learning, students will become more comfortable with answering questions and being involved in the learning process

Rationale:

I am focusing on this element because I feel that it is very important in a classroom and something that all students need to work on. With the increasing levels of bullying in our youth, as well as the younger and younger that we are seeing bullying behavior. I feel students need to understand the way that their words impact the person they are talking to. We also need to encourage students to support one another. Students also need to practice and learn respecting the adults and listening to the adults. Not only is it a skill that they need later in life, if they do not respect or listen to the adults that they are with, they could put themselves in a dangerous situation. In the event of an emergency, students need to listen to the adult that they are with to make it to safety.

Action Plan:

1. Create a classroom constitution with the students where they get to make the rules and discuss what they want in their classroom to be successful. Once we get all the rules made, all of the students will sign the ‘constitution’ of our classroom.
2. Students will come up with an adjective to describe each of their classmates. I will then create a door decoration with each of the student’s name and some of the adjectives that were used to describe them. Students can then see how they are viewed in the eyes of their classmates. This will encourage students that they are respected and cared for in their classroom.
3. Send home notes with the students that say that they were caught being respectful. Students will be excited to bring those notes home with them to show their parents and will hopefully work hard for those notes.

Resources:

1. Classroom Constitution – I thought of this kind of on my own. I will write out the Constitution and have the kids sign it. Anchor Chart Paper, Blank Paper for the kids to write on, markers.
2. Door Decoration – I came up with this idea on my own as well. We are working on adjectives, and I wanted to do this for Valentine’s Day. I am hoping that it will help with the students that do not feel as connected to the class.
3. Notes home. – I got the idea from Teachers Pay Teachers. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Behavior-Management-Cards-Caught-Being-Kind-Respectful-3432940

Outcomes and Results:

1. I really enjoyed this activity and think that kids did too. We discussed each idea that the students came up with and decided whether or not we wanted to include it in the final classroom constitution.
2. I really loved this activity. Before we did it, we read a story called Roses are Red, Your Feet Really Stink. In the story one of the students wrote mean things to two other students in his class valentine’s day cards but didn’t sign him name. When the class figured out who wrote the mean things, no one wanted to play with him. The main character then had to make it right with his friends. This was a great introduction to the story to help the students understand that they have to be kind to one another when picking words to describe each other.
3. These notes really boosted the moral of the students. They would ask for the notes home and remind me to send them home. They would also come and report other students that they felt needed a positive note home. I had one student that struggled with focus and emotions. His grandma would ask us at the end of every week if he had done a good job, and if he had he got a special prize on his game at home. I started sending these notes home on Fridays if he had done a good job, and she loved them.

Reflection:

Overall, I think that these activities did help the students learn about respect and kindness. The students enjoyed having these as a base line to help them understand. I really loved seeing the student start to report each other and hold each other accountable. Seeing the students recommend their classmates for the positive notes home, and seeing them remind each other what the classroom rules are and not immediately coming to talk to me.

NMTEACH 3B: Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques to Support Classroom Discourse.