As Spring Break approaches, I find that my fifth graders are in need of some reminders as to what it means to be kind to each other.   In general, they are sweet kids, but at times the words they use and actions they take, particularly on the playground, aren't the kindest.    Our read aloud for the month is Wonder  by RJ Palacio so the theme of kindness fit right into our room.  It just so happens that a new book, We're All Wonders by RJ Palacio, a picture book intended for younger readers to access the story, came out this week as well.  So the timing was perfect. (the two links above are my affiliate links and will take you to Amazon to buy the books.) I began by asking the students what kindness is.  We brainstormed a list of ideas and created an anchor chart.  Then I read the picture book to the students.  Because we had just finished Wonder, they were so excited to read this new version.  When we finished, I asked the ki......

This year, I am trying to do things that will keep our classroom positive and happy, so I thought I would connect some of the academic ideas we are learning with a bit of team building fun.  So as we wrapped up our unit on character traits (you can read about exactly what we did here ), I had the students think about the traits that their classmates embodied. So, this is totally made up, but you get the idea ;) I created a form on Google Forms that included each of my students' names.  (I made each entry a "short answer" question)  I then asked the students to think of 3 POSITIVE adjectives that described their fellow classmates and input that into the form.   I wanted them specifically to think of inside traits that we had learned about in our character unit, as outside traits were a bit too obvious.  To help the students really dig deeper on the character traits,  I projected this character trait list from Read. Write. Think onto the board. ......

Continuing on with our lessons about RESPECT, my class moved on to Empathy.  For those of you following along, this lesson went with the "E" in Digital Divide and Conquer's RESPECT posters.  I began by showing the students this Sesame Street video defining Empathy.  Let's face it, empathy is a hard word to understand and Sesame Street has a knack for breaking hard concepts down for kids.  I will admit, when I first projected this up, there were several groans from my fifth graders.  But by the end of the video, they were laughing and fully into it.  Plus, they understood Empathy :) Once we had a good working definition of what it means to be empathetic, I walked them through the five steps towards showing empathy in any given situation.  I got these steps from this lesson here , and I thought they were just perfect for breaking down the process we go through when putting ourselves in another person's shoes. I then broke the students into ......

The second aspect of respect that we touched upon in class was THINKING before you speak.  Using the letter S from Digital Divide and Conquer's awesome Respect Posters , I gathered my students on the rug to discuss the idea of THINKing before we speak. You know those signs that are all over Pinterest using the acronym THINK?  Here are a few examples of them .  Anyway, I used that acronym to design my lesson.  The purpose was to force the students to think about the words that were coming out of their mouths and how they were perceived by other people. First, I wrote THINK on the chart paper, leaving a bit of space between them.  I went through, letter by letter, telling the students what it meant, then giving examples of times when they probably went against that trait, but also examples of how they could exemplify it.  For example, T = True.  Is what you are saying actually true, or are you just giving your opinion?  When you call someone ugl......

Respect.  It is such an important and integral part of a functioning classroom.  The beginning of the year is the perfect time to introduce lessons that reinforce for students what it means to be respectful of each other, of the classroom, of adults on campus, and of themselves.  So this week, I began my first in a series of lessons on respect with my students. I knew my objectives (that the students would speak respectfully to each other and to adults) but I wasn't exactly sure where to start.  So I turned to my trusty friend Pinterest and I found these AMAZING posters from Digital Divide and Conquer .  They are free in his shop and so perfectly matched my thoughts on what I wanted to teach the kids that I just had to print them out.   For each letter of the word Respect, there is one correlating aspect.  I chose to center my first lesson around the letter R, "Recognize that everyone is different." Inspired by this pin from the First Grade ......