Teacher Activities

Student Affirmations!
Daily affirm your students' character by writing something like this on your whiteboard:

    ◊ Welcome intelligent, creative, highly capable kids!
    ◊ You rock!  Thanks for working so hard everyday.
    ◊ Your respect and kindness toward others makes this a wonderful place.  I adore you.
    ◊ This class is exquisite!
    ◊  You take your learning seriously and your compassion radiates to others.
       I love being your teacher.


Team Tales
Here's a great writing activity for the whole class.
   On school lined writing paper, write this story starter:
          Johnny knocked on the door of his sister's bedroom.

Classroom Set-Up
   Have the kids form a circle.
   Tell them the entire class will contribute to writing a story.

Procedure
   Each student will add to the story by privately writing just one sentence.
   Explain that they can take about a minute to write their sentence.
   When they pass it to the next student, that person can only read the last sentence
       and then write the next sentence in the story.
       (The person writing the sentence does not read their sentence.)
   Then the story is passed to the next student.
   This process continues until the story is finished or until every student
       has written a sentence.

Now the Fun Begins!
   You start by reading the story starter and pass to the student next to you.  Enjoy!

Option:  Divide the class in half and end up with two stories.