The First Days of School

All right!  We made it!  The first week is in the books!  We started out the first days on a modified schedule.  The kids got to be in their regular classes for half of the day, and for the other half, students participated in mini-lessons focusing on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports).  The focus of PBIS is rooted in the idea that students need to have clear behavioral expectations and should be explicitly taught these same expectations.  We call these "universal expectations."  They range from dress code and to lunch room expectations to voice volume and hallway behavior.  Once these expectations are taught our job as teachers is to reinforce the students we see displaying the universal expectations.

In reading/writing-literature class (I'll be referring to it as RW Lit from now on) we began by having students tell me a little about how their previous teachers viewed them as readers and writers.  Be sure to ask your child what I did with the papers after I collected them!  We then moved on to my Classroom Truths activity.  I have several belief statements that I asked students to write about a connection they have to a particular truth or to write about why they believe that truth to be, in fact, true.  The seven truths of my classroom are as follows (in no particular order):

1. We each learn in our own ways, by our own time clocks.
2. Everyone needs time to think and learn.
3. It's O.K. to make mistakes, that is how we grow.
4. If it happened, it happened.  Let's move on.
5. We should desire confusion, that is how we learn.
6. We can do more and learn more when we are willing to take risks.
7. It's intelligent to ask for help, no one need do it alone.

In addition we covered the independent reading requirements for my class and students received their first page log to begin recording pages read.  There will be a posting in the near future giving further details on this quarterly requirement.

Finally we ended the week reading some articles on the topic of urban poverty.  The focus of these readings were to build background knowledge for all students to help in understanding the first whole-class novel that we will begin reading next week entitled, Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson.

As always, feel free to leave a comment or email me directly with any questions or concerns you may have.

GO BIRDS!