Refreshing Routines to Revisit for the New Year

Happy New Year (to everyone, but especially teachers who are welcoming students back from break!). Below are some routines to keep you afloat as we re-enter school and get through the winter together.

• Morning Meeting - the start of the day is everything. 

• Bringing back a game they loved back in September (to them, and us! Feels like ages away) is like returning back to a nice friend you know well. Still fun, but predictable and no one has to be stressed about new rules. 

• Reminding students of how far you have come from the beginning of the year when you were all learning these new routines (and each other’s names!).

• Read aloud! (after returning from recess or lunch, preferably)

• Starting the New Year with a new read aloud book if it lands there for you is very helpful to us. Catching ourselves (and our students) into a story is always a soft place to land (can you cover those fluorescent lights?!) and a way to have collective calm and ways to talk about our feelings (and relate them to characters) when things are chaotic. 

• Kudos 

• With all of the goals of a new year and being better and better and progress etc. We lean hard on our affirmations, compliments, and kudos type routines. The Winter Doldrums and overall glum/irritability/ worn off veneer of Fall beginning of the year... all of this makes it even more important to say something nice every day. 

• Buddy time! -if you have them. 

• The time to connect with older/younger students, read books, make art.. We know so many schools and teachers and pandemic times make this challenging or impossible. If it is something you can swing, it is a sweet and clutch time for all parties. There’s so many different students (in both sets of buddy grades!) that end up needing/benefiting from this in such important ways. Sweet moments to shine and connect. 

• Gabby specific (although Nina came to games sometimes!) - Basketball! 

• Or other indoor sports/activities to be excited about. The schedule and getting excited about upcoming games is such a boon of a routine. Basketball (and coaching our girls) was always the thing that kept me afloat during Winter. It is indoors, it is squeaky, the comradery and community of everyone cheering... being a part of something and sharing school pride/celebrating their peers who get to shine in a different arena (or being the kid who shines)! 

• Help me on this one! : Dismissal 

• Dismissal is one piece that I still don’t feel I have a full handle on and Winter dismissal is just an added nightmare because of all the coats, gloves, jackets etc. We had everyone sit at their desks and we’ve tried closing meetings but it is always rushed and slightly chaotic. Pick up is chaotic. What tips do you have for a calm closing end of the day routine/system? Please share!!!

Beginning of the School Year Fun

Happy Back to School! I know many schools are starting early this year, so if you already started school, congratulations on making it through the first day/week(s)! The first couple weeks are always so incredibly draining. I am not in a classroom this fall for the first time in many years so I am missing the first day anticipation and exhaustion! I’ve always loved setting up my classroom and writing students’ names on everything. 

Usually, I join my students in writing a letter to myself on the first day of school. It’s always fun to look back on and be surprised about your assumptions, emotions, thoughts, fears, and hopes. I also have shifted to asking students to share a moment of joy or deliciousness instead of something they did this past summer. It’s more inclusive and avoids isolating students who didn’t travel or don’t feel comfortable sharing. I often model by sharing about eating something I cooked or something a family member or friend cooked for me. It’s more relatable and starts a conversation about food which is of course always a win for me..

If you are still setting up your classroom (especially your library) or thinking about curricular materials/read alouds, here is your Reminder: Representation Matters! If you are in one of the many states restricting and threatening teachers, carefully chosen read alouds might be a subversive way to allow all students and families to feel comfortable in your classroom, but I know many schools or districts are grappling with increased book banning as well. 

I know many teachers who are still feeling a lot from last year on top of navigating new laws, book bans, and so much more. Try to think about ways to joyfully connect with students and rejuvenate yourself. A fun game that led to a few minutes of students giggling often uplifted me to get through another day of hybrid learning during the first year of the pandemic. Remember it’s important for kids to connect with each other as well. Building community is always key, but even more so this year after all of this isolation and disruption of the past few years. 

One easy win is to get students’ names and faces up in or around your classroom as soon as possible. I like to have students “create their name” and take photos of them with their name creation on the very first day of school, then print the photos and put them on our bulletin board. It has some many benefits: it makes me feel happy, is great for visiting families to see (if you have an in person back to school night this year), and most importantly, helps  students feel ownership over the classroom space. Name creation is also a high success activity to help students settle into being back at school.

When we went back to school last fall, students were really struggling to get through the full day for the first few weeks. We would consult and realize we needed to have quiet time to help them calm down and keep it together until dismissal. Often 5-10 minutes of quiet time after lunch or recess will end up saving a lot of teaching and learning time in the long run as it minimizes redirection later. My students loved the peaceful music and the freedom to choose any quiet activity they could do independently at their desks.

One other tool that always helped me is roadmaps and checklists. They are always helpful, but especially when settling into new routines and getting used to being back in school. I had a student who really struggled to stay engaged and kept asking what would happen next and when it was time for recess or lunch, so I gave him a personalized schedule in a whiteboard pocket so he could keep track himself and check off each class period when it was completed. He loved the tool and stopped asking for constant updates and was able to enjoy whatever was happening once he was freed from the anxiety of not knowing what to expect.. At the very least, writing a “roadmap” detailing each step of the lesson/period on the board helps me stay on track! It is also so useful for co-teachers or anyone else who comes into your classroom. My third graders loved reading the roadmap, checking things off, and adding something celebratory at the end if we finished (who doesn’t love a 30 second dance break?) all our tasks. They also loved when I had acronyms or used previously taught vocabulary words so they felt “in the know” and could explain what something meant to visitors. They also knew we would start every single lesson together by reading the roadmap and that routine really worked for them. It’s a great way to model organization, goal setting, and planning.

Wishing all teachers and students a joyful and peaceful start to the school year (or as close to one as possible for you). I hope you find some moments of humor and are kind to yourself during this exciting and intense time. Happy Teacher New Year!

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Games to Play During Remote Learning or Physically Distanced Learning

Games, brain breaks, Morning Meeting activities, and community building exercises are a vital part of learning in our 3rd grade classroom. I’ve (Nina) been thinking a lot about how we can continue to incorporate games and brain breaks even when teaching over video or while staying six feet apart. Here are some of the ideas we came up with - Gabby is the game genius, so I asked her to help me brainstorm! We came up with two lists, which are below. I tried to link to a description or provide it myself unless it seems really self-explanatory, but if anything is not clear, please comment below and we will give you more details.

On live video (Zoom, Google hangouts, etc)

Keep in mind that a whiteboard with names or teams behind you where you can show them their points and keep updating it or keep track of rounds, etc. will help many of these! Also, depending on your setup, many of these games would also work in person and physically distanced!

• Name and a movement! (and then the group does it back to you) as a fun greeting 

• 20 questions (younger students often need a refresher on what is a “yes or no question” and practice re-wording their questions to fit their criterion).

• Mystery number (or country, city, classmate, food, letter/sound, book, etc): like 20 questions but more subject focused. Great way to practice Math notation! 

• Mystery voice! - all students look away from the camera (in the classroom, close their eyes until the teacher has told them to stop) and the teacher chooses a student to be the ‘mystery voice’. The teacher gives the mystery voice the thumbs up to speak and they say the agreed upon sentence (ours was, “I am an awesome third grader”) while all classmates continue to have eyes closed and the mystery voice student also closes their eyes to blend back in with the group. The teacher says, “Okay, eyes open, raise your hand if you have a guess for who is the mystery voice!”. Take 3 guesses and see if the mystery voice student can win! We found this was a great way to integrate fun adjectives to elevate vocabulary (enigmatic, deceptive etc.) while providing praise. It was also a fun way to settle into a nice (anticipatory) quiet, and let kids be creative and silly (with structure). 

• Dance break (not a game, but fun!) 

• Great Wind Blows (can’t do the walking around part, but could raise your hands and then pick someone to go next)

• Telling a story where each person adds a sentence (teacher or volunteer student who is old enough could type it and share their screen so everyone can follow along)

• Mad libs

• Simon Says: a classic movement break! You may need to operate on the honor system and let students decide when they are out. 

• “Hangman” but make it less violent and change the name/ complete a different image (like a cute simple dog face!) when they guess the wrong letters to fill in the blanks. 

• Jeopardy (need to set up questions beforehand)

• Pictionary (person who is drawing draws on paper and everyone else pins that video)

• Charades (same as pictionary but you act it out in front of your webcam)

  • Reverse charades (everyone acts one thing out and the teacher or one student has to guess what the group is doing by looking at everyone’s frames! This sounds hilarious to us. You also might have experienced this as “Heads Up” played on someone’s phone.) 

• Scattegories (pick 3 categories, 3 letters.. Would need to send them the paper to fill in their boxes) 

• I Spy (using your camera’s frame and you can set up a little scene) 

• Press conference (one person ‘leaves’ and the rest of the group decides who that person will be (someone famous or familiar that everyone knows). When the person “returns,” members of the group asks them questions (which also give them hints about their pretend identity) and they have to answer the questions and try and guess who they are. They usually get 3 guesses. 

• I’m going on a trip…: Students have to guess the pattern of what you’re bringing with you. This is so much fun and once students get the hang of it, they will volunteer to be the leader.

• Emotions Game: someone acts out emotions or you have to guess the emotion based on the image or a peer’s facial expression on video! This might be fun in teams with a timer (20 seconds for each emotion or acting out, etc).

While physically distancing:

All of these games can be played while staying six feet apart. However, we’d recommend having some kind of virtual (dots, carpet squares, tape on the floor) so students know where to stand. You might want to practice staying on your spots before you jump into a game and have a signal or word for when students need to check if they are still on their spots.

• Vegetable off: two students face off. The teacher asks the audience for an adjective and a vegetable (audience members whisper their suggestions or write them down so the competing kids can’t hear them). Then you count down, 3, 2, 1, and announce the adjective and vegetable (for example, “nervous green bean!) and the competing kids both have to embody a nervous green bean. We usually only give them 5-10 seconds with a verbal countdown as this can be hard to keep up. This would be terrifyingly awful for shy kiddos so maybe just keep this one as kids who volunteer, but it is always good for getting everyone laughing and awake! We have used it as a tie breaker at the end of a game when there are 2 kids left as the winners. 

• Read My Mind: (this is a game for kids in pairs). Put your thumb up when you have your word, countdown from 3 and both say your word at the same time. For example, I might say “shoes” and you might say “cheese.” On our next round, we need to try to think about what word might combine elements of shoes and cheese. We are trying to get to the same word over time through associations.

• Splash or Splat

• Zip Zap Zoom 

• Freeze dance: this is a classic! Play music and when the music stops, the last person to freeze is out. You may want to give students a box or circle to dance in to help them maintain physical distancing. 

• Wah 

• Heads Up, Seven Up: another classic! I remember playing this in elementary school. You would need to find a way to modify the tapping the thumb step (perhaps tapping with your foot three times or moving something with your foot), but ask your students to think of solutions that could work with staying 6+ feet apart and I know they will have lots of creative ideas.

• Around the World (we’ve done this with math facts, vocabulary, and geography!) 

• Bippity Bippity Bop 

• Look up, Look down 

• Who’s the leader?/Coseeki 

• Rock Paper Scissors Evolution: I’ve also played this with students where the loser becomes part of the winner’s entourage and cheers them on. That might be really hard with physical distancing though as the game ends with two large groups of people each cheering on their champion. 

Hope this list brings some moments of joy to your classroom (virtual or physical)! Please share any others as we’d love new ideas to try out. One last plug - Responsive Classroom always has new ideas and resources for Morning Meeting activities/games as well.

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Creating Our Class Contract!

As we near the end of October and my school has its Fall round of conferences with families, I was recently pleased to notice how many of my students use the language of our class contract (rules for our class) in their reflections about how the year is going for them. Creating our contract was a multi-step process starting with a read aloud and ending with a signed contract and accompanying art projects (and of course a shared understanding about the kind of community we want to create).

We started with a read aloud (always a wonderful place to start!). Our first chapter book read aloud of the year is Save Me a Seat by Gita Varadarajan and Sarah Weeks. We read a few chapters and a day and do a variety of responses to our reading to help us empathize with the characters. The main characters’ negative experiences at school provide a contrast as we think about how we want to make each other feel at school.

However, to specifically start our conversation about our class contract (and community) we read The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael Lopez. (This is a new picture book and it is gorgeous! We highly encourage you to read it yourself.) After we read this book, we ask students what we should have on our contract to make sure everyone feels welcome to share their stories and be themselves in our class. We also remind students of their Hopes and Dreams (which we created a few days before) and think about what we need in our classroom to make these come true.

Next, students brainstormed in pairs about their ideas for the class contract. Then, they had time to work independently and wrote down a few of their ideas on a notecard. We reminded students to make positive statements (tell what we should do) and think about the most important things to include.

The next step is to filter the ideas down to bigger ideas so that everyone’s contribution is included, but we also don’t have a contract with 50 rules! We try to show students our process so it is transparent. We do this by listing the final statements we came up with in bold and sorting all of our students’ suggestions under the relevant statement. For example, don’t be territorial went under “know your place.”

The final version of our class contract!

We ended up with 5 statements. The final number of statements can be more or less depending on your students’ ages, but 5 statements are comprehensive enough to cover everything and brief enough to easily remember. We should also mention that this process is Responsive Classroom inspired!

Our final step was sharing our final contract. Everyone in our class signed it (in fancy metallic Sharpie!) to show their commitment to upholding it. When we say everyone, this includes other adults in the building! We also asked students to think about what the contract means to them and pick at least one component of our contract to exemplify through art. They could use foil, popsicle sticks, paper, glue, markers, crayons, and more (really anything we had in the room). Students worked hard to conceptualize something that was important to them from the contract, and we took photos of them with their finished products. Now, our contract and all of our artwork graces a wall in our classroom!

All year, we keep going back to the same language that is in our contract. We notice when we are following it, when we could follow it better, use it to redirect students, use it in our Morning Message, use it on our conference prep social emotional reflection, and more!

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Responsive Classroom Workshop

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend a Responsive Classroom Course for Elementary Educators. I was introduced to Responsive Classroom in college as part of my elementary educator training, but it was wonderful (as always) to engage with other teachers and  have some valuable review and even more important reminders.

Some things I took away and am still thinking about are:

• Yardsticks (Child and Adolescent Development Ages 4-14) by Chip Wood: I love this resource! We give out the 3rd grade related pamphlets to families at back to school night, and the book is a great gift for new parents (of 4 year olds and up). Asking what is developmentally appropriate for a specific age is always a good question and a great place to start. This information is so valuable for so many reasons. If something in your class isn’t going well or your students aren’t responding favorably to something, it may be due to where they are developmentally.

• I love Quiet Time! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Responsive Classroom, Quiet Time is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a serene 10-15 minutes in the middle of the day (often after lunch or recess) to give students time to transition back into the classroom calmly. I’m thinking about how to incorporate this into my classroom. There’s never enough time, but that is true for everything. I brainstormed with some other 3rd grade teachers about some additional ways to have student choice in my instruction and thought about how Morning Work (what students work on after they arrive while we are waiting for everyone else to arrive) is always a difficult balance for me. It’s hard to find something meaningful that won’t take too long (since many students only have a few minutes to work on it), but that isn’t too meaningful since many students arrive right before we move on (or are late) and won’t be able to do the Morning Work! I wonder if having Quiet Time instead of Morning Work is feasible (and okay with my new co-teacher), and could be a useful re-framing. The transition to school can also be tumultuous for students. Stay tuned.. hopefully I will be able to try this out this school year!

• I really appreciated the reminders about proactive versus reactive discipline. It also goes along with the fact that if students don’t have their needs for belonging, significance, and fun met then they’ll seek to fill these needs in other ways (often by acting out). Also, educators cannot be reminded enough: social interaction leads to cognitive growth! An essential function of school is socialization which entails learning important life skills. I’m so glad I’m starting the 2018-19 school year with the reminder to (always) let my students talk to each other and learn through interaction.

Great exercise to help us shift perspective!

• The Responsive Classroom approach is researched based. Hopefully, you will never feel as if you have to justify the time you spend on teaching kids vital social skills (and making sure they feel safe and accepted!). However, if you do (and I have been in that position in the past), remember there is research behind these important practices that show how crucial they are to student success and well-being.

Here’s to giving students the structure, support, and validation they need in the new school year!

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