Appreciation Dictionary

One thing that I added this year was an Appreciation Dictionary. When discussing our agreements/rules, I had students brainstorm a list of appreciation sentences or activities that we could use through out the year. It has remained posted – so it is a good reminder to me about including appreciation as often as possible. Some ideas include:

• a round of applause (students clap their hands in a circle)
• a salute
• a brain wave (on hand is resting on the forehead and fingers wiggle)
• microwave (students wave with their pinky)
• WOW (students put three fingers up on each hand, place each hand on one side of an open mouth to spell WOW).

It’s been successful and fun so far!

A New School Year

I just wanted to write a short post to let you all know I am thinking of you all. It was great to read Jannine’s comment on the reflections page! I have a lot of things that I would like to get going on this website – posting the remaining days (5 and 7 I think) as well as regularly posting comments about what is happening in my classroom related to the topics we discussed this summer.

I hope you will be patient with me for the month of September! Please keep in touch with each other.