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Creating a Community of Learners
Creating a Community of Learners
It is so important that students feel like they belong at school. Co-creating norms with your students can be one way to give them a sense of belonging. Each year in my classroom, we create Our Class Promises sunshine. Instead of classroom rules, as a class we come up with classroom promises to make our classroom a bright place to be. We are the rays of sunshine that make the classroom bright so we each decorate a ray on the sun.
ABC Mindful Me by Christine Engel The King of Kindergarten by Derrik Barnes Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins Gib•ber•ish by Young Vo Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten by Joseph Slate Our Class is a Family by Shannon Olsen
Read Alouds
Read Alouds
Read alouds are truly one of my favorite parts of teaching. Coming together on the rug to share in a mini adventure or learn life lessons together. Stories create connections, teach skills, and diminish worries of our littles. Not only does sharing in story help to cultivate classroom community, it also begins the teaching important literacy skills.
To become a skilled reader, there has to be a level of interest. Taking the first few weeks of school to read beloved books fosters a love of reading and encourages and models interest in books. I try to read books in the first few weeks that will give each student in my class an opportunity to see themselves in the books - or identify with a character or feeling. Of course there is space for the stories that make us laugh! It is important to read feel good stories for them to begin to feel like the classroom is a safe and happy place where they belong.
As the school year gets rolling and we get deeper into the curriculum, it's often found that our most favorite read alouds gets squished out and replaced with ones provided by curricula. As an effort to continue to foster a warm environment of happiness and belonging I intergrate "Just Becuase Read Alouds" into our weeks. These don't happen every day, or even every week, but this is the time that I take to share my favorite literature with my littles that isn't connected to a learning target or standard; we read them just becuase. We so often get lost in making sure all work meets standards that we forget to embrace the balance of teaching curricula and remembering we are shaping the lives of tiny humans. Teaching them to take a breath, to relax, and enjoy in the chaos of a school day is an immeasurable life skill that will help them to develop healthy habits of mind. And ultimately, they need to have things to connect with you first. Love first, teach second.
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