Today I posted my first free lesson on TpT and decided to begin my blog. I'm very excited to be a part of the TpT world! My free lesson on TpT is an Addition worksheet called Superdog Plato and his Sidekick Ollie's Mission Addition. I will be posting more lessons involving these superheroes. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Superdog-Plato-and-Sidekick-Ollies-Mission-Addition-Worksheet
For my first blog post I'd like to share how I end each Friday in my class. We always finish the day with two community building activities I call Friendship Chain and Friendship circle. The children really look forward to these activities.
Friendship Chain:
On Monday, two children are assigned the job of Friendship chain. They are given until Friday to do something nice for someone in the class, the class as a whole or the classroom. Some examples are helping a friend clean up, cleaning up or sharing supplies, helping a friend in need, etc. On Friday, the teacher calls the children to the rug and has the two Friendship Chain students stand in front. Each child says one thing that they have done over the week and the teacher writes it down on a strip of paper. This strip becomes a link on the Friendship Chain. If another child does something special over the week, the teacher writes it down in a notebook. After the Friendship Chain students share what they have done and the links are written, the teacher reads what other children have done and writes those on links. The goal is to have the chain stretch over the classroom by the end of the year. Here is a picture of what a Friendship Chain in progress looks like:
Friendship Circle:
After Friendship Chain has finished, the class moves on to Friendship Circle. The class sits in a circle on the rug. Each person has to choose one person to say something nice about in the class. No child can be chosen twice and each child must say something. I usually choose the student to my right and go around the circle that way but anyone can really start. A child cannot pick the same person two weeks in a row. If a child is shy, he or she can whisper the nice comment into the teacher's ear and the teacher can say it for the child. I usually encourage the kids to be specific like "Name did a great job making a sculpture in art this week or name wrote a really great story during Writer's Workshop". My kids love to say how someone is a good friend or really nice and that is fine, as long as something positive is said, I am happy.
Check back soon for more freebies and links to my TpT store acitivites!
