Teaching Children to Care

Last week I went to a Kindergarten class at a local elementary school. The teacher I worked with shared with me a way to create a caring classroom environment. She said that she teaches a unit on caring at the beginning of the school year, and refers back to it throughout the year. What she teaches can be easily connected to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes of Health and Career Education in the BC curriculum.


The unit introduces the following slogan:


We care about ourselves, each other, and our place.

In the three categories, children explore different ways they can take care of themselves, each other, and the places they are in. For example, "taking care of ourselves" could include dressing appropriately for the weather, or eating healthy food. "Caring about each other" could entail sharing materials or toys during work time or centre time, and "caring about our place" could be about keeping the coat room or the cubby area clean...etc.


The slogan is actually used as a school belief system at another local elementary school as well. This chart shows various places and situations where this slogan can be connected to.


After exploring the three categories, the teacher explained that she would catch the children doing things throughout the day which fit under one of the categories of the slogan, and take pictures of them. For example, there might be a picture of students sharing pencil crayons or cleaning up after lunch. Afterwards, the teacher would print the pictures out, put captions and symbols along with the pictures so that the Kindies could understand, and create a classroom book for the students to look at! Since the "Caring Book" was placed in the classroom book shelf, students would take turns reading the book with each other during reading time, which reinforced the idea throughout the year. I imagine that the kiddos would be quite excited to see pictures of themselves in the book!


Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a picture of the book itself, since it was in another classroom at the time. I got the general idea though, and I'm excited to try it in my own future classroom :D


On another note, I'd also like to share with you a cute line-up song the teacher used in the classroom. She told me that while dealing with the little ones, she realized over the years of teaching that using music and singing with them seemed to reach them more effectively then simply talking to them. This song is sung to the tune of Gilligan's Island.

For more songs like this, Piggyback Songs for School Days has some great songs for primary grades, which fit right into the school schedule. There are tons of songs with themes related to the BC curriculum, and effective transition songs as well. All the songs are chorded for those who play the guitar! I've ordered a copy for myself from Amazon and can't wait to get it in my mail!

Well...I'm going to go back to studying for my math final exam I have tomorrow :( Looking forward to working in schools every day starting Wednesday though! I'm sure I'll have some more ideas to share here!

Classroom Management Strategies

Today I'd like to list some classroom management strategies I've learned from observing teachers while working as an assistant.

1. Compliment! Compliment! Compliment!

 In our university classes, we've been constantly reminded on using positive reinforcement instead of punishment. However, I was starting to think that realistically, using punishment to some extent is unavoidable, since I saw it being used in so many classrooms by experienced teachers. This is why I was so excited when I saw a substitute teacher manage a grade two/three split class beautifully through the art of complimenting. 

These are the things she would say throughout the day, to keep the children on track:

•       “Who can I compliment who’s showing that they’re ready to learn ?”

•       “Who can I compliment who’s a hard worker ( or doing a good job)?”

•       “(Name of student), please compliment a person (or two people) who are showing that they are ready (to learn).”

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 (In the last strategy, the teacher lets a student compliment on other students. I love this approach, since it shows children that being respectful listeners or workers directly affects each other's learning. This strategy worked well especially before a specific student presents something in front of the class, through activities such as show and tell, or simply showing their project to the class. Sometimes the teacher has to specify and say "Please choose one boy and one girl" in order to prevent girls just calling on girls and vice versa.)

2. Sing a song

 This strategy seemed to work well to get the children to quiet down and focused during carpet time. The teacher used this song, but I'm sure there are other songs out there which would work well for the same purpose. 

I like the way that (name of student) looks ready.

I like the way that (name of student) looks ready.

I like the way that (name of student) looks ready.

(Name of student) looks ready too.

3. Star Worker

This strategy is useful when students need to stay on task during individual desk work. The teacher puts a star on the white board and says, “In this star, I’m going to be putting the names of people who are at their best behaviour and working hard. People who have got their name in the star, please come see me after class.”The teacher told me that she usually gives out rewards to those students, such as scented stickers or candy. I thought this strategy would especially be good for substitute teachers. 

  

4. Magic piece of garbage

During clean up time, I've been in many classrooms where the teacher constantly needs to remind the children to keep cleaning up after art, or activities with high degrees of freedom, such as centres. The teacher told me that this strategy is an excellent way to motivate students on getting the room cleaned up. 

When students start cleaning up, the teacher tells them "I have chosen a magic piece of garbage. The person who picks up the magic piece of garbage gets a prize after cleaning up." The teacher keeps his/her eye's on the specific piece, and after the cleaning is finished, tells the students what the piece was (it can be anything, such as a specific piece of paper on the floor) and who picked it up. This way, the children are encouraged to pick up as many pieces of garbage as possible. Again, the scented stickers or candy can be used for rewards. 

This is it for now. I'll post more strategies as I learn more from the different classrooms I'll be substituting in as an educational assistant. Thanks for reading!