The kiddos have been crazy lately!  I'm not sure if it's a full moon, the storm front or what. For the last few weeks have been pretty stressful with behavior battles.  So, I decided to chuck my Reading Mini-Lesson and talk about being responsible.  We made a great chart.  I got the idea online, but can't remember who to give them credit.  It was worth taking the extra time to remind them of how important it is for all of our class to be responsible students.

I was very impressed how intrigued they all were about how they are expected to behave.  For some reason, they were acting like they had never heard this before???  I have decided that we are going to review a character trait of the expectations in our classroom every week.  This is just a "friendly reminder" for those students who have forgotten from the lessons at the beginning of the year.  Hopefully, taking time to do this now will pay off later.  We still have a long year in front of us!

I also tried something different at the end of the day.  I hate, and I mean hate how hectic the end of the day always seems. Is it just me???  Last minute rush to pack up and get in the right line, and I always have one student who is clueless on where to go at the end of the day.  So I decided, about 10 minutes before we leave, to put on soothing music and color.  We pack up, organize, and get ourselves ready to leave (including where we are going and how we get there). They hang their ready to go backpack and jacket on their chair.  We turn the lights low and just relax.  They don't talk. They don't get out of their seat.  They just grab their tool box and color.  It has been really successful so far!  It's relaxing for me as well!