WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A GOOD STUDENT? AN INTRODUCTION TO THE RULES

This week went waaay smoother than I thought it would be. I had been warned that this year I would have some behavior problems so I armed myself up with some discipline introduction lessons and it seems like it has paid off so far!

To start with, I want to mention that this year I did NOT start with the rules of the classroom and I saw some smiling faces and relief... say what?? Instead, I started with a reflection on what being a good student is and what being a bad student looks like. You know? I realized that some kiddos are used to hear the term BE GOOD and for them it's all that matter when it comes down to being a good student, BUT... do they know what the term BE GOOD means? No they don't! At least some of them don't! I was shocked! So in our behavior reflection, we actually differentiated the actions between a good and a bad student. 

First I started with the book "David Goes to School" by David Shannon, most of my students were familiar with this book from kinder and first grade , then we talked about what actions made David a bad student and what consequences he had or could have had. After that it was very clear what a bad student looked like so we started thinking about what do good students do, for that I used my own activity in spanish REGLAS Y COMPORTAMIENTO from TPT where students had to cut and paste phrases that defined what a good student is, has, knows and never does. I noticed that my activity felt a little too long so if you use it make sure to cut it down if you want, (or it could have been that feeling at the beginning of the school year where it feels like students work in slow motion ha!). 

While my students were working I passed around their seats and gave them a laminated sentence to add to our anchor chart later on. When my students finished, we sat in the rug and took turns to classify our sentences into Bad Students and Good Students. Each student had a chance to add their own sentence. The Good Student side of the chart had obviously more sentences and it was amazing to see their faces when they realized that being a good student isn't easy, they seemed overwhelmed and asked me if they had to do ALL THAT to be good, I said NO! at least not all in one day but I also explained that they should aim for those behaviors on a daily basis; they got excited as they realized that some of those things they knew how to do already. 

The next day we did "Letters to David" We used some writing to give good advice to David on how to be a good student. They came up beauuuuuutiful! and I already have some projects up on the bulletin board. 

The next day was all about the rules, we played the game "Guess The Rule" and they were all sharing ideas on what they thought would be a good rule and if I had it in my hand, then I would post it in the wall behind me. We also talked about the rewards and the consequences of our classroom and we decided we were going to practice how to be a good student before starting using Classdojo. I convinced them that their behavior was their decision, you should have seen their cute little faces! You could see in their eyes that they were ready to take the world! We also talked about Classdojo and how we will use it in the classroom, how it was important for their parents to log in to see not only their bad behaviors but also their good behaviors. 

I loved how this activity turned out and to be honest I think my students did too!