I do a baseball theme in my classroom. I love baseball, and I love using that theme because it lends to great discussions throughout the year about being a team and helping each other out at all times. One of my favorite things to do with my class that has helped a lot with management is to hold a class meeting once a week. I have a can in my room for compliments and a can for concerns. During the week the students notice good things their classmates are doing and put that information into the compliment can. If things happen that they are concerned about, they put those into the concern can. This really helps diminish the number of "tattles" during the week. At our class meeting each week, we go through all the compliments (which I then send home with the students) and concerns. It gives us a chance to discuss together the things that are going well in class and the things that need "tweaking." I love the feeling of togetherness this brings.
I then give a prompt to the class such as, "The best things about school is..." The students (who are sitting on the floor in a circle) pass around a talking ball. Only the student with the ball in his/her hand is allowed to talk. This is a chance for each student to express him/herself without any chance of repercussion. I have learned so much from my students through doing this.
Class meeting is one thing we do in our class that only takes about 20 minutes a week but that makes such a difference to the feeling of community in our class.
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