Tuesday 18 July 2017

Build a Positive Classroom Community

This is a repost about one of my favourite ways to build a classroom community:

Two years ago, I decided to implement something in my classroom that changed the classroom community.  We had kindness week and things just didn't resonate with the students like I thought they would.  So, I brought in my Blessings Jar: It was a simple empty jar decorated with a label and glued on buttons.  It was what was inside that became the thing that my classroom needed:  validation of students from one another and to each other.  


Students were asked to notice things during the day that made them feel blessed.  They would then write them down and place them in the jar.  At the end of the week during our class meetings, we would open the jar and read the blessings.   

We then gathered the blessings and placed them into categories.  This was a great way to incorporate math into our lesson as well.  Just click on the image to download your own copy of the blessings jar templates. All you need is a jar!



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