Starting off the New Year

The second and third grade classes have been getting to know each other over the past few days and have started to become a class community of learners.  We have been doing some low-stakes ice breakers and class games.

Pictured here is the class during a morning meeting.

Every year, we start by talking about our hopes and dreams for the school year.  On Monday, we thought about our strengths (I am a good listener, When learning is hard, I focus in and keep trying, I show respect to all people) and some areas we can grow in (taking risks, listening and following directions, telling others how they are feeling).

This helps the class come together and realize that each person is working on different goals and that we want to respect others’ hopes and dreams for this year.  Talking about them also allows us to write a covenant together of what we will do in our class this year (raising our hand, listening to the speaker, taking care of classroom materials)

Look at some of the students’ hopes and dreams that they wrote below (they are in various stages of completion at this writing)!

“I always like things my way. But I’ve had fights with friends who want it their way, too. I want to work on it so they can do their feelings, too!

“I chose this because I kind of struggle with it. I start arguing and stuff. I want to get over with it instead.” [Do you mean solve the problem right away?] “Yes!”

“I chose this because when there’s hard math, I don’t want to do it, but I want to learn harder math, so I have to keep trying, even when that means I make mistakes.”

“I chose this because I want to get smart. Sometimes my mind thinks of funny things instead of what the teacher is talking about.”

We look forward to everyone learning about their classmates and their teachers this year as well as accomplishing these goals that they have for themselves!