How many of you can remember something remarkable or meaningful from middle school? When I was in middle school (feels like forever ago), my teacher had us complete a compliment pages about our peers. Well... I guess you could say that it had a lasting impression on me.
When I started
teaching I made it a point to include this activity as part of my end of the
year activities. Well...what better day to do this activity then on today which is K (Kindness to Your Neighbor) Day on our ABC Countdown.
Before starting, I asked a parent volunteers who specializes in calligraphy
writing to write each student's name on a sheet of construction paper.
This was a huge hit with my class considering they're not used to the
calligraphy writing style. We also spent time talking about what a
compliment is and ideas that they could leave on their classmate’s poster.
The students then formed a circle and thus began the process of
circulating around the room to write a compliment on each classmate’s poster.
The end result was
MAGICAL. The smiles on their faces not only made their day but it made
mine too! A special thank you goes out to my middle school teacher for leaving
a lasting impression that created MAGICAL SMILES today.
I am doing this type of thing right now. Mine is called "Pocket Full of Sunshine." Each student has a back pocket from a pair of jeans decorated with their name. Students are writing a few compliments a day and placing them in the student's pocket. In a few days they will get their pocket to keep forever. I got this idea from a teacher I worked with. I also had a JH teacher do compliment sheets. I took both their concepts and changed it to make it work for me :)
ReplyDeleteLove, love, love the back pocket idea. Now if I could only find enough pairs of jeans.
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