Got Friends ?

Well it is good to see that every classroom and teachers experiences many crazy, unpredictable times.   We had severe water damage to our classroom (A trailer) and we found out that we had to move our entire classroom this month.  This move helped me reinforce community and perseverance both. My students also saw me cry for the first time, which opened the doors to discuss Friendship.

We had a great month learning about friendship.  We got into groups with new people and discussed what friendship is and how we show it.   Each group of students made a poster to show friendship.  Then each student made a friendship rainbow- writing what they think are the qualities of a good friend.  

We also decided to tie in Random acts of Kindness month.  We picked different random acts of kindness that we could do at school each week.  We declared Fridays to be Friendship Friday and we did a challenge each Friday to meet a new friend.  We wrote random praise notes to staff members, and gave compliments to strangers. We also encourage our school to participate in Pink Shirt day with us!  

For our final project we are creating Friendship commercials…  Like  Kid Presidents you tube video on making friends!  We will be finished with them this week!

We are moved into our new classroom and we are ready to take on Leadership next month!

Friendship

 This month we focused on friendship. It was a lot of fun to help my students get to know each other better. We started the month by watching Lex's video. He discussed the power of friendship and my students agreed that friendships can help us get through hard times.

In the video, Lex challenged my students to get to know people better. In order to build our classroom community, I set up 'interviews' between pairs of my students. They asked each other three questions:

1. If you could have lunch with any famous person who would it be and why?
2. What do you like to do outside of school?
3. What is your favorite school subject and why?

Students were paired with someone in the class they didn't know very well. They started by asking each other the interview questions. After they discussed the interview questions students continued to get to know each other by asking their own questions. Students learned that they had a lot in common, even if they didn't usually talk or play together. It was a great class building exercise and I hope students made some new friends!

  

Making New Friends

What a wild month it has been! At the beginning of the month, just as we started talking about friendship, we found out that one of our science fair teams was going to the Regional Nunavik Science Fair in Inukjuak. This took place the 13^th to the 16^th of February. Here is a peek at the proud team explaining their project to a judge.

These guys were so excited to get to go, and we had crazy fun time taking plane rides, learning more about science and presentations, and eating Beluga (a generous gift from our host family).

 Then we got back and had a blizzard, and then we finally got a chance to sit down and watch Jesse’s new video on friendship. The kids were so excited to see a new video after so long and Jesse gave us a great challenge. Find someone in your class that you do not hang out with and learn two things you have in common, and two things that are unique about each of you. I was so proud of the students as they worked on this. They worked very hard on this challenge and were excited to learn some similarities and differences about people that they thought they already knew!

We followed up this activity by watching a read aloud of Chesters Way . This is one of my favourite stories about friendship. We had a great discussion about friends that are different from us, and why that might be a good thing. 

Then came Pink Shirt Day. Because many of my students do not have pink shirts and it is not easy or cheap to get t-shirts up here, we decided to look at Pink Shirt Day a little differently. Instead of showing support by wearing pink we showed support by acknowledging the kind things that we do for each other every day and by highlighting them. We wrote out "Tickets" every time someone did something kind for us. The tickets included the name of the giver and receiver and what kindness was shown. We then put them in a jar and at the end of the day we pulled out a few to read. 

We also designed our own Pink Shirts.

We still have a little bit of friendship to cover. We will be talking about how to be a good friend throughout March while we tackle Leadership! Cannot wait to see how this class can show Leadership in their school (more than they have already!) Thank you Jesse Cockney for a great lesson on making new friends and great qualities to look for in them!

Friendship Connects Us

In his video this month, Kieran spoke about friendship in a very similar way that he spoke about community.  We were able to make some really nice connections to what we had learned in November and December.  His lessons focused on cultivating healthy friendships.

On the very first Tuesday of the month, the students came into the class to find the board was filled with sticky notes with their names on them.  They were instructed to take one without look at the names on the back and write something they liked about the person they got.  These got stuck to lockers and students could not wait to see what their peers wrote about.  They requested to do that again, so it became a weekly activity this month.

To build on that, we did a connection activity.  Students sat in a circle and were asked to keep a balloon off the ground without moving their feet.  They did ok, but I told them that we needed to find a way to work together a bit better.  I introduced to the circle a  ball of string.  To throw the ball, they had to give a compliment to the person they were passing the string to.  This brought up some nice teachable moments on how to receive compliments as well. Once everyone had received a compliment, I brought out the balloon.  I asked them how they could now use the connections they had made with their classmates to keep the balloon  up together.  They still had some failures, but like with any friendship or team, they used communication and trial and error to figure out ways to make it work.  In our debrief at the end, they had some really strong ideas about how this reflected friendship.  One student noticed that when some people did not do their part, the whole thing crumbled because the strings did not hold tight.  Everyone had to contribute for the circle to be a success.  How did these kids get so smart!

Perseverance in Grade 2S

Perseverance is definitely one of my favourite themes! After listening to some great advice from +Tristan Walker and Justin Snith, my students were ready to take on the challenge of learning a new task. The children were to choose a task which they wanted to learn, but which would be difficult for them. They then had to practise this for twenty-one days. Some were able to achieve their goal, while others are still striving to achieve it. Following this, the children wrote about their experiences. Some of the children are eager to share their thoughts and experiences with you in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPHymiWIi5M

The children also played perseverance Bingo, which was a great way to learn some great perseverance vocabulary. After reading several mentor texts and watching other Classroom Champions mentor videos, the children made perseverance posters depicting the saying that they will continue to use for "self talk" when the going gets tough!

 I really hope that the children have learned some tools and skills to last a lifetime! We all know that perseverance is one of the keys to success!

Jumping Into Friendship

Before we watched Lex’s video on Friendship, I asked “What qualities do you look for in your friends?”. Here are some of the key words students spoke out to the class…trust, nice, respect, funny, believe, loyal, role model, and honest. Friendship is an important topic in our classroom. We have had several students move in and out of our classroom this year. We have also had several arguments arise among groups of friends that we have had to work through. I hope Lex’s message on friendship will stick with my students and they can be the best friends they can be.

Lex’s Challenge

This month Lex challenged us to make a new friend and learn three things about them. Talk about having to use perseverance as well. My students were hesitant to step outside their comfort zones and take on this challenge. I had to encourage them throughout the month to tackle this challenge. Some students took on the challenge within our classroom, while others made new friends in other 5th grade classrooms. A few students made new friends outside of school. I enjoyed learning about their new friends throughout the month. I hope to see more friendships blossoming in my classroom as the year continues.

Friendship Conversations

My students were able to just sit and talk to their friends in the classroom for 10 minutes. They rarely have moments to just talk to their friends so I gave it to them one Friday before lunch. That same day I had my students sit with random lunch friends. We sit in the booths in the cafeteria and they always sit with the same people. (I did learn that my girls switch their booth seats every day so they can take turns eating with each other.) I randomly assigned each student a booth. No one sat with the friends they normally eat with on a given day. There was some push back and complaining, but they quickly turned it around. They survived one lunch out of 185 eating with someone other than their normal friends.

 

 

 

 

Get to Know Our Classmates

You can see the obvious clusters of friends in my classroom when it comes to lunch, partner activities, and recess. My hope was this activity would allow my students to find something new about their classmates who they do not normally hang around. Who knows? Maybe the clusters will begin to shift. Each student was tasked with asking three classmates (not their current friends) a “Get to Know You” question. Some students only asked three new people, while others went beyond and asked as many students as they could in the time allotted. I had one student ask a different question to all 24 of her classmates. That took perseverance! Afterwards, each student had to pick one student and share what they learned about them. They learned a lot about their classmates from this simple activity. We learned about favorite sports, colors, shoes, movies, music, numbers, activities, etc.

 

Friends in Our Future Careers

Our annual 3-5 Career Fair was held at school as we try and prepare our students for the future. Each student went into the Career Fair with questions and friends in tow. Some students walked around to the different booths with their friends because they have similar interests. Others walked around with their friends simply because they were comfortable with that person. Some students branched out and walked around on their own and met new 5th grade friends with similar career interests. After the Career Fair we came back to the classroom and shared our favorite and most interesting options.

 

Devin with Mrs. Stone's dad.

Friendships with 2nd Graders

Each month our school has a day long Read-a-Thon. For 30 minutes, we go to two 2nd grade classrooms and read with our reading buddies. Most times the 2nd graders have books that they want the “big” kids to read with them. Sometimes we bring our “big” kid 5th grade books to read to them. The 2nd grade teachers and I are always in awe of how quiet and engaged both ages of students are while reading. The last Friday of Friendship month was our February Read-a-Thon. Before going to read with our buddies, we each wrote letters about the importance of reading for our 2nd grade friends. Students included tips and strategies for the 2nd graders to become successful readers. Each 2nd grade student also received a handmade bookmark saying “Leaders are Readers”.

Friendship Stories

I pose a new writing prompt for my students to focus on each week. Once again, perseverance was in play. At our school, we are trying to have our 5th graders write a story that is five paragraphs in length. This is an extremely daunting task for most. One week this month, students were to write a story about friendship. Some wrote about themselves with their current friends, while others wrote about made up characters. After writing their stories, they had a friend help edit their work. Their friendship stories are posted on our Classroom Champions bulletin board outside our classroom.

I will say we have had a successful friendship month. Students are still trying to step outside their comfort zones and make new friends. I hope they continue to make new friends, especially since they will be going to different middle schools next year.

Standards

ELA W.5.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. W.5.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.) W.5.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grade 5 here.) W.5.6 With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of two pages in a single sitting. SL.5.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Health 5.ICR.1.4 Summarize how to solve problems and resolve conflict without avoidance or violence.

Expanding Friendships

Even though it was a short month, we were able to cover some really important concepts about friendship that I think will have a positive impact on my classroom community.

Week 1             How do people become friends?

·      We started off this theme by watching the Video of Charlie and Jack with the focus questions   "Are these two animals friends?  What proof can you find in the video?"  They had really great ideas about what makes a friendship and had no problem providing evidence that these two were indeed friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJjWwr-AjiQ

·      Students used the app Inspirations to complete a Friendship Map and were prompted to discuss:  What types of friends do you have?  How are they connected to you?  How do people become friends?

·      Then I asked them to list friends they have in the class, friends in other classes, and people in class I don’t know very well.  This provided me with great information for my next lesson.

·      We watched Jesse's Friendship Challenge.  As always, the students were thrilled to see Jesse and learn a bit more about him.

·      I told them we would work on Jesse's challenge next week and I challenged them to choose one person to try to make a connection with over the next week, even if it was just a smile or saying hello.

Week 2            Getting to Know Each Other

Jesse’s challenge inspired our next lesson:  Using the list from last week of ‘people in class I don’t know very well,’ I assigned the students partners to learn more about.  They were given an interview form full of questions they could ask to get to know their partner.  Then they worked with their partner to create a Google Slideshow to introduce their partner.  First each person created a slide to tell what makes their partner unique; then they worked together on a slide to show things they have in common.  This lesson happened to coincide with Valentines Day and it was a great way to talk about why it is important to be friendly to everyone in the class/school, not just our friends.  The students really enjoyed this task and worked really hard to show what they learned about each other.

Week 3            How to Be More Friendly 

Generally the students in my class are pretty friendly, but I have noticed that some students are excluded from certain social groups.  So this week I wanted to encourage my students to be friendlier to people in the room (and school) that they are not ‘friends’ with.  I started the lesson by reading The Invisible Boy, which helped to generate a discussion about how we can make others feel more welcome and included in the class.  This provided some ideas on how to be friendlier and students chose one idea that they could work on for the week.  Afterwards we visited the Kids Health website to read about cliques. http://kidshealth.org/en/kids/clique.html My students recognized a lot of the situations and problems described on the site and they responded positively to the suggestions provided on what can be done about cliques.  In gym class later that day, I noticed a few of my groups making a real effort to include other students by inviting them to join them in a drill.

This lesson provided a great lead in to Pink Shirt Day so when it came time to make our Pink Shirt Pledges, the students were ready!  I think we touched on some really important concepts this month that we can continue to build on for the rest of the year.  It is difficult for students at this age to make big changes with friendships, but if they can open their minds a bit more, it is a move in the right direction.

Friendship

Friendship was a tough one for our class! The challenge was to introduce yourself to different strangers and make some new friends. Being in middle school, our students are set and stubborn with making friends, but took on the challenge anyways. It was great seeing our students interact with students of different grade levels and bonding with people they never talked to or knew anything about before the challenge.

I was not able to snap pictures of this challenge, but almost all our students rose to the challenge in making new friends. Looking forward to seeing our next challenge and what Lex has up for us.

Test

Friendship is Sweet in 4/5

My class has struggled with friendship issues this year, so this month's topic is much needed.  We talked about how having many different types of friends is important, because different people bring new ideas and experiences to your life. Real friends don't get mad or stop being your friend when you make a new friend.  Our mentor's video helped create some discussion around these topics. Arianne challenged us to get to know each other better by learning two new things about a classmate and finding two things we have in common. Students used this Two Handprints graphic organizer to list 5 interesting things about themselves and then meet with a partner to learn new things and find common interests.

 
We watched the video, Kid President makes a New Friend. I thought it was very timely as it promotes getting to know a variety of people and embracing our differences.

In our lifetime, we will have many different types of friends: old friends, new friends, best friends, friends from the neighborhood, friends from far away, sports friends, gaming friends, school friends, family friends, and even furry friends.

Students made Friendship Trees that have names of friends on each leaf. I asked them to leave empty leaves for friends they haven't met yet.

We took advantage of the Valentine’s Day holiday to build each other up with positive comments. Each student was given a Friendship is Sweet page. They wrote their name at the bottom. Then students snaked through the classroom and wrote a positive comment on one line for each student.

By the end of the activity, each student had a page full of sweet comments from their classmates!

Finally, we watched the video, How to Disagree, by Kid President. He had some great advice on how to stay friends, even when you have different ideas and beliefs.

We are fortunate to have some public health nursing students in our school at the moment. They will be coming into my room at the end of the month to continue our lesson on friendship. I hope some of these ideas stick with my students. Thanks for a great topic!