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First Week of School

It is Friday of the first week of school. I dont' think I've ever been so excited to say that it's Friday! I had a fun week though. All of my students on my roster showed up on the first day and I haven't had any new students yet. It's nice getting to know my students and practicing routines and procedures with a consistant class. Here are some highlights of the week...
  • starting whole brain teching (post later)
  • staying on top of planning and copies
  • sticking to my resolution schedule
  • my "wiggly" student sitting in his seat the whole 40 minutes of writing
  • learning all of my students' names on the first day of school
  • having a "straight" line basically all week
  • getting a compliment from the assistance principal
  • working together with my grade level team
I have Self Control UPDATE

If you guys remember, I made a post about Teacher Tipster. I found him through Pinterest and I knew I wanted to try out some of his ideas. The first one I wanted to try out was his self control bubble lesson. I wanted to try it out on the first day of school, but I knew that my little darlings wouldn't be able to handle it. Since today was Friday I figured it was the perfect day. We went outside for a morning recess and there were a couple wiggly kids running around outside in another class while they were in line. My students saw it and instead of deciding to be wiggly, they stayed in line. I was taking a big chance, but I wanted to try it out.

I followed everything that Mr. Smith did in his video and... IT WORKED!!! We were able to talk about having self control and one of my students, who needs a lot of work on self controled put it in perfect student friendly words. He said, "It's like your brain is driving your body." He even put gestures with it!! I was so amazed at how well it worked. It was nice to reference it later on in the day. We will see how often the poster will help them. Of course you don't want to pull your bubbles out every time your students loose control, that would just be a nightmare waiting to happen!!!

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