More Hallway Behavior!

After working really hard for a week on walking the CATS way down the hallway, the teachers at our school discovered a problem with our hallway behavior - although we were doing a great job of WALKING down the hallway the CATS way, we were not doing the best job of WAITING in the hallway the CATS way! Waiting in the hallway is a much more difficult skill than walking in the hallway we have found.

So . . . we came back to the hallway for another lesson!! First the teachers demonstrated for us both the CATS way to wait in the hallway, and what it looks like when we do not wait the CATS way. We talked about why it is important to have good CATS behavior in the hallway - so everyone can do their jobs of learning and teaching, and so everyone can stay safe at school!

Then it was the student's turn to practice waiting in the hallway the CATS way. When our students wait in the hallway the CATS way, they wait facing forward, with hands at their sides, respecting the space of those around them, and use a quiet whisper voice. Each class practiced waiting in the hallway the CATS way!! We even used some hula hoops to get a better idea of how much personal space we need to give others when we are waiting in line.

Throughout the rest of the week, we will be doing mini-lessons as refreshers on this lesson on how to wait in the hallway the CATS way! As each class practiced waiting in the hallway the CATS way, the students gave each other feedback by giving a thumbs up if they thought the class used CATS behavior, or a thumbs down if they thought the class needed to try it again. The teachers will continue to give feedback to their students throughout the week by giving the class a small football each time they wait in the hallway the CATS way. If our school earns enough small footballs to fill our big football by the office, we will get to have a tailgate party. Can't wait to see if we can fill up that big football!!

Hallway Behavior Lesson

Today we had an assembly in the hallway at Mease to learn about appropriate hallway behavior!! The preschool, prep, and kindergarten classes all came out into the hallway, and we began the assembly by teaching the expected behaviors for students in the hallway. Then I had some "actors" model the "naughty" way to walk down the hallway. They pretended they were coming in from recess, and threw balls, yelled, banged on lockers, etc. Then my hallway actors modeled the approrpiate way to walk down the hallway - walking feet, hands at sides, facing foward, on the right, with a quiet whisper voice.

After our actors showed us how to walk down the hallway, each class practiced walking up and down the hallway. We gave them silent feedback with a thumbs up or thumbs down to show them if they were walking down the hallway the Cats way or not. We then reviewed the CATS poster, and talked about how weare being good CATS when we walk down the hallway the appropriate way.

This month at our school we are trying really hard to work on having good hallway behavior. After each trip to the hallway, the classroom teachers give their students feedback on how they behaved in the hallway. If they walked down the hallway the CATS way, their class will earn a small football. Once a class earns 6 footballs, they turn it in for a helmet that is added to the large football outside of the office. Whent the large football is filled with helmets, we will celebrate by having a tailgate party!! All of the classrooms at our school are cheering each other on and reminding each other to do their best so that we can have our tailgate party, hopefully by the end of the month :)

CATS Assembly

Today we had an assembly at the Early Childhood Center to kick off our PBIS behavior expectations. We introduced the CATS posters, and did a cheer to help remember the letters of CATS. The 1-4 graders at the elementary school had this assembly about a month ago, but at the elementary school we wanted to take things even slower.

At the assembly we talked about the Purple Hands Pledge, and how students can be good CATS by following the Purple Hands Pledge. We kept the assembly short and sweet so they could digest that information first before moving forward!! We will continue working on being good CATS at school and everywhere we go.

Our PBIS behavior expectations spell out the word CATS - Care about self and others, Act responsibly, Try your best, and Stay positive. All month we are going to work on being CATS so we can earn another celebration by the end of the month! To end the assembly we did a cheer spelling CATS with our arms - it was so much fun!!

S'more Good Behavior!!

 

Today we had a PBIS celebration for students who have shown good behavior these first three weeks of school. We made s'mores for the students for s'more good behavior!! We just kicked off PBIS at Taft Elementary a couple of weeks ago, and the students have been working hard to show good behavior in the cafeteria and follow the Purple Hands Pledge. Today all the students who have been practicing good behavior were recgonized with a s'more celebration!!

Our custodian wheeled out the grill and warmed it up for us right before lunch time. Our PTA committee came and helped us start toasting the marshmallows and assembling the s'mores. To make the s'mores, we took two fudge striped cookies and put a marshmallow in the middle. Tastes just like a s'more, but a little less complicated!!

Each student who had demonstrated good behavior earned a ticket for a s'more. We served the s'mores during the lunch recesses for the students. The activity did not cost a lot and did not take a lot of  our time! Our wonderful custodian even grilled some hamburgers for the staff and volunteers, and our prinicpal opened up the soda machine so that everyone could have something cold to drink. I'm hoping for s'more good behavior next month so we can have another fun celebration!!

Preschool Purple Hands Assembly

Today we had assemblies at the preschool and kindergarten to learn the Purple Hands Pledge for the very first time. The Purple Hands Pledge is "I will not use my hands or my words for hurting myself or others". This is the most important rule we have here at our school!

At the assembly we talked about how a pledge is a promise, and a promise is a very serious thing!! Every time the students say the pledge, they are making a promise not to use their hands or words to hurt. This is our third year using the Purple Hands Pledge at our school, and it has helped us by providing a simple and common language to address student behavior and the way that we treat each other. Each student in our school says the Purple Hands Pledge right after the Pledge of Allegiance every day, as well as the CATS pledge (our PBIS behavior expectations). Everyone who has a relationship with our school, from teachers and students to parents and community members knows the pledge, and can easily reference this behavior expectaiton by using the common language introduced in the pledge.

Another important part of the program is the symbol of the Purple Hand with a red heart in the middle. This symbol is easily recognizable to the students, and is a visual reminder of what the pledge means, especially to those not reading yet.We have the symbol displayed in several areas of our school as a reminder to students to follow the purple hands pledge. The purple hands pledge is also on several of our PBIS behavior rubrics as a behavior expecation across several settings.

A 1st grade teacher at our school came up with some motions to help our little kiddos learn the pledge, even if they don't have it memorized yet. The words and motions are:

I will not use (Shake finger)
My hands or my words (Hold up hands, point to mouth)
For hurting myself (Hug arms around self)
Or others (Arms stretched, palms up)

CATS Pledge

Last week at school we kicked off our school year with re-introducing our School Wide PBIS Behavior Expectations. The behavior expectations at our school spell out the word CATS, which is our school mascot. Our expectations are - Care about others and yourself, Act responsibly, Try your best, and Stay positive.

This year, our students are going to learn the behavior expectations by saying the CATS pledge every day after the pledge of allegiance. The CATS pledge will be - I will Care about myself and others, I will act responsibly, I will try my best, and I will stay positive!! We are hoping that by starting off each day by saying the CATS pledge, the students will begin to remember what the expectations are. Last year we slowly began to implement some of the features of school wide PBIS, but this year will be our first full year of really collecting the data and teaching the expectations and lessons.

Above is a powerpoint slide that I made for the teachers to put on their smart board for the students to read off of while they say the pledge each day. Putting the pledge on the smartboard could be helpful for any pledge you might be trying to teach!! I am hoping that by the end of the year we'll be able to ask any student what the CATS pledge is and means, and they will be able to tell us (and hopefully show us!!).

First Day of Kindergarten!!

Today is our first day of kindergarten!! So far our day is off to a smooth start :) I love watching the parents bring their kids to the classrooms in the morning - it seems much harder for the parents than the kids to adjust to this big change!!

On the first day of kindergarten I spend most of the day in the classrooms observing and getting to know the new kindergarteners. Usually I help dry a few tears, but so far today has been pretty smooth!! The rest of the day today I will spend introducing myself to the kindergarten students and maki g a few phone calls to new students in our district. Loving the first day of kindergarten!!

First Day!

Today was our first day of school!! After drying all the tears and doing some convincing to a few to stay with us for the rest of the day . . . we kicked off our school year with an assembly for PBIS!!

At our assembly we modeled the noise level expectations for the lunchroom and for the rest of our school. Our "actors" above did a great job!! We use levels 0-3 to communicate noise level expectations. Level 3 is outside voice, 2 is conversational talking, 1 is a whisper, and 0 is silent. To signal which noise level is appropriate, the teacher will hold up the number of the appropriate noise level. We also practiced how to appropriately let people around you know that the noise level has changed by tapping them on the shoulder and pointing to the teacher.

Another tool we use to communicate noise level expectations in the lunch room is our stop light. The stoplight is operated by a remote, and the cafeteria supervisors can change the color on the light to communicate to students the noise level expectation. The green light is level 2 conversational talking, the yellow light is for level 1 whisper, and the red light is for level 0 - no talking. I asked the students why there isn't a light for level 3 - they figured out that it is because we are not supposed to use our level 3 outside voice in school!!

We also reintroduced our school wide expectations and said the Purple Hands Pledge. The kids seem so excited and full of energy today!! What a great first day, looking forward to many more!!

Hallway Expectation Follow Up

Our Hallway Expectation assemblies yesterday to kick-off the new year with good hallway behavior were a success! The students were so well behaved in our hallways today. Some of the students have needed to be re-taught the skill already, but the staff members have been vigilant about re-teaching the skill. Way to go!

Today I made a movie with our flip camera showing some of our 3rd grade students exhibiting the Pillar Pride hallway behavior. If you have not used a flip camera in your guidance program yet - you should! They are so simple to use, and the students love seeing themselves on t.v. as "moviestars"!

In our video, the 3rd grade students are describing how they show each of the Character Counts! pillars as they walk through the hallway. They then demonstrate walking through the hallway using the Pillar Pride expectations. They did great! I sent the video to all of our teachers so they can show it on their smartboards tomorrow morning and review. I am also uploading it to my counseling website and sending the link in an email to parents so they can see the hard work we are doing, and reinforce at home too!

Do any of you use a flip camera in your guidance programs? How do you use it? I would love to get some new ideas!

Earth Day Activities

To highlight the Character Counts pillar of Citizenship at our school this year, our students participated in Earth Day activities during the month of May. Our grade levels K - 5 each chose an activity related to earth day to participate in during the month. Some examples of Earth Day activities our school did were planting flowers, picking up trash, creating posters to encourage people to recycle, and planting trees.

This is also a great time to connect the guidance curriculum to what students are studying in other subject areas. One of our grade levels is learning about plants right now, so organizing an Earth Day activity where the students take home a tree to plant somewhere or planting flowers is a great way to branch science and guidance together! One of our fourth grade classes is learning about marine life in science, and as part of an Earth Day activity they could research endangered species and create posters encouraging others to save them.

Other ideas would be if a grade level is working on letter writing they could write a letter to elected officials encouraging them to protect endangered wildlife in our area if a grade level is working on letter writing, or write a persuasive letter encouraging someone to recycle if a grade level is working on persuasive letters. The art teacher could do an activity where students make art out of recycled materials, or the media teacher could have books out that have to do with preservation or endangered species. There are endless ideas of ways citizenship and earth day activities can be mixed in with the curriculum that the grade level teachers are teaching!

Here are some other great websites with Earth Day activities your school can do. They have songs you can sing about Earth Day, pledges students can take to protect the Earth, and other neat activities


Earth Day Resources:
Kids For Saving Earth
Apples For The Teacher
The Nature Lady
Edutopia


And these resources have grade specific activities:
Education.com - Seasonal Earth Day
Education.com - Activity


And here's a website where kids can calculate their carbon footprint:
Zero Foot Print


And here is a blog from the New York Times that has some great ideas too!

NY Times - 10 Ways to Go Green and Mark Earth Day

Between all of these great resources I am sure that there is something for your school to make it a great Earth Day!! Here are some pictures from some Earth Day Activities we did at our school:

Purple Hands Pledge

One of our school-wide guidance program is the Purple Hands Pledge. The Purple Hands Pledge is a promise that students make everyday to make better choices and decisions that solve problems without violence. The Purple Hands Pledge Is:

"I will not use my hands or my words for hurting myself or others"

The pledge was created in 1997 by Ann Kelly to "encourage dialogue about all forms of abuse and violence…from name calling, belittling, put downs, and negative self talk (I’m stupid, ugly…) words that can escalate to suicide and/or murder." Our students say the pledge everyday right after the Pledge of Allegiance, and we have school wide activities throughout the year that support the Purple Hands Pledge.

One school wide activity that we do each trimester with the Purple Hands Pledge is the Purple Hands Honor Roll. The Purple Hands Honor Roll is an award given to each student who has followed the Purple Hands Pledge throughout the trimester. If a student breaks the pledge and uses their hands or words to hurt someone else, a note is sent home and the student is taken off the honor roll. The students on the honor roll have their names posted on a list outside the principal's office, and receive a small prize as well, like a pencil or a wristband with the Purple Hands Pledge on it.

If you would like to find out more about the Purple Hands Pledge, please visit their website! I am sure I will share more information about this program as the year moves along since it is such a monumental part of our guidance program.

Below is a big Purple Hand made of all of the 3rd graders who took the Purple Hands Pledge this year!

Tropical Treat Day!

Wow, have I been busy this week! Today is a special day at our school, it is Tropical Treat Day! All week I have been busy planning with the student council and the teachers in our character committee this school-wide activity that focuses on the Character Counts pillar of Caring.

On Tropical Treat Day, our school celebrates all of the acts of caring our school has done this month. In the guidance curriculum for 3-5 grade, we have been focusing on showing that we care about our schoolwork. At the beginning of the month, we learned about ways to show that we care about doing our best on the ITBS with the Test Busters curriculum, and the last two weeks we have been learning about good study habits and classroom behavior that show that you care about your school work. The students have been working hard to do their best, get their assignments in on time, and showing that they care about their school work!

We also held a fundraiser this month to raise money for an orphanage in Haiti to show caring towards people put in this unfortunate situation. Other caring activities during the month have included writing thank you notes to people who have "filled a bucket" in 3rd grade, writing thank you letters to teachers and staff members who have made a difference in 4th grade, and cleaning up the planters uptown to get our community ready for spring in 5th grade. Tropical Treat Day is a culminating activity that celebrate all of these acts of caring our students have done throughout the month of February, both inside and outside the classroom.

The students and staff at our school have all donned their best 'Tropical' attire to celebrate today, and in the afternoon we will all head over to the gym to play some games and enjoy some treats! The teachers have set up stations in the gym where students can play different tropical themed games, and there is also a station where they can get a tropical treat! For our tropical treat, we bought a few cases of freeze pops - an economical but delicious tropical treat! Our student council has been working hard this week to decorate the gym with help from our elementary art club as well.

Looking forward to a great Tropical Treat Day!

Hearts for Haiti

For a school-wide service activity during the month of February while we are studying the Character Counts pillar of caring, the 4th and 5th grade students at our school are hosting a fundraiser to raise money to send to orphans in Haiti. Each day after school, our student council walks around the building selling heart-shaped suckers for 50 cents a piece. We got the suckers at the Dollar Store for an extremely good price, so any money raised off the sale of the suckers is purely profit.

It is so wonderful to see how caring and generous our students really are. Many students have used their allowance money, or money they were saving for a toy or a movie to donate to Haiti. One student donated five dollars and asked for only one sucker - he said the rest could be a donation. How big the hearts of these 4th and 5th grade students are!

The fundraiser was easy to put together, and didn't take a great deal of time or money. It was a great school wide activity to support the Character Counts Pillar of Caring. At the end of the month we are going to announce how much money we have raised, and will celebrate acts of caring by having a Caring Cruise party.