Saying Thank You and Other Gestures of Appreciation Part 2

As I mentioned in the previous post, it is important to help students understand why, when and how we say thank you. Here are some ways we have said thank you (or have shown appreciation) this year:

(1) Learning to make and write thank you cards: We taught the students how to fold paper in half to make cards.  It seems simple, but it is a lesson in itself to show how to fold a card and where the "message" of the card goes. Once we learned how to make cards we made them for different occasions all year long.

(2) Field trips and presenters: We go on a lot of field trips and have several presenters throughout the year. We use this as an opportunity for children to use writing in a meaningful way. We typically write letters to these people.

(3) Shared writing: Thank you/ appreciation letter. Write letters and thank you's as a group. It is easy to incorporate sentence structure, vocabulary choice, and editing into a shared writing like this.

(4) Pictures: Take a picture of your students saying thanks! Have each child decorate a letter and hold it or make a banner to let the children decorate and take a class picture. We used this in our classroom for a get well soon message, thank you to our Fasching basket winner, and I even got a birthday card like this!

(5) Giant Card: Make a poster-sized card and let the children sign/ decorate. We used this idea to welcome our German teacher's new baby!

(7) Pick a name activity: one morning we had each child draw the name of another child in the class. They were instructed to write or draw something you like about the person they had drawn. We collected all of the notes/ pictures and sent them home in each child's morning folder. They LOVED it!

(8) Royal Friendship Book: In our classroom we pick a King or Queen each week. Throughout the week we learn about the child. Each Friday every student and teacher writes a letter to the king or queen. All of the letters are put into a book and presented to the king or queen at the end of the day. Note: we also use this as a regular writing assessment and make copies for documentation. This is especially helpful because it is a familiar process for the students each week.

Saying Thank You and Other Gestures of Appreciation

One of the most important things I learned from my mentor teacher was the impact showing thanks and appreciation can make. Don't get me wrong. I was not rude or inconsiderate before, it was just that for me, saying thank you and showing appreciation was either pushed aside until some ending point, forgotten, or routine and scripted. Working with my mentor teacher changed this.

I remember the first day of school this year. Most of the teachers were running around like crazy...bringing things into their classroom or putting the finishing touches on the classroom. My mentor teacher? She was rushing around, but in a different way... She was delivering notes and small gifts to our secretaries, specialists, custodial staff, and administrators....I even got a Fairview T-shirt as a gift this week to wear on Friday! You should have seen how happy such a little gesture made them! (By the way, she repeated this before and after breaks and on a few other occasions...the secretary's even got St. Patrick's Day flowers!) After seeing what such a small gesture could do to improve relationships in the school, I chose to replicate this idea by putting together small candy bags for some of the key people we work with for Relay. This never would have even occurred to me before. Say thank you before we even get started? Crazy!


Keep up the good work all year long... A small note goes a LONG way. Another great idea I got from my mentor teacher was to mail notes of encouragement to students all year long. She rotates sending notes to her students so that every child gets a few notes of positive encouragement each year. In the notes she mentions how proud she is of each student for something that has recently occurred (a great spelling test, becoming even more fluent in reading, being a great friend to classmates etc.).


Random Acts of Kindness... Any one of my classmates can tell you that this year was a lot to take in. We worked hard and at times were stretched very thin. Coming to school each day with a positive attitude was both necessary and expected, but my mentor teacher could usually tell whether or not my attitude was genuine. During one particularly busy week she slipped a small note into my bag. It simply said, "You have been working really hard. Take a break and give yourself a chance to relax!" and was attached to a $5 gift card. It wasn't a lot, but completely unexpected and the perfect thing for me at that moment.

In our classroom we have a student who has a chronic illness. He often misses class--sometimes for a week or two at a time. The children in our classroom are aware of his illness and do a great job of welcoming him back each time after he has been gone. This student missed a very special day of class during one of his hospital visits and instead of just sending the fun home, my mentor teacher send all of the supplies for the activity and asked each student to write our missing classmate a short note or picture. I cannot even begin to describe the smile that came to his mom's face when she picked up our class package.

I really started to get the hang of this random acts of kindness thing and it is something I hope to carry out in my classroom and in my personal life. It is a self-improvement type of thing on my part, and I really believe that I will be a better person if I incorporate these random acts into my life.

The end of the year (times two)... It was the end of my internship and it was my turn to show thanks. I found myself wishing I had done more to show my appreciation for my students, mentor teacher, and other special people in the school, but it was too late. The least I could do was show my thanks now. I went into super card and gift mode. I did my best to show how thankful I was for a wonderful experience in a very short time. I think I did a pretty good job. The most important gift? My mentor teachers. There isn't a gift in the world to show how much I appreciate her--she really is someone who I will look back 50 years from now and be able to give her credit for changing my life--but I did my best!


So here I am again...At the end of the year. This time it is not as a teacher, but as a student. I am leaving a school and a city I love. This past week I have been writing my post-event Relay thank you notes. I am humbled and grateful for how my people have made a significant impact on my life and causes I care about. I only wish I had learned how to show my appreciation sooner!

Trust and Limits

"Effective limits are set withing the context of trusting relationships. Here, limits are ultimately felt by the child as supportive"

--Ben Mardell

My Professional Mission Statement

In our Stories of Teaching class we were given the task of writing our professional mission statements. I went into the assignment thinking it would be something I never looked at our touched again, but after writing it I feel differently. My mission statement, which I am sure will change and evolve over time, puts words to so many of the beliefs and ideals I hold as a student and an educator. So here it is. Comments and suggestions are much appreciated!

This classroom brings students, teachers, families and community members together through a shared responsibility for one another’s growth and development. Students are welcomed into a safe, inclusive and engaging environment in which they will be encouraged to collaborate, ask questions, and think critically. Children will be met at their unique developmental levels and challenged to take risks, learn from their mistakes, and take pride in their achievements. As students learn to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and apply content knowledge I hope to empower them to become life-long learners who are ethical, compassionate, and independent members of society.  

'Miss Hansen' supplies classroom through social networking

Check out this story on one of my classmates. She was the one who gave me the inspiration to start this blog and has gone so far beyond the expectations set for our internship/practicum experiences.  She has some really lucky current and future students!

http://www.cech.uc.edu/headline/allie-hansen/

It's hatching in your tummy!

I had the pleasure of babysitting today. While we were playing...

A: "Do you hear that?"
Me: "Hear what?"
A: "That noise! There's a baby in your tummy?"
Me: "I don't think so. There is no baby in there"
A: "It's just pretend! I hear it hatching! You're hatching a baby!"

The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries

"WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, theJoint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html?_r=3&hp

Read it. Think about it.