The Awesome Box

I believe we have just begun the longest stretch of uninterrupted school days on the calendar. There is one half-day at the end of March, but that's it. I felt that the days leading up to February break were difficult and people (staff and students) might have not been feeling their best. It's no fun being in a grumbly classroom, feeling grumbly, listening to other grumbly people. No. Fun.

To try to avoid going down that path again I really wanted to focus on getting off on the right foot this week.

1) The Awesome Box. What do you think goes through most student's heads when you say "I'm going to call home."? What if you could tell your teacher to call home about some specific, awesome thing you did in class? I don't always see what goes on, and I don't always know what is important to each student. Students can use this box to send me notes and then I'll contact home about it on Friday afternoon. What better way to end the school week?!!

2) In addition to our regular Mindful Minutes at the start of each class, on Fridays I'm having students use a new website called Givethx. This site allows students to give, receive, and reflect on positive feedback from their peers. I can monitor all of their notes but other classmates are not privy to these notes of gratitude. We've already used it a couple times in class and I think it is a wonderful tool. This week students were randomly assigned to each other, kind of like Secret Santa. On Friday they'll have to send a note to that specific person. This way everyone is included and participating.

I hope I can keep the momentum up with these tools!!!