Bright Idea: Sunshines

Sunshines were a bright idea given to me by a fabulous teacher, Amanda. Sunshines are anonymous nots that the students write at the beginning of each week. Each student draws another student's name from a bucket. That student must write an anonymous compliment or positive statement to the student he or sure drew from the bucket. 

Throughout the week, the teacher pulls the sunshines to help brighten the student's day. When the teacher says, "It's time for sunshines," the students pound on their desk to make the sound of thunder. The teacher pulls one or two cards and reads them aloud. The student that the teacher pulls stands on his or her chair. Once the card is read aloud, the teacher gives the card to the student, and the other students give an applause. This brightens students days! This is a great motivational technique! 

My Classroom Playlist

I'd like to share my classroom playlist with you all! My playlist includes songs for all kinds of activities: energizers, welcome songs, finding a partner, games, yoga, etc. I've also included a playlist of Gary Lamb's instrumental music. Lamb only produces songs that are 60-80 beats per minute. "Compelling brian research concludes music has the power to reduce stress, enhance cognitive functioning, and improve productivity and creativity. The human brain is an amazing instrument that can be tuned to perform optimally with the right kind of music."60-80 beats enhances mental performance. *Shout out to Christi at Kagan for some great songs to add to my playlist!

I hope you can utilize some of my  music in your classroom as well!

Do teachers need to practice social skills?

As teachers we want our students to have good social skills such as greeting each other kindly, learning how to appreciate differences, and disagree politely. These are great skills for students to use in the real world. Also, we just want our kids to learn how to get along and appreciate each other. Although we want this for our students, sometimes teachers need help in this area too.

We should remember that not all teachers are the same. There may be one teacher who is very successful at school A. Another teacher may really struggle at the school but succeed in school B. We all have different strengths and purposes. It really disappoints me that teachers tend to judge each other based on where they are teaching or what types of students they are teaching. We need great teachers in all types of schools, and we shouldn't put down teachers who are not where we are. Not every teacher is meant to teach in an inner city school nor is every teacher meant to teach at a magnet school. We don't teach the same subjects for a reason. We all have different strengths.

This issue has become more apparent to me. When I am genuinely honest with teachers about what my strengths and weaknesses are with other teachers that I do not know very well, I can definitely see some judgement.

We need to remember to be more compassionate, understanding, and appreciative of our co-teachers' differences… especially if we expect our students to learn these social skills.

Just some thoughts to consider.