It's here! It's here! First day back from Christmas break! I was pumped! Ready to go! Missed my kids! So naturally... I greeted them at the door. With toilet paper.
A new shift. Why write about New Years Resolutions and what happened over break when you have toilet paper!?!?
I think some of my kids truly thought I lost it. One kid grabbed their TP and said, "I love that I never know what is next." Ha! So as the kids started filing in, I stood at the door and listened to them chat.
"Why do we have toilet paper?"
"Dude, if we end up having class in the bathroom, I'm going to laugh."
"Ah man, our toilet paper is so cheap. We need that kind with the bear on it."
"Seriously, what are we doing with this?"
"Ok, this isn't enough to make a mummy."
"Not even kidding, I need to blow my nose."
"Oh dude. Over there. Is that a kid potty?"
"Geib! What are we doing?"
As I'm waiting for the last of the kids to filter in, my colleague next door says to me, "I so can't wait to hear about this later."
As class begins I tell the kids how happy I am to see them and to make some guesses as to why I gave them toilet paper. It finally comes out that we're just going to write away all the crap of 2017. Students are instructed to write down anything and everything they won't miss about 2017. They are told I'm going to be watching as they write and reflect, but I will not read unless that want me to.
I almost cried when a student showed me theirs. They wrote, "In 2017 I didn't love me. I love me now."
We then put the negative of 2017 in the potty and flushed that stuff away.
Hello, 2018! Hello, new beginnings!
Reflective writing can sometimes be a challenge for my students and to be honest with you... I think it can be a challenge for all of us. For some, reflection is not a natural state of being. For my students, many of them would prefer to write about something where they can answer a more direct question.
As a class, we then broke down 2-0-1-8
We talked about TWO things we would like to accomplish this year as a class and individually.
We focused on one thing we would like to ZERO in on such as building relationships, improving our social skills, growing in executive functioning, etc.
We talked about that one thing we wanted to IMPROVE on for the number one in 2018. We talked about SMART goals and being more specific and it was interesting to see how many students talked about their need to focus more on time management.
Last, we compiled a list of EIGHT things we are looking forward to this year.
As the class came to a close, I introduced the #oneword2018 concept. Today we are diving in. I can't wait. I have been having so much fun with my period 2 through 6 kids!
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