One of the most influential people in my collegiate career told a story about how important it is that every child feels like you "see" them everyday. Sometimes the students who are following directions and are always on task, on level and engaged feel like they are overlooked because many teacher's focus ALOT of class attention on the students who are disruptive.
As a teacher my main goal is to not do this, ever. I want every student in my classroom to know that they are important, that their idea's, stories and thoughts matter to me.
How am I going to do this? Well I am going to begin by using a greeting apron in my classroom. This is an idea adopted from conscious discipline, which you can learn more about herehttp://consciousdiscipline.com/resources/ and I adapted to fit my own needs.
Basically I made an apron that looks like this,
Each day students will be able to choose a greeting. By doing this I make sure to have a personal moment with every student everyday just to let them know that "I see you"!
My greetings are ....
Blow a kiss, goldfish!
Put your hands together and "swim" like a fish, then open your fingers to "kiss" the students fish hands.
Bye, Bye Butterfly!
You interlock thumbs with the student to make a "butterfly"
SSSSee ya later!
Use your pointer finger to make a swirling motion and meet the students pointer finger saying, Sssss ya later!
The hand is a "Hi-Five"
and the ladybug says "Give a hug, ladybug"
Those are pretty self-explanatory!
I choose these greetings because it gives each student a choice, it allows them to choose the amount of interaction with the teacher and once again it is an easy way to be sure that you've acknowledged each student everyday!
