#2 Student Reflection Sheet

Communication is key in kindergarten.  Communicating to parents and parents communicating to me. Each month I send home a newsletter about upcoming events, themes we are following, author of the month, topics in both reading and math.  Each week I send home a "Peek at the week" summarizing the events we did in the classroom or things we focused on or learned about.  I also provide a daily communication sheet for every student.  This has daily events/changes on it, and a section for parents to sign.  Each day I give I give a :) for a good day, :/ for some reminders, and a :( if many rules were broken in the classroom.  Often it is accompanied by a note home to the aprents explaining the behavior or situation.  When looking for new ways to have students reflect on their own behavior and choices I came across this "Student Reflection".  I really really like it.  It reminded me of the reflection sheet you shared about using when you were teaching first grade.  I like how the student has to take ownership and write or illustrate what happened, and how it made the student feel and the peers around that student.  I also, like the next time I will...portion of the relfection sheet.  So often I have these conversations with the student and we talk about what we would do if this happens again or how we can make a better choice next time etc.  This really has it down on paper, so if the issue ever arises again, I can have it with me.  It is another useful tool to use and have when documenting student behaviors, etc.  I haven't decided if I will use this exact same one but I like the majority of it.  I'm excited to continue to search and find new tools to implement next year in hopes of maintaining strong classroom management throughout the entire school year. 

#1 (still wanting to make the best of the school year...even with 8 days left!)

Looking ahead at next year I’ve recently spent time in gathering new ideas in how to be consistent and strong with maintaining classroom management and behaviors.  I find myself being extremely hard on myself when looking at the behaviors I see with my current students in the classroom.  Throughout the school year we have worked hard at trying to maintain our classroom rules but within these last couple weeks I have heard more tattles, quarrels about sharing/taking turns, and negative tones when speaking to their peers than I have this entire school year.  That being said I am making a list of things to improve on and change for next year.  However, I still want to make an impact and difference with the students I still have with me for the next 8 school days.  Therefore each day during our morning meeting as a class we have reviewed our classrooms rules we established together the first week of school in September.  I want to make the most of these last days I have with these "almost first graders" as I have been calling them.  Whenever we count down the days we have left, I remind them that we want to make the best of these last few days we have together as a class, and we want to make sure that every new day everyone feels welcome, safe, proud, and that they have been cared for in our classroom and they leave our classroom at the end of the day feeling that too.