State School of Character & Valentine's Day Party!

Our teachers were welcomed to school this week with the banner below! We were soooo excited when we pulled up to school and saw this. We have worked so hard to obtain this goal and all the work finally paid off. Plattin Primary is a state school of character.

I wanted to take some time to actually post some of the neat displays and activities going on around my school. Many of these ideas were done throughout the year. Some are the 100th day of school and others are just character ed. related.

"Hanging With Respect"

Students were learning about respect and had to write how they would be respectful. They hung the monkeys holding the writing around the doorway. They were so cute and hard to miss! Great job Carla and Lori.

"Our Class Pledge"

I am sure many of you know and love Debbie Miller. This idea came from her book Making Meaning. The kids decorated paper plates to look like them and wrote their pledge to their classroom community. Helen's class did a wonderful job.

Our Title I teacher made this cute display for her kiddos for the 100th day of school. The kids felt so special. I loved the quote above their 100th day profiles. Great job Deb!

Every month our principal selects a classroom to be her All-Stars. This is a very big deal to the kids because she comes in and reads a book to the kids, they receive extra recess that she monitors…awesome, right? The teacher also gets to display student work on the board right outside the office. They are pretty much the stars of the school for 3 weeks!

Keep Plowing Through!!!! Such a cute display Katie.

Visit her blog..click here.

If you have never heard of the book Kindness is Cooler Mrs. Ruler, it is a must have for any classroom. I found it at the library right before the 100th day of school and it worked out perfect. The basis of the book is that Mrs. Ruler teaches her troubled class about kindness and how important it is. The kids come up with a challenge to think of 100 random acts of kindness to complete before the end of the year. Perfect...right??? They write them on hearts in the book, but we used popcorn kernels because of our circus theme for the 100th day. “First Graders Are Popping with Kindness”. Between the kids and the teachers we actually had 100!

Another writing activity I love to do is “A Recipe for a Great Friendship”. I can not take credit for this idea. I actually got the template for the writing at Ladybug's Teacher Files. I bought a chef hat at JoAnn Crafts and wrote a mustache on their face to add to the effect. These were some of the cutest displays and will be going in their first grade scrapbooks!

I know this seems like the longest post ever, but I have to end on something fun! Every year my kids make a valentine box at home with parents and this year was pretty much INSANE!!! The “boxes” I got this year were over the top. Take a look at some of the ones that were brought in.