Let Them Know You.

As a new teacher, I think this is very important. Let your kids know you. I mean, truly know you. Let them see your personality. Let them know your interests and share pictures with them. Yes, it may take a little extra time, but it will be well worth it. The best part about this is that the more your open up, the more your students will open up, and I feel that this is one of the keys to helping students reach their full potential while in your classroom. Think about it like this:  If you go to a restaurant for lunch with a colleague who you don't always feel all that comfortable around and the conversation is awkward, you are probably not going to enjoy your meal or savor it the way your would if you went with a colleague who was also a friend that you could truly talk to, right? Well, I feel the same is true for learning in the classroom. Let your kids get to know you, get to know them, and they will most likely do better academically.

At the beginning of last year, I made a grab bag of "getting to know you" questions such as,  "What do you do for fun?" or "How many people are there in your family?"  For about the first month of school, we spent about 5-10 minutes each morning passing the grab bag around and having students, myself, and my co-teacher answer questions. I feel this had a lot to do with the strong sense of community that we had in our classroom throughout the year, and I feel this also helped my students to reach their fullest potential with the content presented to them.  In fact, you can even incorporate content into the getting to know your exercises. Read an "All About Me Book," and call on students to fill in the blanks as you read. Ask your students to write about themselves and then read their paper aloud. After that, have your students pair up and write about their partner. (Bingo! Getting to know each other and working on Language Arts skills at the same time!) Always include yourself in these types of activities so that students feel they are a community and YOU are a part of it.

The above picture is one of my 14 favorite students and I. I love Dr. Seuss and I love being goofy. My kids knew that meant we were going all out for Dr. Seuss's birthday! We ate green eggs, read numerous Dr. Seuss books, and wore red and white. It was a great day!