H A P P Y    T H O U G H T S

It is up to the Teacher to make their classroom a happy place where their students feel comfortable and want to come to class everyday.    I always like to put a happy thought or quote on the board each morning and have one of the students read it and we discuss what it means to us.  I suggest that it would be nice to say the comment to someone and watch how they react to it.  That it always makes people feel good when you say good things to them.  Good thoughts and feelings talked about in many different ways daily can really help any students that have that negative approach towards everything.

                    T H O U G H T S
So many students utter these words, "I can't do this,  this is too hard, I don't know how to do this, I was never taught this before" etc....  They receive the instructions, either they listened or didn't bother to listen and now they have the paper of the assignment in front of them and they "freeze".  They see that their classmates are diligently working away and they have NOT even attempted to do anything.  They have these negative thoughts going on in their heads that are preventing them from doing their work.  The more negative their thoughts the harder it becomes for the thought process to work.  They become frustrated, their thoughts do not flow out freely, and that causes more mistakes.  I like to try to erase the negativity as much as possible and just do as much praising as possible and stay away with criticizing remarks.

9/11  REMEMBRANCE DAY

A day that has had a major impact on so many of us.  When we tell our students about the events of the day and what actually happened.  The poor innocent students are in awe with questions of disbelief. "Why would they do that???"  "That is such a mean thing to do."  I had a question from one, aren't they being bullies to us???  What happened to our school classroom rules about treating everyone like you would want to be treated???  Gets rather confusing for a "young mind."

E M O T I O N S

We all have them BUT we have to teach our students how to manage their emotions.  Just like teaching them how to read and their math facts it is important that they learn how to control their emotions.  A  few important steps taught in the classroom can make a huge carry over to the rest of their lives.    They must never hurt someone else  or themselves for that matter.  When they are upset they should take deep breaths and count to 10.   Always use their voice to express their feelings or write them down and tell what they wish would happen.   Ask for help from a teacher, parent, friend, or counselor.  Take time to do another activity or walk away from what they are doing.  

A M A Z I N G

Instilling in your child how special and individual they are is very important.  Every child has AMAZING qualities and they might be completely different then the child they are friendly with or sit next to in school.  One might be friendlier or smarter.  The other might be taller or a better reader.  Children at a very young age become aware of these differences and some children it doesn't phase them at all and others it has a huge impact on them.  Students that are very  competitive or want to always be the one who is the best at everything have a hard time excepting that it doesn't work that way.  So it is important for Teachers to stress how AMAZING they are at what they do so well at.

MY  TEACHER

DOESN'T

LIKE ME!!!!

If your child hits you with, "my teacher doesn't like me," empathize with your child and their frustrations.  Don't jump on the I hate the teacher bandwagon.  Doing so will just cloud the situation and you won't be able to think rationally about it.  Instead talk about the situation and perhaps your child is misinterpreting the situation.  Is the teacher "mean" or just demanding excellence from the students?  The teacher is not mean for having you rewrite a messy paper.  If you had written it neatly you wouldn't have had to rewrite it.  The teacher isn't mean for having you miss recess because you were busy socializing and didn't finish your assignments.  A teacher isn't mean for having you sit in the front of the room next to her because you were being disruptive and she couldn't get through the lesson she had planned.  So help your child to see these things through their teacher's eyes.  Though if things continue and it is a constant conversation set up a conference with the teacher to have a deep conversation about the concerns.

I  CAN'T  DO  MY  HOMEWORK !!!!

How many parents, truthfully, hear that contstantly from their child.  Sometimes it can be true BUT most of the times they are just using it as a crutch.  Why not???  They have Mom or Dad's full attention for a long length of time and that is a pretty high priority to a young child especially if there are siblings involved. Personally and professionally, I feel academically, it is much more beneficial for the child to open up their agenda and start doing their work all by themselves.  Nine times out of ten their teacher has already gone over the directions and might have already done some examples for them or they might have had a similar sheet they did earlier in the day in the classroom.  I always liked when they were all finished if they had any questions to ask me if they thought this was the correct answer or not or if they did such and such question correctly.  Then I always enjoyed going over the work with them but not doing it with them unless they needed me to show them how to do an example of a problem.  Studying for a test I was always open to helping them whenever they needed me.