When I was a building principal, we had a group of boys who were consistently getting office referrals during lunch for aggressive and disruptive behaviors. In the past, these behaviors had led to increasingly severe consequences that did not reduce the negative behaviors (and caused some students to be sent home and to miss instruction). I sat down with the group and we worked together to come up with a plan on what to do during lunch. One of the boys asked if we could start a knitting club, since his Auntie had recently taught him how to knit. Since he was a leader of the group, the other boys agreed. I asked them to come back tomorrow with some ideas of what to knit. The next day one of the boys said that he wanted to knit little hats for the preemies at the hospital, since his little cousin was there and that a nurse mentioned that they had run out of the little hats. The boys knitted daily and we delivered the hats to the hospital. We received many heartfelt thank you notes from families, nurses and doctors (and even an in-person visit with a personal thank you and cookies from a newborn's mom). This group continued to grow as did our ability to create knitted hats for preemies. This became a huge success for the participating students. There was significant improvement in the students’ behavior, attitude, achievement, and attendance. It is so important to think outside of the box for “win-win” solutions. It really isn’t the WHAT you do that is important, it is the WHY you are doing it! Our knitting group become a team, family, and community.
#maslowbeforebloom
One more time this season!
Guess who scores the first #Canes goal tonight, and we'll pick a correct guess at random to win a signed puck and a @GreatClips gift card!
Kindergarteners are learning about 3D shapes and comparing them to 2D. They decorated the 2D paper and then we made them into 3D cubes. #FullerMagnet#WCPSS
Two of our kindergarten students were finished with their math lessons early, so we played a game to learn about graphs. They loved it and wanted to make their own graph. They asked their classmates which color was their favorite. Great job, boys!