Whooo C.A.R.E.S.?!?!

I LOVE the beginning of the year because it gives me a chance to teach my students about character education and social skills. I teach my students about C.A.R.E.S. and I can integrate these themes into our social studies unit about citizenship! C.A.R.E.S. stands for Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-Control. If you miss my posted introducing CARES and covering the bulletin board that accompanies these five topics check it out HERE!

Using C.A.R.E.S. topics during the first few weeks helps build a positive classroom atmosphere, while teaching my students about our class expectations. I have created five lessons, each one covering one of the C.A.R.E.S. topics.  Each lesson introduces the topic and hooks students with a read aloud by Mo Willems. I like using Mo's Elephant & Piggie series because these two characters are in each book and show my students that a character can display each one of our CARES traits. There are other great books out there for teaching CARES traits but my students really enjoy the Elephant & Piggie series because they are kid friendly books with not a lot of language. The drawings in these books grab their attention and the simplicity of the stories allows me to get right to the teaching topic. 

In "Today I Will Fly!" Piggie wants to fly but Gerald isn't too willing to help. With the help of another friend Piggie shows Gerald that flying can be possible when working together. This makes for a fantastic read aloud when teaching cooperation!

"There Is a Bird on Your Head" is perfect for teaching assertion because Gerald becomes frustrated when two birds make a nest and lay eggs on his head. He doesn't know what to until Piggie suggests that he kindly ask the birds to go somewhere else. To Gerald's surprise speaking up solves the problem and the birds go find a new place for their nest.

In "My Friend Is Sad" Piggie discovers her friend Gerald is sad. She works really hard to cheer Gerald up because she understands that being sad is no fun! The simplicity of the story helps students to focus on the meaning of empathy while getting a good laugh at all the silly things Piggie does to make Gerald happy again. 

Gerald realizes he is getting cranky and the only thing to help him get out of his cranky mood is a nap! In "I Will Take a Nap!" Gerald teaches us that taking care of our self and being responsible is very important. 

Self-control is a theme displayed through out "Waiting Is Not Easy!". Gerald learns that surprises can be worth the wait even when it is hard to use self-control and be patient. I like reminding my students that waiting to be called on or waiting your turn in line can be challenging, but just like Gerald experiences in the story, the wait can be worth it. 

If these read alouds interest you and you are looking for some new lesson ideas to teach your student's all about C.A.R.E.S, click on the pictures below check out these lessons:

Don't forget, if you want all five lessons and the bulletin board, make sure to grab the bundle in my store and save $4! 

Share & Prepare: B.O.Y. Hopes & Dreams

I am linking up with Marie from Once Upon a Classroom to "Share and Prepare" for the beginning of the school year this fall! 

Each school year, before starting with classroom rules, I have my students start by identifying their "Hopes and Dreams" for the coming school year and for their future. From these hopes and dreams we then create our class rules by posing the question, "If we want to achieve all of our hopes and dreams, what rules will we need to make our classroom a safe and friendly place where hopes and dreams can be reached?" I have found by creating these hopes and dreams first and then having students think of rules that the class will need, it gives them a sense of ownership to the rules that are created.

So how do I get my students to generate hopes and dreams you ask?

While, before introducing hopes and dreams I use a treasure box full of items that show the class what they can expect to learn during their school year. For example, in my box this past year I had the following items:

• Butterfly wings from our Monarch Butterflies unit
• Clock from our math unit on measurement
• Writer's notebook from our Writing Workshop to discuss that we will be becoming authors
• Piece of animal skin to show the type material used to make clothing worn by American Indians from our social studies unit
• Baseball to represent Jackie Robinson from our famous Americans unit
• Weather vane used during our weather unit
• And much more! 

The students love finding out what items come out of the 'treasure box' and it gets them excited for the year to come!

After the box is revealed, I read the book Someday by Eileen Spinelli. I love this book because the main character has all sorts of hopes and dreams for her future but she does things each day to help her reach her future goals. During this book I begin discussing that we all have hopes and dreams for our future just as the girl in the story does. 

Then we examine some hopes and dreams by using partnering cards and then student generate a list of possible hopes and dreams for our school year and their future. To conclude this activity students then write and draw about their own hopes and dreams from the pages in this product:

We display our hopes and dreams in the classroom the whole year on our back wall. This past year I cut out pictures of my students and had them glue it between the speech bubbles so that parents could see their own child's hopes and dreams on back to school night! The class loved looking at each others pictures and it also helped them identify students in the classroom since they are still learning each other's names early in the year.

My HOPE is that I gave you some new ideas to start your school year off this fall! I usually complete this activity sometime during the first week of school. My DREAM is that your students will love this activity as much as my past classes have! 

You can visit my store to get a copy of this product HERE!

Happy share and prepare!