R-E-S-P-E-C-T, What's the Best Way to Teach It?

Image found at Education World.com

I am writing this blog while singing Aretha Franklin's song RESPECT all because one of my teachers asked me to help her find some activities that would help her students have a better understanding about how to have respect for one another as well as her. We started talking and she thought it would be fun to have kids parody Aretha's song to make it applicable to the classroom but as we read the lyrics we rethought that idea because they were a little suggestive.

So I dug into the web and asked my PLN (Personal Learning Network) for ideas and here is what we came up with:

jgustin from Plurk, suggested an activity where students define respect and find images that represent respect to them and put them into animoto to create a presentation. I thought of possibly using VoiceThread instead because it has an easy connection to Flickr creative commons images. 

http://www.micheleborba.com/Pages/BMI05.htm This site suggests that you do one of these activities for each day of the month, I think it would be cool to give this list to the kids and see which one or two they would like to do to show respect to someone in or out of the classroom. They could then report back to the class about how their actions impacted the person they interacted with as well as how it changed their perspective. 

http://charactercounts.org/resources/booklist_search.php This site allows you to search for children books that help to teach Character Education without sounding preachy. I would have the students select a book from the list and do a book talk on it with PhotoStory3 to retell it.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson329.shtml This site starts with some ideas to introduce RESPECT to your classroom. Then it gives you 5 lessons for teaching respect. I really liked the Popcorn Party lesson.

Please post your ideas for teaching students respect in your classroom!

First Days of School

Teachers and students are back at it today and I wanted to share some fun activities with you to help you out on this crazy first week of school. I hope you find something helpful!

All about me Scavenger Hunt http://www.tammyworcester.com/Tips/ScavengerHunt.html

This is a great activity for the beginning of school as a way for you and your class to get to know one another. I suggest taking these questions and having them record them on a graphic organizer or a word document.

Newspaper Clip Generator http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

This site allows you to create a newspaper clipping of your own. It would be a cool way for students to type up a goal for the school year as well as a million other ideas

First Day Activities http://www.ilovethatteachingidea.com/ideas/subj_first_day.htm

Here is a list of first day activities but I think some of them could be done the first week for sure. I think the Name Bingo game would be a fun one for you and the kids!

Dear Me Letter http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAOBeginEndOfSchoolLettersIdea36.htm

Students write or type a letter to themselves and then read them on the last day of school. NOTE: There are pop-up ads on this site.