Easy Student Affirmations (Freebie!)

Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to attend a training called “Engaging Brains, Engaging Learners” with Dr. Rick Duvall. I learned a TON about student engagement and brain science in the classroom. What I appreciated most was that we weren’t just sitting and listening all day. He had us practicing the principles he wanted us to promote in our own classrooms.

{BONUS: I got to spend the day and have lunch with my bloggy BFF, Mandy!}

I also came away with a couple of fabulous freebie ideas! 🙂 I have one of them ready to share with you today…

I’m sure there are many of us out there in the blog-o-sphere who use table or group numbers/colors to organize our students. Last year, I had table colors: the green table, the blue table, the purple table, etc. I even found these nifty Dixon pencils at WalMart that matched my pencil pails.

Well, this year I’m adding a little something special to each table.

One of the things Dr. DuVall mentioned was an easy way to add student affirmations to each day. I made a sign for each table (with a few extras to cover all the colors) that I’ll hang from the ceiling just above each table. You could also post them on the wall or on the tables themselves.

Instead of calling “the green table” to line up, I’ll call “the FANTASTIC table” to line up.

Instead of calling “the blue table” to come and get their book totes, I’ll call “the AWESOME table” to get their book totes.

Dr. DuVall used this with a teacher in his school who was having a hard time with classroom management and motivating her students. He said the change in her room within a week was remarkable. If you call up an “awesome” group of students several times every day, eventually they will believe and know that they really are AWESOME! 🙂

What I {LOVE} about this strategy is that I still get to color coordinate my tables and supplies, AND it’s an easy way for me to bring a big dose of positive energy into my classroom every day. Plus, your students will learn synonyms for “good” that will *hopefully* show up in their writing as well! 🙂 I also think it fits in perfectly with Habit 1: Be Proactive. If we want our students to choose their actions, attitudes and moods we need to set them up for success!

To grab these, just click on the picture below!

Also – if you haven’t stopped by Charity’s blog to take the 5 Star Blogger Challenge, take a minute and check it out. She’s given us some definite “food for thought” as bloggers!