“Awesome” Pep Talk
One day
this past week my mentor teacher was out of the room for a meeting. She had given me plans for what to do before
taking the kids to their music class, but she figured she would be back before
I had to pick the students up. She
wasn’t, and I didn’t know what she had planned for her reading lesson because
it was going to be test taking practice/review that she wanted to do with the
students while I observed. So I just
ad-libbed a reading lesson.
My
ad-libbing began with a little pep talk.
My students are pretty well behaved in the hallway when we transition
from one room to another. However, on
this day when I dropped off my students I saw a third grade class walking with
their teacher, and these kids are always so quiet that the teacher didn’t even
notice she had walked well ahead of them.
When I brought my students back to class I told them this story. I also told them that the younger students shouldn’t
be setting the example for how we walk in the hall, as fourth graders we need
to be the role models for the students under us. I truly think my students took this to heart
because I could see immediate improvement in their hallway behavior. I am very pleased that a quick pep talk about
being leaders had such a quick and positive impact on my students.
Following
the being a leader pep talk I decided to praise my students with how awesome
they are. I pointed to each individual, said their name and told them they are
awesome. We had a discussion about how
we are awesome, and what we can do to be even more awesome. We talked about how it isn’t just the
students in our class that can be, and are awesome, but everyone in our school
– from the students, to the teachers, to the staff and faculty, etc. – is also
awesome. The students all seemed to love
this change of pace in their day, as a pep talk is not something we do often,
if at all. They also thoroughly enjoyed
the praise they received just for being who they are.
The
best part about the pep talks was that I was genuine about everything I said. I
know my students can be leaders and role models in many facets of school and
life. They are also all awesome
people. There are a plethora of reasons
that make every person awesome. As I
continue working with my students it is great to see their awesome traits and
abilities shine. Next week I want to
follow up my pep talk with this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o. I’ve already shown a Kid President video to
my students, and I think this video will be a very inspiring video to back up
my pep talk to them last week.
Roar
The
MEAP test begins on Tuesday. The MEAP is
not an exciting time for the students, nor is it exciting for the
teachers. There’s some prep we have done
recently instead of our usual lessons.
The prep lessons are not as exciting.
These lessons do teach valuable skills and knowledge the students definitely
need to have, but with focusing the prep on test taking it just seems to come
off a little dry.
To help
remind the students of some important test taking practices one of the teachers
created a video of tips to show during a kick-off assembly. The video was set to the tune of “Roar” by
Katy Perry, and had various tips such as “eat a healthy breakfast”, “get plenty
of sleep”, “review your answers”, “take your time”, etc. Along with the video a handful of teachers
and student teachers choreographed a dance to go along with the song. We dressed in all black, taped glowsticks to
our clothes to create a glowstick stick figure, and we danced to the
video. The students LOVED it! It was so
much fun. When we got back to class we
talked with the students, and they had actually watched the video and read the
messages. With MEAP not being the most
entertaining time of the year for the students, it was awesome to do something
fun for them, that would also help them remember important tips to use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aMUgN0hZbY
(I am the one in the very front, with the crazy headgear that breaks.)
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