Deep Breaths!

Hello friends! 

I mentioned in my last post that starting tomorrow my school is making the shift to Conscious Discipline.

So I've been reading this

and this

to try and understand what changes I will be making in my classroom in the new year!

I love what I have learned so far & I will say that I am very optimistic about what this program can do for me & my little cuties. I am already doing some of the components so I am hoping that the rest will come somewhat easy (can things go easy? ha!)

Conscious Discipline is all about students feeling safe. This doesn't seem like a huge thing- but, when you are a child coming from a home that is unsafe, it is EXTREMELY important that there is somewhere that you can feel safe. I teach a population that is high poverty & their home lives are scary & sad. So it is super important to their well being, learning, self image, confidence, etc... that they feel safe when they are with me at school. 

Anyhow~

Here is what I am planning to do to jump start this new journey...

I have been talking a LOT with my friend Heather! She is super helpful & knows SOOOOO much. She has been using CD in her classroom forever! She has tons of great info/ advice & I am so thankful that we are friends!!! 

Following her advice I made this:

Each student has a puffy heart with his/her name on it. 

Everyday as part of our morning ritual they will bring me their heart & we will have a little dialog about being safe & keeping our hearts safe. It is MY job to keep them safe & it is their job to help me. They bring the heart to me & after our little dialog the heart will go in the heart bucket so that they will be safe all day long. I am going to make an anchor chart supporting this about ways that we can be safe. (I'll post those pics after we make it)

I'll check back in tomorrow & let you know how things go for us! 

Have a great first day back for those of you that start tomorrow!! :)