Culture of Possibility

The crispness in the breeze has reminded me that summer will be over before I know it!  Soon enough, it will be the first day of school, which has gotten me contemplating what I envision the first day of school looking like in my classroom. Today, I came across the following Tweet while scrolling through my twitter feed, and it really resonated with me...

When students walk into our rooms from their summer adventures, they are refreshed and excited about the year to come. It is a fresh start for everyone. The culture we create in our classroom begins from those first moments with our students, and so it is critically important that you start the year off right. My goal, as an educator, is to establish a community within my classroom where students feel safe, supported and encouraged to take risks with their learning. In order for this to be accomplished, the relationships I develop with students need to be strong, and the community of learners need to support one another. In my classroom, I want to create a culture of possibility. This means that I will not spend the first day telling students the big list of things that they are not allowed to do this year. Rather, I will show them all the incredible things we will be learning and doing and spark their curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. Obviously, rules are important, and they need to be discussed to help students stay out of trouble. However, t is worth reflecting on whether they need to be the focus of the first day of school, and ultimately what you will do with students on that first day to establish the culture of your classroom. Let's start things off right, and make this the best year yet! What type of culture do you want to create in your classrooms?

3 Non-Cheesy icebreakers from @cultofpedagogy
http://goo.gl/mw78Z3
A HUGE list of Ideas for back to school activitieshttps://goo.gl/mgoI1U