Flower Power!
- Aug 5, 2016
- 2 min read
Summer is winding down, and I've almost run out of shows to binge on Netflix. While the prospect of setting my alarm and dawning my "teacher attire" is not making me happy. However, scrolling through my photos of the last school year reminded me of how very lucky I am to be an educator.
Last year, I really tried to focus on creating a positive classroom environment. I wanted my room to be a safe space for all of my students. I wanted my students to learn how to appreciate the beauty of the world and appreciate small moments of kindness. I wanted to celebrate good news, encourage hard work, and foster a growth mindset by looking at failure as a a "first attempt at learning;" not an end result.
How did we do this? With flower power!
On the first day of school, my students outlined their hands. They created an "About Me" with illustrations. On each finger, students had to write about something they were good at, a word to describe them, one goal for the year, a challenge they anticipated, and something they wanted to try (this could have been during the school year, or at any point in their life, skydiving or reading a new genre of book). They wrote a quote on the palm that they found inspiring or meaningful.
I stapled the palms into a flower. As a class, we talked about what a flower needs to grow...a plant needs water! We decided that we needed to "water" our flower (i.e. each other) with kindness to help it grow. I know, this might seem a little cheesy for 6th grade, but they were so into it!
Over the course of the school year, we literally added hundreds of rain drops to the board. Each raindrop had an act of kindness, good news, inspirational quotes, and examples of grit. Every Friday, my "Rain Drop Checkers" would check for drops and read them aloud to the class. Giving this job away to students helped them take ownership of the flower and took the responsibility of remembering to check off my back!
At the end of the year, my students voted on their favorite quote: "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." I think this made it all worth it. My students created a community of learners that supported each other and accepted challenges. Failed attempts were opportunities to regroup and try again.
I started the flower very unsure of how it would be received, but my students loved it and it made our classroom a beautiful place to be!
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