Morning Routines

As Students come into the classroom, greet them at the door to make them feel special.

Visuals posted in the classroom to support what to do when entering the classroom
This small, positive gesture will stay with them the entire day! If children feel good
about themselves, they will be calmer, more positive and ready to learn.
In fact a student of mine actually told me that she loved when I greeted her at the door with a smile!

2. Provide a Soft Landing Time

Many teachers give their students morning work to complete, which is fine. However what I
suggest doing, and have done over the years, is to give students a “soft landing” time.
During this time, the kiddos can:
 chat calmly
 buddy read
 read to self
 work on an activity that needs to be finished
 pick a morning worksheet to complete
 buddy write
 complete their classroom job
A classroom job is one of those jobs that help our classroom run like a fine-tuned machine (…
well…that might be a bit of an exaggeration), but you get the idea!
Through my experiences, I have found that children who are given a choice integrated with their
learning will take ownership of their learning, are more motivated to learn and feel more positive
throughout the day!

3. Have a Morning Meeting

As soon as everyone is ready and all morning jobs are completed, hold a morning meeting where all
students join you on the rug in a circle and classmates greet each other in different ways.
Incorporating a Morning Meeting into your schedule, encourages inclusion of all students and
promotes community as everyone passes a smile, shakes hands to welcome their
neighbors, elbow shakes, or butterfly greets.
When another child nods or shakes a hand and says, “Good Morning, Jake. I am really glad you
are here today,” it sets a positive tone for your class and supports expected constructive
behaviors throughout the school day.
 A morning meeting
provides a positive classroom community
A Morning Meeting consists of a Greeting, quick Game, Sharing Time and a Class Message, which
all provide a positive way to start the day and encourage positive classroom behavior.

4. Add Brain Breaks

Add brain breaks into your day to support children to refocus, be relaxed and ready to move
on with the rest of their day. This is so important for behavior management. Let’s think about this
scenario for a second:
Your little learners or older learners have been working for a while…you notice some children
are losing their focus… and now the kids are literally just chatting about anything and
everything… time for a brain break!
Brain Breaks can be added in the spur of the moment or they can be added into your schedule
beforehand! It can be a simple “Simon Says”, a breathing technique or a more active idea like
“Jumping Jacks”!

5. Role Model and Practice Expected

Behaviors
According to Katie Gretchen, a Special Education Kindergarten teacher in Pennsylvania, role
modeling and practicing expected behaviors is a way to set a positive tone in your classroom.
It is important to remember that you cannot assume that children know your classroom
expectations or even appropriate ways to use classroom materials let alone
understand routines and expected social behaviors.

Modeling how to use glue and

scissors
Katie uses a “Mystery Box” to motivate her class to guess what is inside the box. Beforehand, she
places one item inside the box which include various classroom tools, such as:
 pencils
 scissors
 glue
 crayons
 pictures of recess equipment
 book bags
 images of classroom routines
She might additionally use other items that might need to be used in school.
One item each day is placed in the box or pictures are used for procedures as each routine is
introduced or used. After clues are given about the item or picture in the box, her students guess
what is inside the box.

Role modeling and practicing

expected behaviors is a way to set a positive tone in your classroom
Once the item is discovered, Mrs. Gretchen models the appropriate use of the tool or routine.
She then asks questions about the item. So…if a crayon is in the box, she might ask, ”When do we
use crayons, where do we use them, do we use them on the tables, on the walls etc.?”
Then a student models how to use the crayon. The modeling continues with other students until
she feels all the students understand the use of crayons or the procedures modeled.
Finally students go back to their seats and show the appropriate use of crayons with
a preplanned activity. She also uses visual reminders for classroom routines…like unpacking
backpacks, putting materials away and so on.

6. Use Empowering Language to support

Behaviors
Just to clarify…the language I am referring to is NOT praise, but rather language that encourages
your students to think about their behaviors and puts the responsibility back on the student.
This encourages the student to take ownership of the action. “Hmmm,” you might be saying,
“sounds difficult…”. Not at all. It is simply using words and phrases like:
 “Johnny, show me a way to come onto the rug safely!”
 “Julia, I notice you are having trouble focusing. What might be something you
can do to make sure you are paying attention?”
 “Brett, What kind of voice do we use during private work time? Can I hear what
that sounds like?”
 All of these phrases promote a more positive way to encourage better choices in
your classroom and also support your students to make better choices.

Power
clouds
These are clouds with empowering positive phrases written on each cloud that I hang in my
classroom as a reminder of appropriate language to use to support positive choices

7. Have an End of Day Meeting

An End of Day Meeting simply takes a few minutes–or longer, if you choose to make it longer
depending on your class size. Here’s how it works.
About 10-15 minutes before dismissal, call all your students onto the rug or into a circle and
have each child share their high point about the school day.
As each child shares their something they enjoyed about school, it validates their feelings
and allows each child to leave on a high note – not to mention how much you will learn about
your students!

Sharing high points together!

I hope you find these tips to support positive behaviors helpful! They are ALL tried and true and
have helped hundreds of children make positive choices in the classroom.
If used consistently…you will see a more positive classroom culture, which will support
better behavior choices!!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Written by Kathy
Kathy is a retired 1st and 2nd grade looping teacher, who taught full time and part time
in her hometown of Springfield, PA for 30+ years. She is wife, mom of three grown
children and as of today a Mimi of three with one on the way. Kathy volunteers in her
daughter’s Kindergarten Special Education classroom weekly. She loves to create
resources, write (blog) and has an obsession for shoes and chocolate.

In the section Growth mindset

Join the 34,000 classrooms

already subscribed to Beneylu School!
Discover Beneylu School

The digital classroom for real elementary school students,

with the best apps for working!
Discover Beneylu School

Sip on your Wednesdays. Subscribe to the Beneylu Newsletter, Pssst.

An answer key every week
I subscribe

Your email won't be sold to pharmaceutical companies.

NEXT BENEYLU PSSST ARTICLE ...

Aa

6 fun activities to use in a novel

unit
5 min. reading
If you teach in the upper elementary grades, chances are you spend a good chunk of time reading
novels with your students during your literacy block.
Whether your students are reading the novel as a whole-class, in guided reading groups, in literature
circles, or even as individuals, there are some activities that work great with almost any novel. In
this article, I’m going to share 6 activities that I have used over and over in the different novels
that I have read with my own students. Let’s go!

1 – Identify Flat and Round Characters:

One thing that I often have my students do, almost from the start of the novel, is to begin
identifying flat and round characters.
If you are unfamiliar with these terms, let me clarify:
Flat characters are those characters that only appear in the story once or twice, and don’t really
impact the story’s outcome. The reader doesn’t really learn much about the flat characters.
Round characters, on the other hand, are the lead characters of the story. Their words and actions
greatly impact the events and outcome of the story. The reader gets to know these characters in
great detail through their words, thoughts, and actions.
In a novel unit using the book Shiloh, we designated a portion of our unit bulletin board for identifying
and keeping track of round and flat characters. As characters came in and out of the book, we
placed these characters’ names under the correct heading. Students often found that while
reading, characters moved from one category to another. A character that did not seem so
significant at the beginning of the novel, tagged a “flat,” actually turned into a pretty important
character half-way through the story. We had to move that character from “flat” to “round.” The
discussion around flat and round characters is on-going through the novel.

2 – Make a Character Map and Complete a

Character Analysis:
Speaking of characters, once students do identify the round ones, they can begin to really dive deep
into getting to know them. We teach our students that getting to know a character really well means
that we can describe things that the character wants, thinks, feels, does, and says. My students
would show their understanding of a character by completing a character map, like this one from
the novel unit on Because of Winn-Dixie.

The character map then sets the foundation for being able to analyze that character and discuss
how the he or she develops and changes over the course of the novel. You might even have
students complete a character map on the same character several times throughout the novel to
show how the character is changing.
We can teach our students that to analyze a character, we focus on 4 things that can change:
1. his/her physical appearance
2. his/her intelligence
3. his/her social abilities
4. his/her feelings
Help your students to keep track of a character’s development by recording evidence found in the
text, categorized into these 4 main character changes.
In the novel Dear Mr. Henshaw, the story is written in a diary/letter format, documenting the thoughts
and feelings of the main character, Leigh Botts. While my students read the diary entries, I had them
record things that Leigh wrote about in his diary that showed development in any of these 4 areas.
Students continued to add to these pages throughout the novel.

3 – Turn an Excerpt from the Story into a

Reader’s Theater Script:
I love using reader’s theater as a tool in the classroom! It works especially well in a novel unit
because a lot of the work is done for you. Simply take the dialogue and narration, like I did with the
story from Shiloh, and retype it into a script format.
Choose a critical event from the story and have students act it out in small groups. Reader’s
theater provides meaningful fluency practice and can spark some great discussion around these
critical events. Teach students to use appropriate tone of voice to convey the feelings behind the
characters and events in the script. It’s so much fun!

4 – Pair Fiction and Nonfiction where

possible:

Finding a nonfiction text that pairs will with your novel works especially well with realistic and
historical fiction novels. For example, when my students were reading about how Judd, a main
character in the book Shiloh, was mistreating his dog, I had them read a nonfiction article about
animal rights. The connection was perfect, and through the article I was able to teach important
nonfiction reading skills like headings and bold words.

5 – Have Students Categorize Book Quotes:

Inferring is an important skill that we teach our students. One authentic way to do this is by having
them infer the feelings represented in different quotes by the characters in the novel.
Let me show you what I mean:
During my Dear Mr. Henshaw unit, I gave students a set of quote cards. The quotes were all said by
the main character, Leigh Botts, as he experienced the ups and downs of boyhood and middle
school life. I asked for students to try to infer the emotion behind each quote. In a center activity,
students read each quote card, and then categorized the quotes into “emotion” categories. In the
center, students had to use evidence from the text to back up their categorizing decisions. Try
having your students do the same by grouping quotes from your novel into categories. I chose
emotions, but you could choose different category groups that make sense for your novel.

6 – Have Students Show How their Thinking

Changes:
Finally, I like to encourage students to show their thinking as they read. We teach our students
how characters can develop and change over the course of the novel, but we also need to teach
how the reader’s thoughts, feelings, and opinions can change as well. I use a simple graphic
organizer (like the one shown here from my George Washington Socks unit). This way, students can
record their thinking before (based on previous events), during (as the events are happening), and
after reading. I encourage students to pause their reading periodically to write down their thoughts
about the events as they happen.

Pssst… This type of activity works best when students are about to read a critical event in
the story. An event that changes the outcome of the story or comes as a complete shock to
the reader.

Since all readers think a little differently, these graphic organizers can be a great spring board for
deep discussion about the book.
All of these activities help students to think critically and deeply about the characters and events in a
novel. I like how these can be repeated time and time again in novels all year long. The more
practice students get with these activities, the richer their conversations will be.
And what about you? What activities do you use in your novel unit?