Tool or Toy?

The marathon continues...surviving the first few weeks of school. I had my full class for the first time yesterday, when student #6 returned from vacation. However, today, he was out sick and we were back to our class of five.

Today also marked the day that my kids all decided that they know each other well enough and felt comfortable enough in the classroom to be mean to each other. between morning recess and lunch recess, I heard more fights, mean comments, and tattling than I had heard in the first four days of school. So we had a lot of talks and practiced using kind words with each other...and then, during rest time, four of them passed out and slept for over half an hour. Time came to wake them and I just couldn't bring myself to do that. So I let them sleep. I know I can't let that happen often, but right now, they're still adjusting to being back in school, and since I have the luxury of having the time and space for them to rest as they need it, I'm going to give it to them.

A lesson we did today (after they all woke up!) is about using the materials we have in the classroom. I came up with this idea part of the way through the year last year, and thankfully I wrote it down to remember it when I started planning this year! At some point during the year last year, whenever I would catch a student playing with their pencils, or scissors, or crayon box, or glue, or... you know what I mean? Rather than giving them a long lecture, I would just ask them, "Is that a tool or a toy?" So this year I chose to preface the whole year with this lesson and a discussion on classroom materials and how we use them. This way, my catch phrase now has a deeper meaning and something they can reference.

It was simple really, all I did was take a large piece of construction paper, and made it into a t-chart. Then, I collected a large box of various classroom materials, both "tools" and "toys." I modeled the procedure of pulling out a few items and putting them on the chart, and saying why they belong where they did. Then we passed around the box, and the kids followed suit. We had really great discussions about what materials are for, and why it's important that we use them in the right way.

Another way to do this (that I opted out of due to the fact that it would have taken longer to prep, and I have no wall space) would be to make an anchor chart. You could either print out clip art photos or even better, take photos of the items you have in your classroom, and have the kids participate in placing them in the right category on the chart, and hang it up in the classroom.

What's your catch phrase? How do you discuss the proper use of classroom materials with your students?

God's blessings and happy teaching!
Mikaela