Raving about Mrs. Rios!

I am excited to be participating in a product swap hosted by Jessica Stanford from Mrs. Stanford's Class!

When I learned that I had been paired with Nicole Rios I immediately visited (and joined) her site.  I also made a point of letting her know that my own second grade teacher was named Mrs. Rios.  Love it!  We share a love of teaching second grade and cooking (well, really baking for me, but that's a kind of cooking, right?).  She also loves the outdoors and being a Mommy.  Her blog is full of wonderful, useful ideas!

As soon as I saw her Back to School Getting to Know You Pack I knew that was the item I wanted to check out.  There's a ton of stuff in there!  I decided to focus on a few activities in the pack that I wanted to use with my character education at the start of the school year. The activities I am focusing on in this post are titled, "What if Everyone Did That?" and "Where Do You Stand?"  As I told Nicole, this year I plan to hit citizenship skills, manners, and rules pretty hard from the get go.

"Where Do You Stand?" is so easy to use and it does a great job of helping kids think about how they respond in different situations.  There are directions, scenario cards, and response posters to place about your room.  The scenario cards pose a situation and the students think about how they would respond and move to the area of the room where the posters are located.  The poster categories are "Always," "Never," "Sometimes," and "I Don't Know." I especially like how the scenario cards have a follow up question printed on them to facilitate class discussion.  This way, you aren't having students respond without elaborating/expanding upon their thinking.

These are the posters that the students use as you read the scenario cards.  They are bright, colorful, and easy to read!

These are the scenario cards.  I love that they match the posters.  I cut mine in half and laminated them for extra durability.

Now, I don't have access to students at the moment and my toddler is too young to use as a guinea pig, so I used my "little" brother as a test subject.  I posed a scenario (Should you pick up a mess made by someone else so that the class can go out to recess?) and this is the answer he chose.  Hmmm, indecisive just like his big sis. (He's also a big ham, in case you couldn't tell from his goofy expression).

I also tested out the "What if Everyone Did That?" class book activity with my brother.  I love class books!  I don't know about you, but class books are always the most popular in my classroom.  I absolutely loved this lesson because it gets kids thinking about the consequences of their actions.  It is also super easy to use.

To complete their portion of the book, each student is given two fill in the blank pages.  The first page explores what would happen if everyone did something negative.  The second page allows students to identify how things would be if everyone did something positive.  Nicole has prepared a bunch of scenarios that students are to think of on a large scale.  For example, what if everyone came to school late or what if everyone talked when the teacher was talking. Here are a few pictures:

I cut the scenario "chips" up and put them in a bowl.  Then, my "second grader" pulled out a chip.

After pulling his scenario, my "student" completed this page for the class book.

The proud second grader!

I had him complete a page two also, but it seems to have stayed behind in Oregon where I tested out this product.  Anyhoo, the sentence frame for the second page is "But if everyone ______________, then ___________."  I had him turn his scenario around. His finished sentence read something like this, "But if everyone listened to the teacher when she was talking, then they would learn lots of new things."

I really, really love these activities!  They are going to be an excellent addition to my beginning of the year character education unit.  Don't forget, there are lots of other great back to school activities included in this pack (Find a Friend, Two Truths and a Lie-I love this one, The Many Pieces of Me, and so much more)! Too many to review in one post!  If you are looking for some great back to school ideas that allow your students to get to know one another, but also gets them thinking about bigger issues, then this pack is for you.  Be sure to check it out!