Friday Focus - September 7th

I cannot believe we are already at the end of 2 weeks together.  This week has been such a smooth start to the school year, with an incredibly positive vibe from everyone---students, faculty, and staff.  I have already heard several positive comments from parents on how they appreciate our bucket filling theme spilling over at home and how excited their children are about it.  

As I read the story to each classroom this week, I thought about how many of our students may be coming to school each morning with a bucket that is already close to being empty.  We have such an important role each morning to start out our day on a positive note with each and every one of our students to fill their buckets.  I appreciate how welcome and inviting you all have been to make the first week such a success for all of our students.  Please continue to be alert for children who have empty buckets and make a special effort to praise and encourage them every day.  We've heard many stories of children who thrive in the presence of one sincere, caring, bucket-filling adult.

This is the opportune time of year to rehearse classroom procedures--showing each procedure the "wrong" way to get it out of their system and then modeling/rehearsing the right way over and over to build those "procedural muscles;" giving positive recognition to build those correct procedures.  When you focus on positive behavior, you will have far less negative behavior in your classroom.  

The start of a new year is the best time to begin building positive relationships with parents as well.  I encourage you to try to make a positive contact home for each of your students over the next few weeks, before you may have to call with a concern.  As you make these calls home, you will be filling 3 buckets: the parent, the child, and yours!  (I'm sure you're all wondering how to document that in your communication log---you could simply just note it as "positive call home").