Building Our Community and Our Stamina: Freebies for Your Class

If your reading stamina is good and you made it through my long, long post yesterday, you'll remember that I promised you some freebies!  We'll here they are!

In chapter 2 of the Daily 5, the sisters talked about trust and building a classroom community.  I have a freebie that can help you with both of those things!  Obviously to make your classroom a trusting environment with a strong sense of community, you have to know your students!  But I think they need to know you too!  This freebie is a heart mapping "worksheet".  Heart Mapping is not my original creation.  It is an idea developed by author, Georgia Heard.  She writes about it in her book Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School.  It's a great way to learn what's important to your students and can be a great addition to a writing journal (for those times they just don't know what to write about)!  It can also be a great way for your students to learn what's important to you.  I would suggest completing your own heart map on chart paper while your students create theirs and then giving everyone time to share after you share yours!  Click on the picture to download your freebie (with an example of how it's used).

The sisters also talked about stamina.  After reading about building stamina, you wonder why you haven't always done things this way!  We do in many ways, but I have never referred to it as such.  Starting small and building up from there is basically all there is to increasing your stamina with anything.  I'll definitely be helping my kids build their reading and writing stamina in my class next year, but why couldn't they build their reading stamina at home too?  Many teachers already assign nightly reading for homework, and that homework can be perfectly combined with building stamina.  Your second freebie is a worksheet that can be sent home for weekly homework.  It's a modified reading log that requires students to record the time they started and finished reading and how long they read each night (with help from an adult in earlier grades).  They can see their stamina improving at home, and parents are involved too!

I'm linking my freebies up with TBA and their "Freebie Friday"!  Go Check it out for more great freebies!

And I'll leave you with a picture of my heart map!

 What are the important things in your life?

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