When you walk into Ms. White’s 5th Grade classroom, You may notice a “Word of Week” and a “Last Week’s Word” up on the front board, as well as a bulletin board filled with posters, comic strips, songs, and illustrations relating to “Last Week’s Word.” Each week since coming back from Winter Break, 5W has been focusing and reflecting on a different word related to character. This particular week our Word (or Words) is Growth Mindset. Past words have included Respect, Collaboration, Polite and Responsible.
Every morning, as a part of our Community Circle time, we discuss the word of the week. We start off by reading the definition of the word and then discuss either with an elbow partner, group of 4, or a large table group, how we can exemplify the word inside and outside of school! After sharing a few examples with the whole class, students are tasked with a writing or drawing activity related to that word! It is so awesome to see the student’s creative juices flowing when they are creating pictures, songs, raps, comics, and stories relating to character and on top of that, reflecting and building their character!