You're A Star!

“Everyone’s a star and deserves the right to twinkle”

-Marilyn Monroe

In Thursday’s blog (“The Cost of Kindness), I made it clear that building character in the classroom is equally as important as teaching the curriculum. The best way to build character in a classroom is by creating activities that are hands-on, engaging, and realistic. Simply telling students to be kind is not always enough, unfortunately. Therefore, the activity I am about to share is one of the first ones I utilize in the classroom.

Establishing a safe, respectable environment is an essential element in order to build character in your classroom. It’s imperative you provide ample opportunities for the children to get to know each other during the first month of school. Every child wants to feel like they belong and that they feel recognized, whether or not they express that in class.

The activity I am going to share with you today always puts a smile on students’ face because it makes them feel like they’ve been noticed. Depending on the grade, I typically launch this activity at the end of September. In order to make this activity be as meaningful as possible, students NEED to know how to identify character traits, but also know what each word they identify means. However you teach those lessons is up to you. All I’ll say is no matter how well you think you’re students are doing with identifying and using character traits, you should still provide a reference list for them to have when performing this activity I am about to share (Pinterest as a ton of various character trait lists that you could use).

THE ACTIVITY…

·    Activity Name: You’re a Star!

·    Grade Level: Any grade (I even feel this could be useful for secondary grades)

·    Materials: Construction Paper, Scissors, Cut-Out of A Star to trace, Markers or Fine-Point Sharpies

·    List of Character Traits (for all, or some students…this all depends on the needs in your room)

·    Students should be in groups of at least 4, at most 6 (you could go more if necessary).

Procedure:

1.     Each student writes his or her name in the middle of the star (they can bubble or box it in if they wish).

2.   You pass your star to the person to the right of you.

3.    The person who received your star will write a character trait on one of the legs of the star that they feel best describes you.

4.   Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the person receives their own star (remember, their names are in the middle).

**I typically give students 30 seconds to 1 minute to write the trait.

**I usually play music during this activity.

What’s the Purpose?

The purpose is simple, but yet so important. Each student gets a moment of recognition from at least 4 other students in the classroom. Seeing their face when they receive their star is priceless.

Now, it’s important to note that before you do this activity you need to emphasize to the class that they need to take it seriously. The traits chosen should be positive and meaningful, not ones that can hurt a classmate’s feelings. There will always be a student who tries to be silly with these kinds of activities.

This activity is fun, engaging, and most importantly, makes each student feel special!! Give it a try J