Building Classroom Community With The Name Jar

I always love it when I can find a fantastic book that ties to exactly what I want to teach!  The picture book, The Name Jar, by Yangsook Choi is a new favorite of mine.

This particular book has many wonderful lessons. It lends itself so well to the back to school focus on building classroom community.  The teacher, Mr. Cocotos, has clearly established a supportive and comfortable classroom community before the main character Unhei arrives as a new student from Korea.

One way to jump off this book is to have fun with the jar theme. It so simple too! First, create a large chart with an empty jar on it.   Give students sticky notes and ask them to name things that help make a positive classroom community like the one in the story.  Use this to start a discussion on what your classroom agreements will be for the school year and how your goal is to create an environment like the one Mr. Cocotos established that helped Unhei feel welcome in both her new school and her new country.

The unit includes a graphic organizer for students to record class ideas.

Another fun way to extend the jar theme and to help your students get to know each other the first few weeks of school is to give them a blank jar and have them fill it with words or pictures that symbolize their identity.  To make it extra fun, make sure they don't include their names anywhere on the front.  Then, have the classmates try to guess which jar belongs to which student!   This could be a fun display for parents to try and guess which jar belong to their child at back to school night too!

Option: Make this a technology training lesson. Have students add clip art into the jar!

These are just a few ways to use The Name Jar to help build your positive classroom community at the start of a  new school year.  If you are interested in the seeing additional activities I have designed to go with  this book please click the image below to see a preview of the unit in my TPT store.

Click to see more of this unit.

My Mouth Is A Volcano

Why yes, sometimes it sure is!  I can name a handful of people who would likely say it always is...but I won't.  My volcano mouth has not been saying much on this blog lately though that's for sure.  I really need to decide what my blogging plans are, but since I haven't it will remain a mystery to all of us for now.

Anyhow, are you familiar with this children's book?
 
I had not heard of it until recently.  It was written by Julia Cook in 2005 and I think it's a must have for every preschool and elementary teacher out there.  It's a perfectly adorable story that will open a fantastic opportunity for discussing the age old problem of interrupting.  As a frequent interrupter myself it was good for me to be reminded.  Sadly, I am one of those people who seems to always be able to connect a story of my own to the story you are in the middle of telling!  You would think I would have figured it out by now...but alas...no.

Anyhow, I can quite relate to little Louis and his struggle with his "important words".  Guess I'll keep working on it.

FYI...in addition to being a great book for helping to establish classroom boundaries it is also a great jumping off spot for teaching metaphors!  Really what's not to love about this metaphoric title????