Celebrating success is an important factor in creating a
positive and supportive learning environment. In the busy lives of
a classroom, we don't take enough time to celebrate the great
things that are happening as a class. So here's an idea to
celebrate all the successes you have in your classes!
Class treasure chests
The class treasure chest is somewhere to store the class's
successes and happy memories. It might be a photo album of snaps of
excursions, fun activities, great pieces of work and visitors to
the school.
Class mood boosters
Into the class mood booster goes the title of all the books they
love, the songs they like singing, the strengths builders they
enjoy the most, the stories they ask for again and again. You build
this resource throughout the year as you notice what they
particularly enjoy, what calms them down, what cheers them up. You
invite them to choose one for the start of a lesson, to prepare for
learning or after a bad lesson, to repair everybody's mood. Or you
choose one yourself.
We can turn to either the mood booster or the treasure chest as
a way to start lessons or days so that these important moments
become positive, building a sense that learning is enjoyable and
worthwhile. The end of a day or a lesson should ideally be positive
too. How you look back on an event is determined by the most
intense part of the experience and how it felt just before it
ended.
If you can build into each day or each lesson one really fun
experience and a positive end, students looking back over the day
will rate it positively even if the rest of the day was more mixed.
That will encourage them to anticipate a good day tomorrow and
overall to rate 'education' as a positive experience.
Taking a moment at the end of the day to savour its happiest
moment will increase positive emotion in the present and provide a
happy memory to go back to in the future. You don't have to do such
activities every day but you do need to persist with them to have
an effect.