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Mrs. Squire’s Classroom Edit display name

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Each summer I take time to reflect on ways to make my classroom more inviting and exciting. My students work hard each day and achieve very high standardized test scores. To encourage students to begin the day on a positive note and to develop skills not addressed on standardized tests like cooperation, interpersonal communication, and teamwork, I begin each day with 20 minutes of academic choice time. This choice time helps build relationships, encourages students to arrive at school early, and gives students the opportunity to choose an activity of interest. I initiated academic choice this year and it was an overwhelming success with students, parents, and administration who saw happy students and high standardized test scores. Students are often drawn to technology, but new and updated board games are an excellent way to develop essential skills in problem-solving, working memory formation, fair play, communication and persistence. Although board games are an excellent resource for demonstrating social skills such as courtesy, teamwork, critical thinking and choice, my classroom games are outdated and worn, so they are not always exciting to third graders. These new games including Quarto, Kanoodle, Othello, Kingdomino, IQ Builder, Blokus, Apples to Apples Junior, and Qwixx will be taught one by one, and then be available for students to play throughout the school year. Students will be expected to play with a variety of partners, care for the games and play by the rules, all important life lessons. Each game was chosen because it incorporated a variety of skills that will support both academic and social skills.

About my class

Each summer I take time to reflect on ways to make my classroom more inviting and exciting. My students work hard each day and achieve very high standardized test scores. To encourage students to begin the day on a positive note and to develop skills not addressed on standardized tests like cooperation, interpersonal communication, and teamwork, I begin each day with 20 minutes of academic choice time. This choice time helps build relationships, encourages students to arrive at school early, and gives students the opportunity to choose an activity of interest. I initiated academic choice this year and it was an overwhelming success with students, parents, and administration who saw happy students and high standardized test scores. Students are often drawn to technology, but new and updated board games are an excellent way to develop essential skills in problem-solving, working memory formation, fair play, communication and persistence. Although board games are an excellent resource for demonstrating social skills such as courtesy, teamwork, critical thinking and choice, my classroom games are outdated and worn, so they are not always exciting to third graders. These new games including Quarto, Kanoodle, Othello, Kingdomino, IQ Builder, Blokus, Apples to Apples Junior, and Qwixx will be taught one by one, and then be available for students to play throughout the school year. Students will be expected to play with a variety of partners, care for the games and play by the rules, all important life lessons. Each game was chosen because it incorporated a variety of skills that will support both academic and social skills.

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