I think the best part of being in the 5th grade was learning so much about my students as individuals! Their personalities really start to come out in this grade and it is so fun to get to know them. One way I did this was by writing Questions of the Day on the whiteboard and having students write their answers. Questions ranged from “What’s your favorite food” to “what does friendship mean to you” and everything in between!
One of my favorites was “What will you create Wednesday?” I drew random lines and shapes all around the whiteboard and told the kiddos to pick one and draw something from it. The kiddos are so creative! There was a giraffe, a cat, and even a UFO. I was very impressed with my 5th graders after this one.
Another one I loved doing was one I already mentioned. The question was, “what does friendship mean to you?” (Sadly, I don’t have a picture of this one.) The responses were so sweet and insightful for 10/11 year olds. One of my favorite responses was “to me, friendship means happiness and acceptance.” That was from a 10 year old! That’s when my eyes were really opened to how intelligent children are and how sometimes adults don’t really think too much into what children think or say. Children can be really insightful about certain topics and I really believe it’s a teachers role to listen to their thoughts and take them seriously. For a 10 year old to understand that friendship means acceptance is amazing! We really need to give children more credit and be there as teachers to support and listen to them talk about things like that.
As cliche as it sounds, children are the future. If we want a good one, we need to teach them more than math and reading. We need to teach them how to be good people, which can start with how to be a good friend.
So.. that got deeper than I expected it to go. I guess those 5th graders really taught me a lot! I sure do miss those kiddos!
Thanks for reading! Expect a new post around this time next week! 🙂
-Hayley
Fahl into Teaching 