P.B.I.S.

P.R.I.D.E.

Prepared. Respect. Ingegrity. Determined. Engaged

A lot of schools have enlisted the PBIS (positive behavioral intervention and supports) to focus on the good things that students are doing.  We have currently enlisted these strategies with our middle school students and so far it is off to a great start.

As a school, we have been preparing to introduce PBIS to our students for quite awhile.  A committee was formed to focus on the introduction and implimentation of the program.  The committee worked really hard on deciding how to best bring PBIS to our school and I feel fortunate that they asked me to help along the way. We wanted it to seem as appealing to the students as possible while maintaining simplicity and realistic goals for teachers.  We started by showing a video compiled of various photos of students modeling and instroducing their peers to the new acronym P.R.I.D.E. adopted by our school.  (This is when I got to help) As an art and photography teacher I helped organize the photos and got the students involved in that process.  Since the majority of the photos have the students' faces in them, I have opted out of posting them here but their cropped versions can be seen below. We went over the basics expectations and what it means to have P.R.I.D.E. in our school.  The students seemed very receptive and especially enjoyed our assembly at the end where they got to test their knowledge (and their teachers' knowledge) of P.R.I.D.E.

It's really refreshing to see the positive being acknowledged in our students and I hope that the strategies pan out!

Prepared. Students painted/created this puzzle and others pieced it together. 

 

 Lincoln Logs at their best...a house made with Respect!

 

 "Integrity" was written on a magnetic drawing board

 

 When flipped, the other sides of these papers formed a "D"

 

 

Our "E" was made of lunch trays

 

 Photographed as she manuevered the magnetic poetry around, a student defined each letter/word in our acronym

 

 

Finished version of the magnetic poetry

Portfolios

Portfolios

Students create storage for their artwork

One of the courses I teach is a general 6th grade art exploratory.  I teach three sections of this on a three day rotation (I only see one 6th grade class each day) so after we got our syllabus, rules and beginning of the year activity out of the way I started the kids off with portfolios.  I think it is important for my students to have a place to store their artwork whether it is in progress or complete.  It helps keep them  organized (not to mention, my classroom organized too!)and it teaches them responsibility and ownership.  It their responsibility to come to class, find their portfolio and get out whatever we may be working on.  I also find it helpful to build the portfolio with them so that they get used to taking directions, watching demonstrations and working independently all in the same project.  I ask that their names be large and legible on their portfolios and that they create a decorative border.  They only have one class period to make and decorate their portfolio so it also teaches them to spend their time wisely.  Some students get further than others and so I always let them know if they finish another project early they can continute their design on the portfolio.