Our Class Pledge

After being together for almost two weeks, our community came together to create a pledge. We discussed the importance of rules, but decided that we all knew the rules such as "don't hit" or "keep your hands to yourself" and didn't need to write them down. Instead, we wanted to create a promise to each other about how we would treat each other and expect to be treated in our classroom.

I was so impressed with our conversation. The students had high expectations for themselves and each other. For example, one student thought our pledge should say, "We will try our best." Another student said, "We should do more than just try, we need to do our best."Have I mentioned that I love this group of kids?!

I love what we came up with. I think it perfectly reflects my own thoughts about our classroom community, but I love that it came from the students.

After writing the pledge, I brought out a stack of multicultural construction paper and asked the students to find the color that best matched their skin. We had a great conversation about different skin colors and honoring all of our differences, inside and out. They found their best match and helped each other trace their hands and cut them out.

Here is our final product. I think it is pretty awesome.