Classroom Community Guest Post

Today I'm excited to welcome my friend Lisa from Growing Firsties. I met Lisa in Wauwatosa this summer for lunch and I felt like I'd known her my whole life and that we could have talked forever. She has a heart of gold and I'm over-the-moon with happiness that she agreed to share with you today.

We're doing a Saturday Swap, actually, so read what she has to say about Classroom Community, then head {here} to see what I'm sharing with her readers.

***************************

Not sure I could be more honored to do a guest blog post here on Barbara's blog. She truly IS the Corner on Character!!!!

I had the amaaaazing opportunity to meet her over the summer....our two hour lunch was over in an instant! We even called one another after we left, it was that good. My heart still smiles thinking about her!

I'm Lisa Mattes from Growing Firsties...

A Wisconsin girl...

Mom to two darling (and semi-sassy) kiddos, Zach (9) & Emily (5)...

former Reading Specialist...

first grade classroom teacher...

blogger & TpTer...

who tends to over-use ellipses & capital letters....

Thanks for reading!

It has been such a lovely, community-building 19 days of school with my firsties...thank goodness for books...I have so many favorites, I guess you can't quite call them favorites...

It's such a critical time of year for building community...a community of learning and kindness and mistake-making...it carries you through the hard times when you have a community of support in your life. We build it in our classrooms too.

A few weeks back I posted about my Favorite First Week Read Alouds and as the year has continued, I've been loving a few more.

This precious book is about a darling girl named Willow who, with an intentional act of kindness, transforms her stern art teacher who has been horrible to her! I LOVE reading this book to discuss change blossoming from an act of kindness. So so so special!

Next up...my girl...Amy Krouse Rosenthal does it again with Spoon.

Spoon I love building community with this unique and highly engaging book...it is terrific for highlighting how we are ALL BLESSED in different ways! Like Spoon, we might notice how lucky others are and not even realize how lucky we are to just be ourselves.

Emily's Art is a stunning book about Emily, a talented artist, whose work is being judged by an unfair judge....who happens to select Emily's friend's work. It is a lovely book for discussing fairness and how everyone's interpretation of beauty is different...that we are all blessed and it's important to feel that on the INSIDE, rather than from someone else telling it to us.

What books do you use to build a classroom community??

You might enjoy the printable I made to go along with the first post...I also updated it for you in Navy & White in case you'd like it that way. :) Feel free to click either picture to download it from Google Drive.

 

Thank you SO much for letting me share with your followers, Barbara! I am so grateful for your friendship!