Paine Elementary Peeps: Inclusive Schools Week

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Inclusive Schools Week - December 5th-9th

2022 Inclusive Schools Week

Paine Elementary School

In recognition of Inclusive Schools Week December 5^th – 9^th, Paine Elementary classes will focus on the theme “Unity Within Our Community” each day during morning meetings. Through quick but intentional conversations, students will work to identify both similarities and differences amongst classmates, recognizing the unique traits that make each student an individual.

Each morning, teachers will give students time to do two things:

1. Have guided, intentional conversations with one another.

2. Write character traits and words of encouragement on each other’s pennant flag.

Below you will find suggestions for each morning meeting along with more specific directions concerning the pennant flags. Because this is being done across all grade levels, it’s really up to the teacher on how you’d like to incorporate these two things into your morning meeting. All we are asking is that students get to do the two things listed above – have conversations with each other and decorate each other’s pennant flags with words (2-5) or pictures (k-1). For example, this will look different for K-1 than it would for 4^th and 5^th, so there is a lot of flexibility in how you do this with your class.

During morning meeting, we encourage you to have “5 minutes of Friendship”

Monday during Morning Meeting:

Students Create their Pennant Flag with self-portrait and/or their name.

Tuesday-Friday during Morning Meeting: “5 Minutes of Friendship”

Each morning, have your students pair up with each other and discuss different prompts or questions to help them get to know each other on a deeper level. The prompts or questions you use can be totally up to you, but remember that the point of this activity is to build unity, community, and allow students to see that we are all unique. If students are meeting with different friends each day, the prompt could be the same each day.

Depending how many students you have in your class, you might want students to pair up with two or three different people each morning, so that by Friday all students have met with one another. Each day at the end of morning meeting, give students the chance to write character traits or words of encouragement on the pennant flags of those they talked to that morning. By Friday, all students should have had a chance to talk, and all students should have written on each other’s pennant flag (Kinder and 1^st grade could sign their name on each other’s flag or even draw a small picture rather than write traits or words of encouragement). Mrs. Kidd described this activity like “speed friending.” 😊

Friday: