The Essential 55- rules 11-21

The moment I continued reading "The Essential 55", I bumped into this quote "the best time to give someone a nice surprise is when it isn't expected." (Pg 29) I love this because no one has ever understood why i don't really like Christmas or Valentines or even Birthdays, people expect to receive things that day. I like being surprised and I feel like random acts of kindness are needed in such a terrible word. I love how he taught his students how important this was. I also love how he tried getting his students involved when reading to them. "I read with force, energy, and expression. I let go of all inhibitions and "become" the character."(pg48) I love reading and I feel like if you make it fun, the kids will love it or learn to love it as well. It's something I'd like to incorporate in my classroom some day. "I keep a homework tally banner...that tracks how many days in a row all the students in the class have done all of their homework assignments." (Pg 57) I really liked the idea of that because every class has a problem with not everyone turning their homework in. I feel like this would fix it. Another thing has to do with organization, "Teach them how to be organized by showing them examples of how you yourself are organized and the type of structure you expect from them." (Pg 66) always teach by example, is something my mother has always told me growing up. I've learned to do so, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite. I love how he applied is to his classroom when it comes to tideness. The last thing I liked was how "When the school year first begins, however, I don't even let kids get up to sharpen a pencil without permission." (Pg 75) I feel like this ties in with what we learned in Mr.Wong's book over repeating procedures and the importance of it the first few weeks of school. I really like the book so far, there are many things I will apply to my own classroom.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/classroom-organization-physical-environment