Letting Our Fingers Do the Walking

As a way to build community in our 6th grade classroom, Mrs. K and I led the kids in a Tribes activity called Classroom Yellow Pages. The premise is that everyone has something to offer and can be a resource to others in the classroom. Having helped them find some of their talents via a Multiple Intelligences inventory and after explaining the concept of Yellow Pages, we handed each student two pieces of yellow paper with the words, "I can help with..." printed on them. Students were instructed to write something they are good at and could help others with.

We told the kids that instead of asking us for help with various assignments or problems, they should first "consult the Yellow Pages!" We were elated when, during work time a couple of days later, a student (with no prompting at all) walked over to the Yellow Pages and apparently saw this...because he then approached Rachel and asked her how to spell a word he needed! Seriously, People; my heart soared to see our idea take off without any prompting from us!

Today, I took a closer look at the board and found these...

Remember our 911 "student teacher?" Here's one we added for him that day...

And my three personal favorites...

Don't you wish you were in our class? :)