Thank You! You're Welcome!!! Monday Made It!

Yea, I actually made something today! :) So I'm linking up (and promptly pinning all the new things others made today!)

Before my student teaching, I interned in a 5th grade classroom for 8 weeks. The first day there, my cooperating teacher asked me to pass out multiplication tests. As I handed one to the first student, they said thank you. Surprised, I answered you're welcome. I turned to the next student. Again I received a thank you when handing them the paper. As I moved on to each student, I received a thank you from EVERY SINGLE one. I was astounded! When I commented how polite of a class she had, she told me she worked hard to instill manners and good habits in her students. She even mentioned how it carried over to when they had substitutes! I knew that day that this was something I absolutely wanted to practice in a classroom of my own.

It is now my sixth year of teaching, and I take the time every year to teach my students to say thank you when someone opens a door for them, hands them a paper, picks something up for them, gives them something, etc. It takes a lot of practice at the beginning, but is absolutely worth it! I'll never forget how each and EVERY one of my students (with NO prompting from me) told a custodian who held a door open for them "thank you". Brought the most enormous smile to my face.

To keep it interesting however, I teach them how to say thank you and you're welcome in a NEW language every week or two. It's a great way to introduce and show them the countries where the language is used and how it is written. It's also perfect for students who use a different language at home because then THEY can teach us how to say them! What a fun way to build culture!

A problem I found this year though was that I wasn't keeping a record of words we learned. After seeing this on pinterest:

I decided this would be AWESOME to keep track of thank yous and you're welcomes:

I just spent all afternoon creating a spreadsheet that has the country, language, thank you, you're welcome, and translation to English.

I am HOPING they are correct. I tried to look on more than one website for translations. If you see something that is incorrect, please let me know so that I can fix it. You can find the SPREADSHEET HERE.

Here are a few ways we use our thank you's in the classroom:

DOOR HOLDERS (LINE PATROL)
One of my classroom jobs is having a line patrol. They help keep the line quiet and orderly, while also opening any door we encounter. Once they have opened it, each student is expected to give eye contact to the person and tell them thank you. The line patrol will respond with a thank you while looking them in the eye as well. I am super big on eye contact when students are talking to others.

PAPER PASSER
Another of our classroom jobs is a paper passer. Students are to tell them thank you (eye contact again) and the paper passer responds with you're welcome (eye contact too!)

PARTNER ACTIVITIES
During class we do so many partner activities. I expect them using thank yous when playing games, doing work together, or anything that might warrant a thank you! At the beginning of the year we role play A LOT so students get really good at getting in the habit of using it! :)

LUNCH
Each of our students are expected to voice what they would like to the lunch workers. Upon receiving their lunch, I expect them to say thank you for what the get. It's also fun because then the staff gets to hear thank yous in different languages too!!

Those are just a few places I specifically TEACH them to use their manners. Can you think of any other places you might encourage a thank you?

Oh and I'm off to Laughlin, Nevada tomorrow for boating, swimming, tanning, and gambling with the fam! Here's hoping I don't get too sunburnt.. although coming from a redhead... that's basically impossible! :)