Books that Help Build Your School Family

One of my favorite things is finding books that help teach my kiddos skills and lessons we talk about during Our Family Circle time (like a morning meeting). I have linked up with Lindsey to share some of those books with you. We read most of these books the first few weeks of school. =)

I love all of the Shubert books and really could not choose just one. First, this is Shubert.

Shubert is a lightning bug that helps teach children so many skills. These books are wonderful and incorporate so many things about the language and skills of Conscious Discipline. Here are some of the skills these books can help teach:

*ways to calm down when you are upset or angry...even for the teacher =)

*being helpful instead of hurtful

*being assertive and using your big voice

*making choices

*seeing the best in others

*problem solving with there is conflict

The list could go on and on. These books are AMAZING and they are very helpful for the teacher too! These books have helped me be a better teacher. Go check them out here.

I ADORE this book! We use this book to talk about how filling someone's bucket is like filling someone's heart. We have 1 bucket that we work as a School Family to fill. We use heart beads to fill the bucket. When a someone notices a kind or helpful act, they go to that person and say "Heather, I am going to add you a helpful heart for ______." The person who is having the heart added for them says, "Thank you for noticing that." At the end of the year, EVERYONE gets to make a helpful heart bracelet. This is one of the sweetest things I have ever seen. You can read more about how we use hearts to talk about our heart words here. Grab the book here.

This book is very simple but I love it because of what you can do with it. It is about a child who is showing his mom all of these things in his room that might look like trash or junk but to him it is a treasure. I have used this book in Writing Workshop too. I have the child bring in 1 or 2 things that are a treasure to them and have them share why it is a treasure. We talk about how we treat something that is a special treasure. I then show them each a picture of them that I took the first week of school that I have glued on a wooden heart. I tell them that each one of them is a treasure to me. Since my job in Our School Family is the Safe Keeper, I am going to make a heart promise to keep each one of my treasures safe by putting them in my Safe Keeper's box. You can read more about the Safe Keeper here. You can grab your copy of the book here but notice I did NOT pay this much for it. =(

My Safe Keeper box is getting a makeover this week. =)

I love using this book to talk to my kiddos about being kind. I am working on a post now about how I use this book to talk about Our School Family job of the Kindness Recorder. Here is a sneak peak: =)

The flowers are from Target but I have also had the kiddos make flowers.

Grab your copy of the book here.

The first time I read this book I got a little teary-eyed. This book is about a dog named Charlie who is looking for a new owner. He writes an ad that lists all of his criteria his new owner must have. After reading this book we talk about what it takes to be a good friend and a helpful heart. We make a list and even take pictures of what some of those promises look like. We then write our official Heart Promises (kind of like rules). =) You can grab your copy of the book here but please note that I did not pay this much. =(

I hope these books give you an idea of some activities you can do to help build your School Family.

I would love for you to take a few moments to leave me a heart note. Please let me know if you have any questions.

From My Heart to Yours,