CTR Penguin

With the new year, we got a new primary class. Marty and I now teach the 1st graders in our ward, and we're loving it! Of course we miss our sweet ctr 4b class, but we love seeing them in the hall at church. Our new class has 7 spunky fun kids, most of the time they are really reverent but sometimes they need a little incentive. I called my mom before church two weeks ago and asked her for some classroom management advise (she has over 20 years of teaching experience so I knew she would be a great resource). We knew it was too much to ask seven six year olds to listen quietly to a lecture format lesson so we decided to add some more elements to our teaching style. My mom mentioned that a ward in my home stake used a "ctr zebra" (ctr= choose the right) to motivate their primary class. Each week, the teacher gets to decide who the CTR zebra (or penguin in our case) gets to go home with. The CTR animal also goes home with a journal where the child can record how the CTR animal helped them during the week to make right choices ( by drawing or writing, which ever is age appropriate). Then the child brings the CTR animal back to class the next week and tells the class what right choices they were able to make.

Such a simple concept right? We were worried that the kids wouldn't go for it, but they loved it! They were so excited and immediately began making plans for how they would spend their time with the CTR penguin if they were picked. For the rest of the class I told them that "CTR penguin was watching them" and that I didn't get to decide who he went home with, but it was up to CTR penguin to decide who he wanted to go home with. We were very pleased with how motivated and reverent our class was after introducing CTR penguin. We just hope to keep this little tradition going. Also I made sure that I found some of CTR penguins "twin brothers" in case the child who had him forgot to bring him or was sick the next week.

Meet CTR penguin! 

The Journal cover says: " CTR Penguin will help you choose the right this week! When you need to make a choice, CTR penguin will help you remember to choose the right. After you have made a right choice, draw a picture or write how CTR penguin helped you choose the right during the week. *Remember to bring CTR penguin back to class next week and be prepared to share with the class how you made a right choice."

The biggest thing we've learned with our class so far is they like object lessons and getting involved, we've been putting extra effort into our lessons to make them more kid friendly. If there are any primary teachers reading, I hope this helps and gives you some ideas of how to have a more reverent classroom. 

We know we have a lot of primary teacher friends out there so we hope this helps some of you! Good luck!