Students Need to Connect (Day 29 #SOL15)

It's true that most kids love to tell stories and share what's going on in their lives.  When one of my first graders wears a new pair of shoes, they can't wait to show me.  If they bring a new backpack to school, they can't wait to show me.  When they loose a tooth, they can't wait to show and tell me.  Each day in my first grade classroom we have a Morning Meeting.  Our morning meetings start with greetings.  A small ball is passed from child to child.  Each child greets the person on either side of them as they say, "Good Morning,(insert name)."  After the greetings, we have a lightening round.  During the lightening round you get to share news or information with the class.  The only rule is it must be quick, like lightening.  It cannot be a long, drawn out story.  Lightening is fast.  So our round of stories should move along fairly fast. Of course, you can pass if you have nothing you would like to share.  This is a favorite part of our morning meeting.  We don't hold a lightening round every day, but we always have them on Fridays and Mondays.  The lightening round gives my first graders a chance to tell the stories they can't wait to share.  Sometimes, a little one will approach me saying, "Mrs. Ruckes, guess what?  I went to..."  I will usually say, "That's great, but let's save the details for the lightening round."  They always agree because they know they'll have a bigger audience if they do so.

I have one student who loves to share stories with me about her weekend, something that happened that morning, or something that happened the night before.  These stories are very long and she tells them at a whisper.  Sometimes these stories occur during our work time and they prevent her from focusing on her activity.  I've recently resorted to giving her talking sticks.  She gets three sticks each day.  She has to use these sticks when she wants to tell me a special story.  This doesn't include questions about her work.  She can ask me as many school related questions as she needs.  The talking sticks are for those random stories that she can't wait to share.  The second day she had her taking sticks, she almost used them up within the first hour of school.  I reminded her that if she used them all, she would not be able to share any stories with me for the rest of the day.  She thought about it, and returned to her seat clenching her last talking stick.  It's been two weeks since I gave her the first set of talking sticks.  On Friday, she even had one to spare that she didn't need to use.  Now that's progress.

How do you balance your students' need to connect with you and each other and your instructional time?  Please share in the comments below.