Mondays are always hard. Always hard. I try to focus on recovering the culture of the room and helping everyone remember the in-school expectations.

This morning I tried to begin by having students nominate themselves and one peer for an “expert board.” My goal was to have a list of students that we can turn to while we are working on projects. I also hoped that describing two of their own traits and then one of their peers’ great traits would rebuild the culture as well, as they reflected on what each person at the table might bring to the projects.

There was enough morning chaos that I had to pull their answers and read (anonymously) the list of skills that kids would bring to all of our projects.