Baldrige in the Classroom

Hi there! I'm Karen from Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten.

We just wrapped up our 3rd week of kindergarten, where we are working hard at establishing routines and expectations for the year ahead. One of the most powerful tools I use to get the year off to the right start is Baldrige in Education.

You may be familiar with using a quality teacher and quality student in your classroom. Another aspect is the class vision and class mission. Think of it like this.... the vision is "what" you see for your class at the conclusion of the year (goal), and the mission is "how" you'll get there. Even kindergartners can think of these "big picture" ideas when you brainstorm together.

We start by thinking of adjectives and words to describe our class. What do we want to be know as? I love that this year's group wants to be talented--of course they already are!! We brainstormed a huge list of words and voted on our favorites. Then we shared the pen to create the circus tent--which ties in with our classroom theme. SOAR is our school-wide behavior plan (Safe, Organized, Attentive, and Respectful)

Then we brainstormed "how" we will become a "helpful and talented class of SOAR students". We voted and selected our 3 favorites:

We created clown shoes as our 1st cooperative activity with our table teams. Then I added a graphic reminder and posted them to our wall. The shoes represent our mission (the "how") and the tent is our vision (the "what").

Our vision and mission is posted so that we can refer to it regularly as we set our class goals.