Morning Show Academics Promotes Character Development
Apollo Beach Elementary begins each day with a TV morning show. It was decided that the morning show should be more academic. Therefore, the school's vertical PLCs each adopted a weekday where they would present an academic lesson. For example, Mondays is assigned to Reading PLC and they present a word of the week. Working with the character education committee, the PLCs try to combine their academic lesson with our monthly character focus. For example, as students learn about Honesty, the PLC team challenged the students to find book characters who were or weren't showing honesty. The students were then asked to write their answers on chart paper hung in the hallways for everyone to view. Another time students were asked to think of synonyms or antonyms for various character words. Whenever possible, the students from the assigned grade level present on the morning show (sometimes with teacher help!). Other academic areas also try to incorportate the character initiative: science PLCs have asked students to demonstrate honesty when conducting experiments, and writing PLCs have asked students to answer questions based on character dilemmas posed. Again, answers are either shared on the morning show the next day or in hallways.