Power of positive reinforcement

I have just read Kimberley Rivett's (@krivett1) about Celebrating Everyday! This inspired me to look at what I do in my classroom. It can be too easy to be bogged down by all the things that need to be done or focus on the kids who just don't seem to be understanding. We end up thinking, "What am I doing wrong?" These are all very important parts of teachings as we need to evaluate our approach and adjust strategies that don't suit some students.
I started thinking about what I do to let kids know that they're doing something right. As a child I remember one teacher speaking to my mum about my lack of achievement or her perception of it and how that made me feel. I remember another who never seemed to say anything positive to us kids. I vowed to try to be aware of the power of my words. One of the things that I try to do in my class is bring up the self esteem of my little ones. What I found worrying with some of my kiddies is that they have already started displaying avoidance tactics or talking themselves down when something gets tricky.
One of my tactics is to ask the children to think of something they are proud of from the day. It can be anything! I've had responses that ranged from, "I'm proud of my self because I said a compliment to a person and made them happy!" others say something along the lines of, "I wrote a longer story today!" We all need to have things we are proud of.
Many teachers get their students to give themselves a pat on the back but I also like to give the children a high five when they have done something awesome. My high fives are usually followed by, "Wow! (insert compliment here) I'm so proud of you!" Being proud of yourself is one thing but knowing that someone else has noticed and is proud of you too can really make your day.
At the moment I'm teaching my class about giving compliments to each other. I can't notice all the great things that are happening in my class so I'm trying to teach my kids to notice for me. Yesterday one of my boys came up to me and said, "Mrs Tauroa I'm really really impressed by (Name). He has been working really hard and every time I looked his way we was focused. I'm proud of him!" I thought how cool!
So those are some of the things that are happening in my room to create a positive environment. What are some things that happen in yours?

Assessment with Juniors

There is one thing I didn't anticipate when I came to the Junior syndicate. That was how very different assessment would be. Some aspects are the same such as looking at a writing sample or completing a running record. The differences I found were my analysis of the data I'm recording. After teaching Year 5 for six years I instinctively knew where my kids were: their stages, where they fit on the writing matrix etc. Now I feel really unsure. Have I made the right choice? Is this child really a 1A or are they actually a 1P. I'm getting better at evaluating some data but moderation is definitely something I will need to do a lot this year.
The other thing that I'm finding tricky is the amount of verbal testing that needs to happen. With the senior kids you could give them a test, mark it and see where each child fit. You can't do that with 6 year olds. My maths testing has taken me weeks to complete and to analyse. Same goes for reading, because giving a class of six year olds independent tasks at the beginning of the year is just not going to work.
So now my task is to work on my time management in order to keep up with the assessment that I need to do. Up wards and onwards, have writing to mark.