You Need This Easy Confidence Builder In Your Class!

It's hard to get your students to accomplish things as a class and as individuals if they don't feel confident. Let's be real--LIFE in general is hard when you're not confident. While building our student's confidence isn't 100% within our control, we can still do a lot to help. Incorporating positive self-talk is my favorite way of helping students to become more confident.

Set up a password that your students must say before entering the room.

No exceptions, it needs to be said. It's pretty simple, right? It's a fabulous way to get kids to enter the room and say something positive about themselves. All I did was write "password of the day" on top of a piece of paper and laminate it. Because it's laminated, you can write on it with dry-erase marker and easily change the affirmation whenever you want. Then I taped it up outside of my door. 

I like to keep my affirmations for about a week to really help solidify that affirmation in each of my students' minds. It's so easy to find a ton of positive affirmations with a quick Pinterest or Google search. You might also use growth mindset beliefs too!


Another reason I LOVE having kids say this before entering the room is it gives me a chance to see each kid one-on-one and really take the pulse of the class and each student every single day. I know who is having a rough morning before they even enter. You can even use these affirmations as passwords OUT the door at the end of the day too!

My kids will sometimes even recite their affirmations to themselves after they are already inside of the room. Don't get me wrong-it's not EVERY kid doing that-but it's really nice to see that it's helping some of my students.


I've seen some teachers do this with academic concepts too. To enter a room, you might write the equation "5 x 4" on the board and kids need to say "20" to enter. Students might also need to read a sight word. I happen to like going the affirmation route better because it puts the emphasis on feeling good and building confidence rather than being wrong or right.


If you want to try this tomorrow but you know you won't get to run to a laminator, grab some post-its and get writing! You can also just tape over a piece of paper with packing tape and "laminate" your paper that way! What will your first affirmation be for your students? Comment below!

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I'm really grateful for the new friendships I've gained and great ideas I've gotten from this IG teacher community. I love bring able to take the inspiration back to my classroom where it counts. I want to say thank you, so I'm hosting a giveaway! 🦋🦋🦋🦋To enter, you must: 🦋 Like this post. 🦋 Make sure you're following me @awordonthird. 🦋 Tag a teacher bestie and tell them why you are grateful for them in the comments. 🦋 Extra entries go to pals who share this post in their IG story, on their IG feed. 🦋🦋🦋🦋 That's it! Winner will be announced in a few days. I'm grateful for you guys because you make me feel inspired when I'm frustrated. 😊 #teachersfollowteachers #iteach #teachertribe #kindergarten #firstgrade #secondgrade #thirdgrade #fourthgrade #fifthgrade #elementaryschool #teacherlife #teachergiveaways #teachergiveaway #giveaway #teacherlife #teacherthings #teachersrock #teaching #education #school #flexibleseating

A post shared by Marla Savage (@awordonthird) on Mar 11, 2018 at 12:15pm PDT