My ritual and routine is taking down my chair in the morning.  To me it seems like a routine because it is so natural to remember to do it right after you come in the door and put your backpack away.  You immediately know to take down your chair.  A tip to do this routine well is to make sure that you take it down carefully.  You see, if you don't, you might squish your toes and that wouldn't be pretty.  Another hint for doing this routine well is to go behind the chair when taking it down to make sure that you still don't pinch your toes under your chair.  A trick for doing this well is to make sure you push your chair in afterwards so that Mr. Solarz doesn't push in any chairs that day and so that we get positives on the checklist.
This routine is important because if it wasn't done well or done at all we would have to sit on top of the desk, on top of the chair, and that would be uncomfortable.  If it wasn't done well then the chair might be halfway unstacked and that would be uncomfortable to sit on too.
This routine makes our class a student-lead classroom because if we didn't do this job then Mr. Solarz would have to unstack each and everyone of our chairs.  That would be a complete wast of time because Mr. Solarz has much better things to do than unstack the whole classes chairs when we could just be a student-lead classroom and unstack our own chairs.

PARCC set up and gathering your supplies is an important routine/ritual becuase we have PARCC 7 times in the whole year so everyone in the class has to move their desks a certain way so that no one can look at anyone else's paper. PARCC set up is something we have to do so that we are all prepared and ready for PARCC testing.   PARCC set up is when you take all of the desk and scatter them around the room then you move the tables back closer to the white board.  When the students gather their supplies you go up to the center tables and you grab a ruler, protractor, scratch paper, a pencil, and a mint.  This year Math PARCC was in the beginning of the day for fifth graders so I would suggest having multiple people go to homework club to start moving around the room in order to be prepared and on time for testing.  Also, Reading was in the afternoon so I would try to make sure that we are quiet in the recess line so that our class could get in first to be prepared for PARCC. 
This ritual is extremely important because if we did not do this the testing area would not be good for students.  Students would be too close to each other and would be able to see each others answers and they may get distracted by each other.  If we did not prepare the classroom and get the supplies that we need we would not do very well on the PARCC test.  Having the students gather the supplies in one place works really well to make sure that every student has what they need for testing.

       So how to do this ritual is very simple, the first step is to just walk in and look at the schedule. If you see that there is say colonize mars and the text is red then we need to go get computers. If nobody has already gone to get the cart then you can go get it, if the schedule just has red on it then you get cart 4 (in Mrs. A's room,) and if it says red then cart 6 you go to Mrs. Keuhl's room. If somebody has already gone to get the cart then you can just get your stuff out, get settled and wait in line for the cart. We do have a rule though for getting in line and getting computers, you have to be in a single file line and no cutting or line skipping. Once you have your computer you go sit down and start working on whatever was on the schedule. Some tips that I have with getting line is to not be really rowdy and just get your computer and go not stand their. Their also is an ending to this ritual though, we might only have computers for one activity, that means before we transition we have to clean up the computers. This isn't really part of my ritual but I can put a link and another link to some pages on how to do that.
       If we didn't have this ritual than we defiantly would not be a a student led classroom, it would be a teacher led classroom because Mr. Solarz would have to do a give me five and say that we need computers. It would not be what Mr. Solarz likes and he would get really crabby and angry with us. It is also very important for the other classes too because if we don't go and get the cart then they might think that nobody has it checked out and they will go and use it, that could cause a big commotion. 

​This Ritual is doing our homework. Most of us are good at getting our homework done. Later in the year, you get used to doing your homework. When you get home, it just becomes a habit to work on homework for 50 minutes a night. I also forgot to mention this, If you do not have any assignments or you finish before your 50 minutes a night. You still have to do something educational until over 50 minutes are up. You are welcome to go over your 50 minutes, but I think most people just stick with 50 minutes. There are due dates for homework. So if an assignment is due tomorrow, you are required to get it done even if it's over your 50 minutes. A trick for doing your homework is to try to get it done as early as you can. This way to don't overreact when you have an assignment that's due tomorrow. Also if you are struggling or confused on your homework, you are welcome to come into homework club. Mr. Solarz is happy to help you with anything. 
           This ritual is important because it gives us practice on the things we are learning. Ex. In ecosystems, you learn a lot about ecosystems and food. You have reflection questions after every lesson, usually for homework. All of these questions are based on what you learned and it also shows what you learned from the ecosystems lesson today. If homework wasn't done, we wouldn't know as much as we know now. All homework helps us build our brain power and how much we know about a topic. Ex. Reading helps you learn more about vocabulary and spelling and if you are reading a nonfiction book, it gives you tons of information about real life situations. Also if you don't get your homework done, at the end of the trimester, Mr. Solarz makes you stay inside for recess until you get all of your homework done.
           This makes us a student-led classroom because we do it by ourself at home. You bring home an assignment and do it by yourself to get it done. Unless if you are completely stuck. If you did not do your homework at home, Mr. Solarz will keep you in for homework club to get it done. Even if we forget to do our homework, we now to come into homework club to get it done. 
          To make this ritual or routine even better, get your homework done without Mr. Solarz telling you to come in for lunch recess at home.

        One of the rituals/routines in our classroom is to reset the room at the end of each day. What that technically means is that you clean up the room at the end of the day to make sure that it looks nice the next day that we walk in to class. You have to make sure that you clean everything off the floor in the classroom so no ANTS come in our classroom and infest our class. You also need to make sure that you make the room nice and clean so then the custodian doesn't have to do all the work and get crabby with us at leaving such a mess. 
        If this ritual doesn't get done well or done at all, we would all get infested with ants in our classroom and eating our snacks. Also if this ritual didn't get done then the custodian would have to clean up after our selves and he already does enough work. 

     A Mystery Skype is an event where we Skype with another class and have to guess their location. There are several jobs that we are assigned in the beginning, which we follow for the next few Skypes. When the other class asks their first question, we have to respond with an answer using proof.
     This ritual actually helps us with geography in some ways, because we have to research a lot of places to find where the other class is. Without this, we might not know as much about how some places and schools are around the world as we do now.
     This ritual/routine makes us more of a student-led classroom because we have to manage our own unique jobs and run the entire activity ourselves.

To work collaborative on responsibilities you have to work well with your partner. To do you have to not not work with your partner and you can't be off task.

It is important because if we didn't work collaboratively it would a teacher led classroom and not a student led classroom. We don't want have teacher led classroom! We want a student led classroom.

It is a student led classroom classroom because we're working together and the teacher isn't telling us what to do. The teacher would have to take over for a little bit if we weren't doing it on our own. The teacher would have to do this until we could do it on our own!

Some tips to doing this well is listening to your partners ideas and not ignoring your partner.

     The ritual or routine of moving the classroom furniture is a daily thing we do. If it's for passion time, lit circles or a Mystery Skype we most likely have to move the tables. Everyone in the class is supposed to help after everything else is cleaned up. Sometimes we even do a Give Me Five to remind everyone to help, where to put the tables or both! So a "Give me five, Give me five everyone needs to help get the tables in the back in Skype set up." I totally normal and okay.
     This ritual or routine is a pretty important one. Without this ritual or routine we wouldn't know where to put the tables for different subjects. For example Lit-circles would be all messed up because people would be reading to close together or the tables would be in the wrong spots and then could block the walkways. Also Mystery Skype would be hard because the Questioners need their own table and we might not have that happen if this ritual or routine did not exist. 
     Moving the classroom furniture helps our classroom stay student-led by allowing the students to have some responsibilities as a whole; not just individual jobs. It also helps us be student-led by being something Mr. Solarz doesn't do. He relies on  us to do a lot and this is one of those things he has us do. 

          Hi i'm Ben, and this is our ritual and routine called Evaluate. Evaluate is one of the most important parts of our day, we do it almost everyday unless we have a super speedy REARJMCL. Without evaluate we would not be able to go over what happened that day and set goals. Evaluate is a very important Ritual because we do it all the time and it is when we set goals for the day. Evaluate happens at the end of the day right after REARJMCL, so we can be a bit rilled up because school will end soon. Evaluate can be a tough time but the Evaluator can always get the class back on topic. During Evaluate we will come up with a goal for the next day and someone will write it on the easel and someone will write it on the small dry - erase board that we then put out in the hall. After we do that we go onto the checklist which is how we then reflect on our day by giving ourselves a positive or a negative in a certain subject like "How many chairs were not stacked." or "How did we do in the halls today, positive or negative.". Then the class will say all at the same time what they think it should be. The evaluator then decides that and says either "Positive 1 or 2." or "Negative 1 or 2.". Then we will get points totaled up towards are next fun activity, like once we did the Cardboard Challenge which was a lot of fun.
          So if we didn't have evaluate at the end of the day, we would never be able to set goals, or reflect on the day. If we never covered the good and the bad of the day we would never be able to improve the bad or think of how nice or good we were at a certain time. Without evaluate at the end of the day, we would have no time to set a goal. So what i'm trying to say is, if we didn't have evaluate, we would never be able to reflect on the bad and good during that day and never able to do our annual checklist and i'm guessing that if we didn't have evaluate we probably wouldn't have recap or announcements so then the whole classroom would fall apart and we wouldn't remember any goals. So that is our Ritual and routine, evaluate, and I hope you enjoy it too! 
          Some tips I might have for evaluate is to be always listening and participating because we are talking about what happened that day, especially during the checklist because if we had a really good day, you might want to let the checklist know that.

          For choosing new lit circle books we do not have to move the tables in the center. Mr.Solarz will assign three-four people per group and you will be in that small group for the rest of the year. Everyone in your group should either have a note book or a piece of scratch paper. For each book you should write the title down on your piece of paper first and any thoughts you have about the book. Once you have finished reading the back of the book you should write a rating out of 5 or 10 so that when it comes to righting you books in order from what want first and what you want last it makes it easier on you to choose the order. Once every group has read all of the books Mr.Solarz will pass out small note cards where you right your books in order from least to greatest liking. You have to write your first and last name and also your number on the top of the note card or you won't get your first choice. One more thing is that you have to skip a line each time you right the title of the book so that it is not sloppy and Mr.Solarz can read your choices.
​       If we did not do this routine in the classroom we would not be able to choose what book we wanted to read and you probably would get one you didn't like. This ritual makes us a student led classroom because we all know to pass the books around to each other and to start the timer for 1 minute and 15 seconds and start it again each time we switch books.     

     At the start of REARJMCL we do Recap, we are Recapping the homework for that night so we need to get our assignment notebooks out for Recap. The Recapper needs to make sure that everyone has their assignment notebook out so they can write the homework down. Now we can't sit at the center table for Recap but we still need to try to be as quiet as we can at our seats, unless the Recapper calls on you for homework. Another thing you need to do at the start of Recap you need to say the goal so the class as a whole can work on it. When we get off topic someone needs to call a gimmie-five to get us on task again. (usually it's supposed to be the Recapper.) Once and in while you need to look around to make sure everyone is writing down the homework.
     If this routine wasn't done well or done at all, we would be in BIG trouble because some people wouldn't have the homework for that night, parents would freak out, and it then wouldn't be a student-led classroom anymore. Because we would be out of control and Mr. Solarz would have to have the leash held really tight to control us. Recap and just REARJMCL in general would be a disaster. We would probably have to go all teacher-led. 
    This routine makes us a student-led classroom because it is a huge part in what Mr Solarz believes in. Recap is difficult when you have a student running it and he or she is not controlling the class. But then when a teacher does it we all respect the teacher and don't have side conversations or be off task or anything. It is almost as if we don't respect or classmates as much as we should.

This ritual or routine is were you move your magnet in the morning.  The way that you do this routine is you come through the door in the morning and you go over to the filing cabinets were there is a little chart.  On this chart you will be able to find your name and you will then move your magnet so that it shows what you are having for lunch.  For example, I might be getting sack lunch so I will move my magnet so that it is in the column that shows that you are having sack lunch.  A tip for doing this ritual well is to make sure that your magnet is perfectly lined up so that the people that do lunch count won't get confused.
This ritual or routine is important because this is the way that our class tracks who is here each day in our classroom and if someone is absent.  If this job wasn't done at all we would be in even deeper trouble because then the people who did lunch count and attendance would be even more confused.  If this routine was done when it wasn't needed to be done (like if someone was absent and someone marked them present) then there would be even more trouble because if something had happened to that kid, like he/she ditched school, we would be in very big trouble, and it might mot end well.
This routine makes us a student-lead classroom because it is our responsibility to remember to move our magnet in the morning, it is not the teacher's responsibility to remind us.  Even if we do forget though we will still have our fellow classmates to politely remind each other.  What the teacher would have to do if we didn't do it on our own is he would have to do a give-me-five himself and tell us to move our magnet.  If he was forced to do this I think it would be a waste to have a student-lead classroom because we didn't even act like one.

          At Westgate Elementary School there are many different levels of math.  All of the 5th grade teachers teach math.  Some of the teachers teach advanced math but most teach the standard curriculum.  Most of the teachers teach their regular homeroom for math but in every class there are a few that go to a different class for math.  If, say, 10 Solarz students go to Mr. Lamich's or Ms. Motto's then 10 people that are in 5th grade math will go to Mr. Solarz's to make up for the ten people that moved.  If you switch classes for math then as soon as recess is over, you go to Mr. Solarz's room, grab your math stuff, and go to the appropriate room.   

        My ritual is taking down the chairs at the beginning of the day. For taking your chair down in the morning, this is probably one of the first things you do in the morning, ( if not, the first thing ). This  job is very important because if you don't do it everyone else will think you are not here and you will have to do it in the middle of the  day. This is a big priority and needs to in your mind as you walk into the room. Also, it kind of looks weird when your chair is still stacked and everybody else has there chair not stacked.
       As I said in the first paragraph, if you leave your chair up, there are many things that happen, everybody will think you are absent, you have to take down your chair in the middle of the day, and it looks weird if your chair is the only one not taken down. So, you should make this one of the first things you do in the morning and just make sure you do it.
       This ritual makes us a student-led classroom because if the teacher did it, it would just be lazy of us and would give Mr. Solarz even more work to do in the mornings when it should just be done by us. When we do it the morning goes a lot smoother and nobody gets out of the way to take down there chair because now it should be in our morning routine.

It's a ritual to come in to homework club if you for got to do your homework other wise Mr.Solarz will be mad that you didn't do your homework and if you didn't come in to homework club ether. So my tip for you is if you didn't do your homework come in to homework club.

This type of Give-Me-Five is important because cleaning up is important but its really just like other types of Give-Me-Fives.  You should do the Give-Me-Five at an appropriate time like the transition after the activity that you made the mess. 

When you move the tables for Skype setup you put all the table