A Teacher's Journey in Second Grade

I have been reading lots of books this summer, and one of the books I am reading is Positive Discipline in the Classroom by Jane Nelson, Lynn Lott, and Stephen Glenn.  I started reading this book because I sometimes feel like the stoplight and the card changes are very negative.  Sometimes the card changes just do not work.  So I am reading this book and thinking about what I am going to do differently next year.  I really like how the book focuses on help children find solutions to their problems instead of dishing out a punishment.  Students help each other find solutions through class meetings.  As I was reading, I realized that my class had class meetings, but they were not scheduled and we did not follow a format.  When my class had an issue that they wanted to discuss, I allowed them to openly discuss it.  It allowed everyone to express how they feel and sometimes we did come up with solutions to our problems.

As I am thinking about class meetings, I am torn between having class meetings first thing in the morning as an opening or to do them at the end of the day so we can discuss issues on the day they occur.  I haven't really researched what other teachers are doing, but I am definitely going to do this.  I did get the book Positive Discipline: A Teacher's A-Z Guide by Jane Nelsen, Linda Escobar, Kate Ortolana, Roslyn Duffy, and Deborah Owen-Sohocki.  I flipped through the book and it has common classroom issues with possible solutions for each issue, such as hitting, tattling, etc.  This book will be helpful as I am transitioning to helping students find solutions to their problems.