Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Don't sweat the small stuff.  This has become one of my classroom's mantras of late.  Even considering all of our past and present daily conversations about character, some classes have a handful of children who simply have a tendency to make big stuff out of small stuff.  You know what I mean, right?  The complaints about where someone is sitting, where someone is standing in line, how someone looked at someone else, etc. are more frequent than I'd prefer.  It's all small stuff and not worth sweating about.  One day in the midst of a small stuff moment, the saying "Don't sweat the small stuff" popped into my brain and since then I bring it up when one of these little moments happens.  I typically say, "That's small stuff" and we move on.  I decided it was worthy of a classroom book.  Each child drew a picture of something that was small stuff.  Here are a few pages.

As I was typing this post, I had the idea that next year I would probably start by making a Small Stuff/Big Stuff chart with the kids before making the book.  Considering we're still in the midst of dealing with this issue, we might still have to make that chart and super-size it! :)