End of the Year Gifts

It was so sad to say goodbye to my students on the last day of school last Thursday! I loved this group. I was fortunate enough to have many of these students not once, but twice. They were in my very first Young 5's class 3 years ago.

I put together a special gift for them at the end of the year. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it, but I forgot with the last day madness! Hopefully you can envision it...

I started with a sand pail from The Dollar Tree. I filled it with 3 laminated, bound books: one of our Snazzy Snack recipes from the year, one for them to do summer journaling in, and one was a Memory Book in which they wrote about their memories from 2nd grade. Next, they got a pencil that read "Have a Super Summer!" (to use with their journal, of course). :) After that they found a beach ball that read, "Hope you have a ball this summer".

Then came the gift I was most excited about: a DVD that I made for them. I used iMovie on my Mac to compile pictures and video clips I had taken throughout the year. I set them to music and created a 14 minute long DVD displaying our memories from September to June. We watched it on the last day, and I don't think there was a dry eye in the classroom at one point! We were all getting pretty emotional as the end of the day drew closer. You can see the movie by visiting my Vimeo page at the link below.

http://vimeo.com/user5321202

The last thing that I put in their sand pail was an idea from my amazing mom! She is a professional baker/cake decorator, and she came up with the idea. The book worm cookies were ADORABLE!!! Use the link below to learn about it. :)

http://www.mrswallbank.com/Site/Star_Readers.html

I had a student on the last day of school bring their postcard BACK about an hour after he left for the day. (I was still there packing up my classroom...ugh.) He was so excited to get the postcard back to me that he ran right home and read 3 books so he could return it. Pretty sweet, huh? :)

Golden Spatula

In my last post, I wrote about one way our school rewards positive behavior choices. Going along with this theme, we were recently having some serious issues in our school's lunchroom. The poor noon supervisors looked totally frazzled everyday. So our principal turned to the staff to try to come up with a way to improve student behavior in the cah-razy cafeteria.

We came up with the...drumroll please...Golden Spatula!

There are actually two Golden Spatulas, and they are awarded to the lower el and upper el class with the BEST lunchroom behavior that week. The winning classes get to carry the spatula around the school like a torch. My kids are totally into it. We get pretty competitive with it. :) But it's definitely helped behavior in the lunchroom!

How do you manage lunchtime craziness at your school?

Star Store

Our staff does a pretty fabulous job of Positive Behavior Support (PBiS) if I do say so myself! *Note to teachers - if you are used to hearing "PBS and you're wondering where the "i" came from, apparently there were complaints from the TV broadcasting station "PBS", so they had to switch things up! Our staff is always thinking of creative new ways to reward GOOD behavior, which in turn reduces those poor behavior choices.

One of the great things we have going at our school is the "Star Ticket" system. Students earn Star Tickets by making good choices. They can get these paper tickets from their teachers, lunch supervisors, office staff, and more. Each Star Ticket has a Star Buck attached to the bottom of it.

Students take their Star Bucks down to the main office to be entered into a weekly drawing. Below is a picture of where these Star Bucks go (sorry so dark - it was taken during a late evening at school through the main office window!). Every Friday, one student's star buck is pulled out from each class popcorn bucket. Those lucky students get their name read over the announcements, along with a prize!

After the big weekly drawing, the Star Bucks are returned to the rest of the students to keep in a safe place. Once a month, the Star Store comes to each classroom. Student Council members "sell" merchandise like necklaces, erasers, pencils, silly bands and more from this Star Store. Students can purchase these items with their...you guessed it...Star Bucks. The kiddos LOVE when the Star Store comes!! And it is great to see their positive choices pay off as they purchase items from the store. They eventually learn that the more good choices they make, the more Star Bucks they earn, and the more they can buy!

This is an easy, fun way for our entire school to collectively reward good choices. How does your school reward good behavior??

Book Boxes

Each week my kiddos take home a paper book at their appropriate reading level. They use the book at home Monday-Thursday for various reading homework activities. (The books come from Reading A to Z or Scholastic Printables.) A few of my artistic little ones were coloring the pictures of their books and making them look oh so cute! Others were bringing them to school to read again. And a few were - brace yourself - throwing them away! This got me thinking...these books are "good fit" books for them that they should be reading again and again. Why not create a special place for them to keep these books?

So I called up my favorite store ever - Nordstrom:) - and asked if they would be willing to donate 26 boxes for us to use for our books. They said yes (thanks Nordstrom!), and we just made our boxes on Friday. The kids were PUMPED! They loved decorating them. A few of them already had a spot in their bedroom in mind where they would keep their special book box.

I'm hopeful that these special book boxes will motivate my young readers to save these good fit books and read them often!

Funny side note...I brought my lunch into school in a small Nordstrom bag the other day. One of my little ones saw me carrying the bag and said, "Ooo, what did Nordstrom give us now?!" :) I have a feeling my students will be begging their parents to stop at Nordstrom!!

This same student wrote a thank you note to Nordstrom and started it with, "Dear Nordstrom, I hope business is going great..." Got to love 'em. :)

The Clip Chart Classroom Management

I used to use the traditional "Traffic Light" for my classroom management. My students would start out the day on "Green". If they received a warning about behavior, they had to move their light to "Yellow". And so on. I had the kids color in a traffic light in their binders at the end of each day to let their parents know how their day was. I had about 99% of my class on green...99% of the time. Parents of my awesome kiddos were just signing the traffic light page on Monday for the entire week, knowing their kid was going to be on green. I couldn't blame them! It was getting super redundant!

Here's the old school Traffic Light:

Then, over the summer, I found this idea on The 2nd Grade Teacher's Club (love that site!). It is called the Clip Chart. It is very similar to the Traffic Light in the sense that students can move down the clip chart as a consequence for bad choices. However, the big difference that I LOVE about the Clip Chart, is kids can also move up the Clip Chart as a result of good choices!

Here is the new and improved Traffic Light (or Clip Chart):

I am loving this new classroom management tool. I love being able to reward kids for their good choices. It is a great motivator for the other students, too. When I say, "________, please move your clip up for __________! I am so proud of you!", all the other kids suddenly work a little harder. ;) Parents love to see which color their child's clip was on that day. And kids can hardly wait to tell them if they were on "Outstanding"!!!

Speaking of Outstanding, if a kiddo gets all the way to this tippy top section of our Clip Chart, we make a big deal out of it! They get a Happy Note to take home to Mom & Dad, a prize from the Prize Box, and a "gem" on their clothespin. (I just bought sticky gems from Target's Scrapbooking section!) Some of them have gems all the way across their clothespin from all the Outstanding days!

And sometimes, if a kid is having a really Outstanding day, I say they are "off the chart", and I wear their clothespin. Their favorite spot for me to rock these clips lately is in my hair. Beautiful. ;) I love it when I forget to take them out and accidentally head into the staff lounge for lunch with clothespins in my hair.

How do you manage your kids' behavior? Do you use a Clip Chart? If so, how do you reward them for moving up the chart? I'd love to hear others' ideas!

Smarty Pants

I am always looking for fun, new ways to motivate my kiddos to do their best at school. I recently saw this idea on The Inspired Apple and just had to "borrow" it. :)

Students who are working hard and doing their best to learn something new at school will earn the title of "Smarty Pants" for the day! They get to hang these pants on the back of their chair and wear a red baseball hat that has the Smarty's logo on the front. And inside the pants is...you guessed it - Smarty's candy for them to enjoy.

The kids are going cah-razy over these pants! They want them. Bad. They are running up to the carpet when it is whole group time, gluing their eyes on me, and raising their hand to try to answer every single question I ask. I love it!!!

My mom found these cute jeans at the store, and she sewed on the decals for me. {Thanks Mom!} We just sewed the bottom of the legs closed so the Smarty's would stay inside.

How do you motivate your students to work hard everyday? I'd love to hear other great ideas!

I am super excited for this: my very first blog post! I have been reading lots of fantastic teaching blogs over the past few months. There are some seriously amazing teachers out there. So I finally decided to join in the blog party.

Cara Carroll of The First Grade Parade is one of my favorite bloggers. She is a 1st grade teacher who shares some adorable ideas. Recently she posted this "Meet the Teacher Linky Party". Even though the Linky List is technically closed, I thought it would still be a fun way to start out my blog! Here it goes...

Here I am. I am a serious planner - I love to plan everything - so wedding planning was like a dream for me. Our wedding day was one of the very best days of my life! I have been married for 2 1/2 years now. I met my hubby in high school. We parted ways in college when he went to Michigan State and I went to The University of Michigan (go blue!). We still love to tease each other during football season...and basketball season...and hockey season...and - you get the idea. :) But anyways, we ended up together and I couldn't be happier! We don't have any little ones...yet...

However, we do have a furry little one - Maggie, our Maltepoo (Maltese and Poodle mix - technically a mutt:))! She is the sweetest dog! She is the topic of many Writing Workshop stories in 2nd grade.
Speaking of 2nd grade...this is my 4th year of teaching (that is so hard to believe!). During my first year, I taught Young 5's and fell in l-o-v-e. I thought that was definitely the perfect grade level for me. But then when I took a full time 2nd grade position, I fell in love all over again. I adore 2nd graders. They are still so innocent, but yet they have the independence to do so much more. I can honestly say I love my job, and love going to work everyday. They always keep me smiling!
One more thing I love about my job: I work with some of my BEST friends. I am very blessed! Here they are (minus our newest addition - Molly!).

Now for the Q&A.
Q: What would you be doing if you weren’t a teacher?
A: I think I'd really enjoy wedding planning! Or maybe I'd be Tinkerbell at Disney World.

Q: What are your hobbies?
A: I agree with Cara - I think teaching is definitely a hobby, and it is one of my favorites! Aside from that, I love shopping (a lot!!!), cooking, going to/watching movies, playing tennis, traveling, and just hanging with family and friends.

Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: When I was really little, my dream job was a cashier at Toys R Us. :) When I first got to college, I started out pre-med. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, or more specifically, a pediatric endocrinologist. I wanted to be able to help kids cope with Diabetes.

Q: What are your guilty pleasures?
A: Fountain Diet Coke (especially from McDonalds), Desperate Housewives, shopping online (Nordstrom, Zappos, Piperlime, Amazon...the list goes on!), my iPad and iPhone, and my Ugg slippers! I even wore them to school once (by accident). "No, class - I am not wearing slippers! These are clogs!" Oops. :)

Q: What is your biggest fear?!
A: Hmm. Crossing bridges is up there on the list. I have recurring nightmares about it! Terrifying.

Q: When you’re on vacation, where do you like to go?
A: I like a little bit of everything! I love skiing in Vail, relaxing at my parents' house on Marco Island, and being a kid in Disney! Our honeymoon to Maui was definitely the best trip I've been on. I haven't been too many places I DIDN'T like. I love traveling.

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: Treat others how you'd like to be treated! Simple, but so true.

Q: What do you value most in others?
A: I love people who are kind, genuine, and also those with a sense of humor!

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be?
A: I guess the empathy I have for others. I think I got this from my mom, who is one of the sweetest people I know. She is always thinking of others and how they are feeling. Thanks for passing this on to me, Mom!

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world….living or dead…who would it be?
A: No question...my sister, Amy. She passed away when I was 16. I miss her everyday!

Now tell us one random thing about yourself:

I am a Type 1 Diabetic. I will be celebrating my 20th "Diabersary" next year! Despite having the disease for nearly 20 years, I have no complications, and am happy to report that I live a very normal life! :)