Power of Positive Praise!

Earlier this marking period, I set out on a mission to be in contact with families more often. As teachers, we all find ourselves contacting parents when things go WRONG, but it's so easy to forget about letting parents know about how wonderful their kids really are! There are many ways to do this, but here's what I came up with...

I was looking for something that:
-was not overly time consuming
-included all students
-motivated my students

I designed a few little positive praise cards, which are FREE ON TPT! Here's a few of the ones I came up with... I'll probably make loads more, I just wanted to get the file up there so you guys could snag it!

Each day, I set a goal of around 4 or 5 students, and throughout the day, I look for those select students doing something exceptionally awesome. For some students, this was easy. We all have those "is an eager learner" students. I wanted to design something that wasn't strictly behavior based and wasn't strictly academic based. The cards I came up with are very universal... For instance, I've got a little kiddo who is really struggling in math. One day, his card simply said that he "worked so hard to understand the concept in math." You can literally use these any way you want. My FAVORITE part, by far, is hearing from parents about how excited their children are to rush off the bus and show them the little slip of paper, that seems so simple to me. They are proud, the know that they made their teacher proud, and their parents are proud, too. I love love love it, and highly recommend trying this in your classroom. Like I said, if you set a personal goal of 4 or 5 kids a day, you'll get through all your students in a week, and it will create a warm relationship with parents so that when you DO have to call for not so positive things, they already know that you love and care for their child.

Monday Made It - Rain Sticks!

Ok, so I realize I'm a day late, but it would have been hard to post this at the beach! (Don't get too excited or jealous. We were there for a day and a half and it rained pretty much the whole time.)  I'm linking up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for a Monday Made It linky! Since I'm going to start Daily 5 in my classroom this year, I've been looking for a calm and quiet transition signal. I used a timer last year that would beep when it was time to rotate. It served its purpose, but I hated it for a few reasons... First, my students would pay too much attention to it and would immediately start to rotate once it went off, whether or not I was done with my guided reading group. Second, it was really loud and I wasn't always at the table to turn it off when it started beeping. 

So, in comes the rain stick. Hoping that it will be slightly less distracting, and will only allow the students to rotate when I want them to rotate. It was VERY easy to make and cost practically nothing.

Here's what you'll need:

-PVC pipe: I found some pieces 1 1/4 in. thick, and about 3 feet long

-End caps: Make sure they're the same size, and that they're NOT screw on caps

-Nails: I used #16 x 1-1/4" with a FLAT head

-Rice (about a cup or 2, totally up to you)

-Duct tape (preferably a super fun pattern)

-Drill: I used a 1/16 drill bit, the smallest I had

-Gorilla glue

-Hammer

In theory, this is very simple. Drill holes into the pipe in a spiral pattern down the tube. I started out about a half inch apart, but it REALLY doesn't matter. As you can see, the holes got much closer together at certain points. There will be tiny pieces of PVC all over the floor when you're done. They're not sharp, but you might want to have the vacuum ready. Once you're done pounding nails into the little holes, wrap that sucker with your favorite duct tape. I opted for some chevron tape that I found at Target and/or Michael's. Can't remember. Put a tiny bit of gorilla glue inside the rim of one of the caps, and twist it on tightly. I let the glue dry for awhile before I put the rice in. Add the rice, glue the other cap, and BOOM! You're good to go!

Also, if you don't follow me on instagram yet, you should :-)

Anyone else out there going to the PA blogger meet-up tomorrow??

Do You Dojo?

Last week I discovered an awesome resource... Class Dojo!

Class Dojo is a resource that you can use to track your students' behaviors in real time. You have the ability to input your entire class (and multiple classes if you have the need.) It can be accessed online, and on your smart phone. I downloaded the app to my iPhone, and take it with me throughout the building. LOVE that I'm able to give my kids immediate feedback, even on the go!

You have the ability to customize the behaviors that you'll be tracking. I let my class help me determine what positive behaviors they should get points for, and what negative behaviors should cause them to lose points. Here's what they came up with, and I think they're pretty good!

One of MY favorite features of Dojo is the report. You can open up individual and whole class reports. It's broken down into how positive their feedback was, AND the percentage of each individual behavior. I think that's pretty incredible, especially for a FREE resource! You can even give parents login information, and they can choose to have reports automatically sent to them every Friday. Pretty awesome.

So... Do you Dojo?! If you use it, please share! I haven't opened it up to parents yet, but I'm hoping to soon!

I just started working on a new TpT product... I'm making a series of math morning work, starting with April. I'm lining it up to the first grade common core standards. Is there something that your firsts struggle with that you'd like them to have a little more practice with?