Almost December!?!?!

Can you believe it is almost December? I don't know about you, but I'm shocked we got here so fast! I know this time will fly by!

One thing I know for sure is how crazy behavior gets during this month! Kiddos are so excited for the holidays and we are all in need of a break!

One thing I do in my room to encourage positive behavior is Fun Friday. I know many of you do this, so I'm not reinventing anything, but this really works for me!

Each day students earn points for positive behavior. I use Class Dojo {click to read my post about Dojo} to give my students points all day long. I can give them points when we are on the go by using the Dojo app. All I have to say to my class is "I'm looking for someone... "and they all start doing what they are supposed to!

On Friday, the students are able to do self-selected activities for the last 15 minutes of the day. The student with the most points has first choice of activities.

 I printed these out, laminated them and hot glued them to ribbon. I pin a clip with the students name to the card of the activity they are going to. They chose their activity from the top point earner to the least.

Students fill out a form to show their parents their points for the week and I check off their behavior that week. I am able to show the parents what their child needs to work on as well, by circling the behavior area they need to work on.

My Fun Friday Freebie packet, with signs for Fun Friday and parent behavior forms are available for FREE in my TpT store. I hope it works for you!

Goal Setting

We are now in that time of year where the really big push before state testing begins. I know the students well and I'm ready to tackle the heavy duty stuff.

One of those things is goal setting. I think it is so important that students are aware of what they are striving for and how they are going to get there. The way I show them is by them setting goals and action steps for reaching their goals. I think the students are much more invested in their education when they understand the importance of the next milestone and how they will get there.

The first thing I start with is myself. I know I have to be strategic about what I teach and how. I have so little time, and I need to do the important things. I have a learning target poster that helps me stay focused on my mission that week or day.

 I made this into a poster and laminated it for my board.

The next thing I do is complete graphing of each students score with them. They color and label their graph. My school does NWEA Literacy and Math and DRA as our main points of data. The students graph their scores as well as their goal before and after a testing session.

 In addition to graphing data and goals, I am also having students complete weekly reflection sheets on their goals for the week as well as their action steps for completing each item.

On Monday they will make goals and action steps and Friday they will reflect on how their week went. I think this is an excellent way to keep students accountable.

I made up a packet for TpT that hopefully more than just me will be able to use!

It includes:
* graphing pages for DRA and NWEA as well as a blank template
*weekly goal setting sheets with and without cute pics for the older grades!
*Classroom posters of SMART goals and learning targets
*Bulletin board activity with goal t-shirts and conversation bubbles. Super cute! Trust me!
* I reached my goal class poster for weekly use
* End of year learning reflection
*Goal sheet specifically for testing with action steps for writing down all those good skills like rereading and showing work.
Click here to purchase {Student Goal Setting Packet}.

Do you use goal setting in your classroom? What has been successful for you?

Teacher Tip

I'm linking up with Miss. Kindergarten for her Teaching Tip Linky. I'm sure I'm not reinventing the wheel or anything with this one, but this has really helped me with group work. When students are working in groups each one of them has an assigned role.

Person 1 is the Materials Manager and is in charge of getting the materials for the group. This alleviates everyone running for the lined paper at once! I give this to the student that is not normally wandering the room.

Person 2 is the Recorder and is supposed to record the answers for the group. This job goes to the one with the prettiest handwriting.

Person 3 is the Leader/Volume Control and is in charge of keeping the group on track and quiet. This is the assignment you give to the student that has the most difficulty staying on track and having a classroom voice! :)

Person 4 is the Journalist. They are the ONLY one allowed to ask me a question. This alleviates the crowding around the teacher problem! I give this assignment to the student that is shy and usually doesn't ask questions.

My class absolutely adores this and will even assign each other roles when I don't!

Pic of Amy Lemon's badges from her blog post.

I also saw on pinterest a teacher gave each role a name badge on string. I think this would work great for younger grades. As I followed the pinterest link it was the famous Amy Lemons. Read about how she uses the roles {here}

Read more teaching tips on the linky!

Happy Veteran's Day everyone! Special shout out to my cousin who is currently serving in the Navy!

Classroom Management-Class Dojo

In addition to bucket filling, another behavior system I use in my classroom is Class Dojo. Class Dojo is an interactive way to give points for good behavior. I keep this projected all day, and will sometimes allow students to award themselves points using the SMART board.

In this screen shot you see my class "monsters." When I see good behavior I award points to that student. When you click on a student, a window appears and you are able to award the point for the positive behavior the student is demonstrating.

 You are able to change the wording of the awards and the icons. So you will see I have bucket filling as one of my positive awards.

You can also give points on the go, which I do using the iphone app. My students are the best line walkers when I'm happily awarding points for their good behavior.

The app interface is pretty similar. You just chose the students to award points to and click the behavior they demonstrated. The web based version will update at the same time, so I can be in the back of the room and the point will come up on the screen.


I also will take away points for off task behavior. At the end of the week the students have Fun Friday {I got the idea here from Teeny Tiny Teacher}. The student who has the most points gets to chose their Fun Friday activity first.

The students are able to log in to class dojo and change their monster as well. Teacher reports are available to show parents and students. Class Dojo is free to use and my kiddos love it so much!

Math Rotations

Today was my first day FINALLY breaking out into small groups! I feel like I've been tortured with too much whole group! I am still teaching routines and procedures for literacy centers this week, but next week I start full force!!

My math rotations went awesome today! I was super impressed with how my students behaved.

I don't use math centers because that is A LOT of planning! Kudos to those of you that pull that off! I started these rotations last year and they worked really well. I stole this idea from Beth Newingham (click the link for a much better explanation from Beth and it includes pictures!) and it has really improved my test scores.

I divide my class into 3 groups. I give them a pre-test of the material on the first day of the unit to assess what they all ready know. I then level them by how well they did on the pre-test. So the groups are constantly changing. My three groups usually end up being a high group that aced the material and needs pure enrichment, a middle group that knows about half of the material and just needs some nudging, and a low group that may need me to go back to the beginning for certain concepts.

Each group goes through 3 rotations: work with me, independent practice and game. The game relates to the topic being taught and may use the SMART board, games from Lakeshore, or stuff I found online.

Now that I have my three groups, I will teach my mini lesson about the days topic. I will explain it enough that the high group will be able to do it on their own. After my mini lesson, the low group comes to me for direct instruction. This is where I may back up a few steps. I also go through the problems from their practice book or worksheet I'm using that day. While the low group is with me, the high group is doing their worksheet independently and my middle group is playing a game.

After 20 minutes I switch groups. The high group moves to games, the low group goes to independent practice (so they don't forget!) and the middle group comes to me. The middle group generally needs just a little instruction of going over the first few problems and then they are off on their own. Once again I switch groups for the last rotation. Low group ends on the skill building game, the middle group goes to finish their practice page and the high group comes to me. When the high group comes to me they are generally finished with their practice page. We grade it to make sure they are getting the concepts, then I lead them in an enrichment activity or worksheet. This is where they get to practice problem solving, or go deeper into the topic.

Everything went pretty well this morning, just a couple reminders about voice levels. There was a bit of confusion about how to play the games, which my assistant principal got to see (why does that always happen?).  I will definitely model the games better tomorrow!

Ok, I'm off to make chicken soup. I am all ready sick! Anyone else battling the back to school cold? Do you use rotations for math? What works well for you? What is difficult? Tips or tricks are much appreciated!

Phew! and First week Read-Alouds

My first week is over! My class is super cute and fun! No major behavior problems as far as I can tell.

I read If Everybody Did yesterday and they all cracked up!

I love reading a good book and having them interact with the book. I use this book all year round to remind them what would happen if everyone picked the grass in assemblies, everybody yelled across the room or everybody took their shoes off during class! :)

Another read-aloud I read this week was Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon . They were all begging me to read that book so I did.

They cracked up, and said oh and aw over all the pictures (I told you they were cute!) We started working on text connections and noticing and wonderings so we talked about what they noticed, wondered and how they could connect with the text. I also use this book to talk about how it is okay to be different and we should support each other in being different!

I also read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse to talk about school rules and why we have to follow them. After we read the book we came up with our own expectations for school and those became our rules.

I started my novel read-aloud as well. I am reading Rules by Cynthia Lord and it is a great book so far. The main character in the story is Catherine and her brother David. David has autism and Catherine wishes he was normal.  This read-aloud will be used for my first book report example for realistic fiction and it also enables a discussion about fair not always being equal. We talk about how some students may need wiggle seats or fidgets to be successful, but not everyone needs those things.

What are your first week read-alouds? Next week I will be reading, Chrysanthemum (name tag activity), Say Something, My Secret Bully and A Bad Case Of Stripes . I'm also hoping to find my copy of A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue to addresses the whole tattling vs. reporting issue!

Bucket filling

I got my class list today. I am so excited to start the year. So far it looks like 12 girls and 8 boys. I'm sorry to those of you with 30 students. I bow down to your amaziness!!

I worked on more details for my classroom today. I wanted it to look presentable because parents come next week for assessment days. One of the things I did was put my buckets together. I am a BIG believer in the power of bucket filling.

So I attached tags to the buckets with wrapping ribbon.  I wrote the students name on both sides with permanent marker.

Here's what they look like hung up!

You can see in this pic the books I start off the year with. I especially love "Say Something " and "Have You Filled a Bucket Today? " of course!


To hang my buckets I use clear plastic hooks like these.



I put mine up last year and they are still going strong! I also hung up the posters you can barely see in the pic.

My students will begin filling bucket right away! I have bucket filling forms on their desks for them to fill out about each other. I read them aloud to encourage other students to be bucket fillers. This program has really given my classroom a positive and nurturing classroom environment. 

The tags, posters, and activities are all available on my Bucket Filling Classroom Activity Packet at my TpT store.

Do you use bucket filling in your classroom? What do you like about it? Anyone work at a bucket filling school? I would love to know what that is like!

Have you Filled a Bucket Today?

Have you Filled a Bucket Today? Amazon.com

Last year was my second year teaching and I realized after my difficult first year I needed a clear plan for classroom management. Besides sitting down and coming up with my routines and procedures for everything, I also knew I needed a way to make my classroom positive. I found I was able to do that by using the idea of Bucketfilling. I began by reading my class Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud. We talked about how we fill buckets by being kind and dip buckets by bullying or being mean.