Motivation: 10 Minute Filler

I have this time during the day that I have a lot of kids gone from the classroom.  Some of them are still in pull out music, some of them are still in ELL pull out, some are still shopping in the Holiday Shop, then there are the random children that are at "emergency status" for the bathroom/nurse/office…  

This year I am all about having them make up words during that time.  It's a competition, a challenge, and they love working together in groups.  

I write up random words or a phrase onto the whiteboard… such as "Winter Wonderland" or "Sneaky Tiny Elf", "Silly Snowman", etc. and then announce it's Word Time!  They rush to grab binder paper (easier to count their words), and start making up words with the letters.  

Somedays it's only 10 minutes, somedays I can give them a full 20 minutes.  They love it though!   

These were a brainstorm for Winter Wonderland.

Just sharing in case you need a little filler during these crazy busy hectic days!  Linking up with Joanne and her Saturday Spark Student Motivation linky.

   

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Motivation - Morning Math Style (Giveaway)

Today I'm linking up with Joanne to share a little tidbit about my helpers.  I love using student helpers in the classroom.  They are so willing and EAGER to help out with EVERYTHING!  

Over the years I've learned to give up control in order to regain my sanity.  I used to be really Type A - having to control every aspect of my classroom.  Now, I'm a little more laid back at this time of the year when it comes to student helpers.  I've led them, I still monitor, but with the helper jobs the kids know how to get it done.

The other day I posted this picture of my morning math meeting.

Yes, it's on a pocket chart.  I started off the year writing a bunch of sentence strips in the chart, making up numbers and problems.  It was time consuming though, and I could never remember what problems we had already tackled.  So I switched to task cards.  The kids do the different activities first thing in the morning on their whiteboards (they are sitting on our carpet), then we go over it together - I use my own larger handheld whiteboard to solve the problems with them. 

And then the past couple of weeks I've given my helpers the added job of changing the different task cards up each afternoon for the next morning.  

It's serious excitement in the classroom during that moment in time.
Almost the same excitement as when I say it's dance party time or give them a piece of candy.  

I use the headings from 4th Grade Frolics, and have changed it up to things we are doing as a review, at present, and in the future. 

 Last night I made up some new task cards to stick into the pocket chart this coming week - I know, nothing like waiting until the last minute.  My kids are about to start double digit multiplication - and somehow last year when I started creating I only made up 3 x 2 digit ones... so that needed to change.    

Want to win a set?  Just pin it to win it!  Pin this product - either the blog post or the product page from the TPT store, and come back here to leave a comment with the pin.  I'll choose a random comment on Sunday night and send it to a lucky winner via email. 

Have a wonderful weekend!  

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Student Motivation: Achievement Awards

Oh, motivation... how I love you!! Linking up with Joanne to share something that is working wonderfully in my classroom.   

This week I was prepping more achievement awards for my students.  These ink friendly ones I made up this past summer.  So far this year I have given out the beginning of the year ones - the First Day, Belonging to (their names), and Birthday.  Then as students have passed their multiplication and division facts, they received their facts badges too for their necklaces.   

Now with the end of the first trimester I get to give out these new awards.  

Principal's Honor Roll, Honor Roll, Effort, and Perfect Attendance (for 1st trimester).  I also made up some ones specific to AR and IXL goals for my class.  :)  

It really is the little things that get them excited about learning! 

Have a wonderful day!  

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Saturday Motivation: Monthly Lunch Club

In my classroom I have the kids sit in teams.  Sometimes it's a table group, sometimes it's just a team area.  Either way they are earning points/ "gems" in our plastic cups.  I know I told you about them last year.  The power of the plink...  they get these glass gems that drop into a plastic cup on the metal whiteboard.  The sound echoes throughout the classroom and everyone takes notice.  

I give out team points mainly during transitions or independent work.  Which team is prepared the fastest?  Which team cleans up their area the nicest?  Which team is working oh-so wonderfully and is staying focused?? 

Well at the end of the month, the last day before we change desks (therefore mixing up the teams), we count up the team points.  It's a big deal.  Who will be the winner?  The cups are pretty close, sometimes even tied...  

In past years the winners would get our school cash, or a treat... but going into this year I wanted to change it up and make the prize something that couldn't be bought.  It's an invite for lunch in the classroom with yours truly.  So far we only have had one lunch (on August 30th).  During that one lunch the kids ate, and we stuck in a movie to watch - their choice out of my Disney films... you know, the stack of movies that you have stashed just in case it's a rainy day recess?  I let them play games on the computer if they wanted, or they could draw... it's was just a fun end of month treat.

Well those kids went on to tell the others in class all about their lunch time experience, and now there is so much more buy in with the gems.  Peer pressure at it's finest.  :)  

Linking up with Joanne and her Saturday Motivation linky!  

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Saturday Motivation: PAT

Friday afternoons are always fun - for most of the kids...

The last 30 minutes of the day my grade level team gets together and gives students choices as they want to do with their Preferred Activity Time.

The students that get to participate have to have completed all their classwork, homework, and have had a good behavior week.  

There are 4 of us, so one teacher is Study Hall.  In that classroom, the kids have to finish their work.  It's all about building responsibility. 

Another one or two teachers head outside for free play on the blacktop.  Kids bring out basketballs, play tetherball, run/dance/skip on the playground, talk with their friends...

We usually have an art room (which I love to host).  Kids come in with their 

crayon boxes and I provide a couple sheets of copy paper.

Depending on weather, sometimes we have a movie room or inside games.

Pretty much it's a chance to mix up the kids, meet some 

new ones, and have fun...

...and prep for the next week.  :)    

   Linking up with Joanne for her Saturday Motivation!  

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Organization, Motivation, and Bloglovin'

Motivation and Organization Time!  

Linking up with Joanne and Kristen & Elizabeth for their weekly linkies :)

I love pocket charts!!!

Yes, I know it sounds cheesy, but I do...  I use them throughout my room to make things interactive.

I use it for behavior.

The students put their weekly goals in them (that's a dry erase sentence strip).

I keep vocabulary weekly words in them - for all the different subjects.

I put random classroom pictures in them for throughout the year.

I use them for helpers.

I use magnetic ones for daily 5 stations (guess I haven't taken my own picture of it). 

Then I have random ones that I pull out throughout the year for centers, open house braille names, spelling words, etc...  

Do you also use pocket charts?  

Next up is Joanne's Motivation Linky :)

Wanted to share something I did 2 years ago that I have loved using... Vistaprint's Encouragement Cards.  

They are just their "free" business cards that I keep on my desk for a quick grab and give.    The top says, "Just a little note to tell you how wonderful you were in class today."  There is room to write a little note of what I saw that I thought they did great.  Students love them, I have seen them in pencil boxes and used as bookmarks throughout the year.  Not my own idea though, I created it from all the ideas of Stephanie in Teaching in Room 6.  She has a ton of Vistaprint ideas.  

Do you also do some kind of encouragement notes?  

Last up - remember to click the side bar button or the link

 "Follow this blog on Bloglovin".

Very soon there won't be any more Google Reader.  :(  

 

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Random Moments and Motivation

Linking up with Doodlebugs to share about my week.

I know I have told you a lot about my week already - basically minute by minute over the past 5 school days...

Maybe it bored you.  :)

Anyhow, wanted to show you the less glamorous side of the week.  Don't judge me with the pictures.  By the end of it all I was in the stuffing mood and I DON'T CARE (at least I don't care right now, I will probably care as of Monday or Tuesday next week and make a trip into school to reorganize it all).

I shoved. 

Shoved many things into the cabinets.

I popped.  

...and popped popcorn.

I pushed.

Yes, I pushed the furniture around.  

I stapled.

I put up 3 bulletin board to get ready for next year - my Voices/Face, Info/Behavior, and my Vocabulary Wall.  

I stacked.

There was a lot of stacking on everything up high - but somehow everything got off the ground.  

.... and then I looked around and smiled :)

I also froze!  Otter Pops that is.  Isn't food just the greatest incentive?!!  Yes, that deserves a question mark since it's totally rhetorical and TWO exclamation points because it's so true.  This week with the darlings they wanted to be completely nuts.  Like overboard excited.  I was right there with them, but I held myself in check... barely...

These past 5 days, as part of our countdown, I was giving out treats right and left... and if they weren't behaving as nicely as they should I didn't give it to them when everyone else got theirs.  They had to be patient.  They had to be respectful.  They had to be kind to others... and when they could show me that they were on their best behavior they got their treat.  

Last Friday was the Smore's Cone.

Tuesday was our Pizza Party and Summer Birthday Celebration.

Wednesday was our Ice Cream in a Bag.

Thursday was our Reading Buddy Otter Pop Party.

Friday was Popcorn as part of our Movie Day.  

Lots and lots of treats.  :)  The kids brought in $5 to cover the cost of it all.  

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!  

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Five for Fraturday and Saturday Motivation :)

Linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching with my 5 for Friday/Saturday and Head Over Heels for her Motivational Linky 

Random Moments of my Week

#1 Smores Cones

Yesterday my class camped out.  Our treat was creating a Solar Oven Smores Cone.  Last year we made Solar Ovens using pizza boxes - and quite honestly everything was just warm, the wind kept taking off with the boxes, and the marshmallows turned hard.  This year I needed something simpler and less messy.

Each kid got a sandwich sized bag with 14 mini marshmallows and a tablespoon of chocolate chips.  I scooped these on Thursday night so it was easier to pass out.  I was pleasantly surprised how one bag of mini marshmallows and one bag of chocolate chips fed all my students  - we made 36 bags total.  

In class on Friday I gave them each a bag, about a 9 inch piece of foil, and a sugar ice cream cone.  They poured the bag out onto their foil and then layered the yumminess inside the cone.  Then they carefully wrapped their cones in foil and stuck their foil cones inside their sandwich bag.  They labeled their sandwich bags with sharpie, and handed them to me.  

I have these plastic tubs in my classroom - about 18 inches by 12 inches.  I lined 2 of them with foil, stuck the bags inside, and then covered them with another sheet of foil.  We stuck them out on our ramp at 8:40 am, and after lunch at 12:20 the marshmallows had turned deliciously warm and gooey, and the chocolate had melted to bring it all together.  The kids devoured them.  

I'm sure a little extra time would have made it even more cohesive, but I didn't have more time with the minimum day.  I love minimum days.    

#2  Motivation :)

Motivation comes in all shapes and sizes, and I wanted to mention something relatively simple - Helpers :)

My class jobs include everyone in my classroom every single week.  I am a believer that a student needs to feel responsible in the classroom, taking ownership of the classroom, and how it runs.  I used to be a hog (aka control freak) and not share the responsibilities with the kids, but then realized that there were many many jobs they can do, and feel proud of themselves in the process.  I take jobs seriously.    

Here's my list of jobs - maybe you've seen me mention them before.  I have 32 kids in my classroom, so I have 1 Star of the week (lights, phone, line leader, rocking chair sitter), 4 helpers (odds & end needs, paper stampers, sometimes passing out things), 4 papers (passing papers, checking off names, sometimes stampers), 2 doors (open/hold/close), 10 lunch baskets (2 per day carrying the basket), 4 agenda stampers (checking homework written correctly in the afternoons), 4 clean ups (giving fairy notes to extra clean desks), and 3 librarians (making sure our classroom library stays organized for everyone.)  

At the end of the week - Friday's to be exact - we have a gigantic Paper Passing Out Party where EVERYONE has to help.  The kids get a stack of stuff from the basket, and then pass them out to the correct desks.  Everyone has to help, they are everyone's papers - so even if they don't want to, they still take that responsibility.  

#3  Pizza

Just a random thought - how many of you also have Friday pizza nights?  My family does every single week... 2 pizzas out of the freezer - one cheese, one pepperoni.  Then we hunker down for a movie night.  Pizza is on my brain since I just called Costco to order pizza for our pizza party next Tuesday...

#4  Teachers Care for Oklahoma

I am honored to help out with this bundle pack.  My Algebraic Equations task cards are somewhere in there.  :)  Go donate!  

#5  Pet Rocks

Like I mentioned, yesterday was camping day.  I love camping day.  I decided to do things a little different than last year though with the art projects.  I picked up 2 bags of small decorative rocks at the Dollar Tree and gave my students a choice of 3 paints.  They got to create any kind of animal they wanted.  They got into it, and these were some of the results.  I think they looked so good!

Hope you have a great day!    

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I Love My Pink Tickets!

Student Motivation is getting more tricky this time of year.  

Today I'm linking up with Joanne to share what been working lately. 

Tickets

A while back I mentioned doing tickets for my class.  I have always done tickets - usually they act just like money, the kids are rewarded for outstanding behavior, or for trying their best, etc...on the flip side the tickets earned could be traded in for prizes.  It has always worked.

 Then this year my clever 13th year of teaching children decided to have ticket wars - they decided to combine their tickets with each other to see what group of kids could get the most.  It would have been a great math game, but as for motivation it was severely lacking - since the kids that hardly ever got tickets started bullying the kids for more tickets to be part of the group, friends, etc...

So I pulled the tickets - all the tickets in the entire classroom - for about 3 weeks.  Then I couldn't handle it anymore.  I needed my tickets, and the kids needed to be individually rewarded.  This was right before testing, so we were in the midst of major test prep.  

I decided to do a raffle with it instead.  The kids were back to getting tickets, but instead of trading them in for prizes they wrote their name on the back and they were put into a basket.  During test prep and testing I would choose 3 names every afternoon for some random prizes in the classroom - the most coveted being a homework pass.  

Even though I still miss the trading station, I also enjoy NOT having to remember to fit it in on a Friday afternoon.  I enjoy now changing it up and rolling a dice to determine the amount of names I choose every afternoon.  I enjoy the kids knowing that if they try really hard their names will still be on all those tickets in the basket from the past days.

Next year I'm thinking of keeping the raffle instead of going back to trading.  I'm thinking of every month starting fresh - just like the team points.   

These kids have taught me a lot this year! 

FYI - in case you didn't hear about it yesterday...

Hope you have a great day - we are in the midst of full on potty training...

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