This five for Friday linky party is quickly becoming a highlight of my week! I love the opportunity to sit back on a Friday and look at all of the excitement that has gone on in the classroom throughout the week! It’s been a great one full of tons of learning and some new experiences! I have one more week until spring break…I think I can I think I can! Here’s what we’ve been up to!
With the spring weather starting to roll in and a few days left before spring break, my lovelies have been seriously lacking in the kind character department. We’ve been bogged down by tattle tales, calling out, and not trying our best. The ol’ clip chart was not delivering its usual motivation, so I knew I needed to try something new. I’ve been so excited to share my brag tags with my students! I created these based off of the six pillars of character: respect, responsibility, thoughtfulness, fairness, citizenship, and caring. Each pillar of character has designated brag tags to celebrate students who show those character traits.
I ran through Party City like a crazy woman trying to find some accessories to motivate my students with our Operation Character Counts brag tags! I hit the jackpot with these awesome dog tag necklaces and Top Secret military lunch box! When the kids came in on Wednesday morning, they immediately screamed because our calendar had been replaced by our new brag tag display! Their eyes wandered around the room to the secret box and could not believe what was inside!
Each student was given a tag with their name and rank (student number), a Ready to Learn tag, and a place on our board! The kids have been so inspired and excited about this new behavior tool! If you want to read more about it visit my TpT store here.
Here are a few of my sweeties after they earned their first brag tags. We had two littles who were “Purrr”fect partners with each other and a little doll who is ALWAYS a listening star! They have been so excited to show off their accomplishments when they go to specials and lunch! Go firsties go!
I have been using and LOVING Miss DeCarbo’s Long Vowel fluency pack with my lower level readers. Having them focus on one word family at a time is so helpful and the spinner allows them to feel in control of their work. The picture of both sweeties using their reading finger to read their passage independently makes my teacher heart skip a beat! Check out this awesome pack at Miss DeCarbo’s TpT store here.
If you have been following my blog for a little while now you have quickly seen how much I love Lucy Calkin’s writing workshop! The independence it gives my students while allowing me to individualize my instruction for all of my students is so wonderful. We have finished Bend 1 of our Opinion Writing Unit and we played a little game with our checklist to make sure we had all of the parts to make our opinions strong and convincing to our reader. We played a partner game called “Prove It Prove It.”
I may or may not have sung “I like to prove it prove it,” a few too many times!
My writing partners put a checklist in between their writing samples. We read each item off of the checklist one at a time as a whole group. After we read an item, the students had to “prove” to their partners that they had each element of the checklist in their writing. If they did they shouted “Proved it!” If they didn’t their partner had to help them fix their writing. It worked like a charm!
On a related note, I was officially accepted to the August Writing Institute at TCRWP! This will be my second year going and I am so excited! More teachers from my district will be coming with me this year and I can’t wait to see what the institute has in store for us. Last year there were so many wonderful keynote speakers, authors, and presenters there to share their experiences. I took so much from it! Will anyone else be there this August?
We ended our week with some more wonderful weather lessons! This week was all about clouds. We learned about the four major kinds and used a flip book from Stephanie Stewart’s Weather is Wild packet to record our new learning. The kids were fascinated by the different clouds and we are planning a walk outside next week to observe what clouds are in the sky each day. We had a blast completing Stephanie’s adorable cloud craft from the packet to end the week! I love how each has their own personality. We have some rosy cheeks and eyelashes on a few! Check out this wonderful resource here!
I hope you all had a wonderful week! If you are on Spring Break, enjoy it! If you’re like me and have another week to go, just keep swimming! We’ll get there!
8 Comments
Thanks for sharing your cool ideas.
I found you on the Five for Friday linky.
Sandra
Sandra's Savvy Teaching Tips
Thank you for stopping by Sandra! I hope you have a great weekend!
I love your brag tags focused on the six pillars of character. What a great idea! Also, thanks for sharing with me how to highlight my blog name. Check it out š
Suzanne
Kindergarten Planet
Thank you so much Suzanne, I really appreciate the kind words! My kiddos are loving them. I'm so glad that my info helped you add your link to the comments! I hope you have a great week =)
Hi there! I found you through the linky, clicked over to see you talking Brag Tags. I'm going to start trying to use these next year. The group I have coming up is definitely going to need all the motivation they can get for good behavior. Ha! I also use Lucy Calkins–love it though I do find it difficult to "jump into" without them having it in K-1.
Crystal
Teaching Little Miracles
Hi Crystal! Thank you so much for stopping by. My kids have been loving the brag tags incentive! We wear them when we leave the room to all specials and assemblies so people can ask us how we earned them and we get to "brag" about them! They're a great motivational tool because it's all positive! Once they earn them they don't lose them. Have a great day!
LOVE your brag tags. I was thinking of starting these next year in my after school religious ed class. I was trying to describe them to my mom (who teaches with me). I should show her your pictures because that is exactly what I was envisioning only with different words and pictures. I might have to pick your brain next year when I start to create them about sizes, durability, student motivation, etc after you've used them for awhile. Super cute!
Sara
Sara J Creations
I would love to help you out Sara! My kiddos have really been loving them and can't wait to show them off when they earn them. Anytime my students earn them, the rest of the class claps and cheers for them! Super sweet. I've also noticed that my kids are telling me more kind things that others are doing rather than negative things. That's a win to me! I'm so glad you like them š