Behavior Charts and Parent Communication

Back to school time. Four more days until school starts. I've been back in my classroom for a couple of weeks now. It wasn't originally my intention, but I went through every drawer and cupboard and sifted thru all my classroom "stuff." I tossed, cleaned, and reorganized. It feels great!

We have a giveaway area in our cafeteria where we put our discards the week before school starts. It's funny how fast other teachers pick them up to use in their classrooms. I've found some great teaching stuff on the discard tables.

So now I'm redoing and revising some back to school letters to parents, forms, and classroom activities.

I revised my behavior charts - the ones I send home to parents.

These are the charts I use in the classroom.

I got the Behavior Management Pocket Chart from Lakeshore®. It doesn't include the names yet, but it has the yellow, orange, and red cards behind the green ones. The students turn their cards if they have a behavior infraction. I can refer to the chart above it as a reminder to students of what each color means.

At the end of each week, I send home a Weekly Behavior Chart.

Each child takes one of these home each Friday. I tally how many days the children were on a specific color. It lets the parents know generally how their child's behavior is in the classroom. I also have a form that has a space for a parent signature. Sometimes I have children who are working on specific behavior issues return the form to me with a parent signature. 

This is another version of the form.

The children fill out their own form on this one. At the end of each day, they fill in the card color. 

I let the parents know that I will be sending these home each Friday. It's one way to communicate to parents how their child is behaving in the classroom. The parents comment all the time how much they appreciate getting these each week.

Click below to get a free copy of the charts to send home to parents.

Are you getting your classroom ready for back to school? Or have you started back already? I hope it's going well. I'd love to hear about some of your new school year ideas.

Back to School TPT Sale!

I'm not officially back to school, but I've been busy getting my classroom ready. I visited our local teaching supply store, and I'm having fun getting things rearranged and putting out all the new stuff. I like to get my classroom ready the week before we go back to school. Staff meetings, preparing materials, and planning take up all my time the week before the kids arrive.

This year's TPT Blast Off Back to School Sale is just in time for back to school preparations.

Everything in my TPT store is 20% off. Use the PROMO CODE BTS14 to get up to 28% off. 

If you're looking for activities for your first weeks back to school, check out a couple of my best sellers:

Do you use centers? If so, you have to check these out. I created these as beginning of the year centers for first graders. They're great to use when first teaching your students how to work at centers.

Click on the pictures to view them. Remember to use the promo code and happy shopping!

Back to School and Classroom Management

Classroom management is at the top of the list when it comes to planning for a new school year. It's a time to reflect on what has worked in the past and the things I want to change.

Each class of students is different. Each year, I change my management procedures to meet the needs of individual students and the class as a whole. Even so, I do have some classroom management ideas that I use year after year, because they're effective.

I thought I'd share some of these with you.

The ideas come from a Rick Morris workshop I attended a few years ago. One of my first grade teammates had attended one and wanted to go again. She invited me to go along. I'm so glad I did!

It's one of those workshops where you'll find yourself totally engaged and excited about all the ideas. He models his workshops to reflect effective management techniques in the classroom. I hope to get at least a few new ideas when I attend a workshop, but this was a day filled with classroom management ideas/techniques that I could readily apply in the classroom.

You can click on the picture to visit his site.

The first idea is the use of a random picker. I like to have a variety of ways to choose students randomly in the classroom (answering questions, helpers, messenger, etc.), and this is one of the kids' favorites.

This is how it works. I number all the students in the class and place those numbered tokens in the container.

I shake the container and turn it upside down. More than one number is face up, so it gives me choices. I just pick one of those numbers. The kids love it, because they think of it as a game or winning a drawing. It's fun, simple, and effective. It's called Pick-A-Number and you can find it here.

Here's another tool I use.

It looks like one of my dog's toys, and that's what it is - a Dog Squeak Toy. 

I love this one. It's so simple, yet so effective. When I squeeze the toy, the students know to stop what they're doing and look at me, ready to listen. I have the students practice a lot at the beginning of the school year. All it takes is one squeak. It's loud and works. I keep it on the ledge of the white board that's at the front of my room, so it's readily accessible.

A tip: When I introduce it, I pass it around the room and have each student squeeze it a few times. After that, they know they're not to squeeze or play with it. I explain that it's a way for me to get everyone's attention. The children understand and are respectful of it.

The third one is one of my favorite management tools. It's versatile and another simple idea. They're called Magnetic Tiles.

One way I use them is when I want the students to work in groups or with a partner.

The number tiles are magnetic and can be placed on butcher paper against a magnetic board or on a magnetic white board. I can form the groups ahead of time, and it's a reference for me and the children, too.

The number magnets can be placed by the word work chart or centers chart area. When students finish their word work activities, they move their magnets to the activity they choose to do next. I can tell at a glance how many students have completed their word work and what students are doing when they're finished. It prevents students from interrupting small group instruction and saying, "What do I do? I'm finished."

Rick Morris's New Management site has many more ideas for using the Magnetic Tiles. He has lots of other classroom management tips and resources on the site, as well. If you have an opportunity to attend one of his workshops, I would highly recommend it.

You can download some of the center cards I use with the Magnetic Tiles by clicking below.

I would love to hear about your classroom management ideas. Any new ones you will be using this year?

Close Reading Summer Read

As soon as the school year is over, I start thinking about the next school year - new group of students, reconfiguring the classroom, how I will make changes in my daily schedule, new centers, cleaning out files, etc. It's quite a long list, and part of the planning for next year is summer reading.

I'm especially interested in learning more about using close reading with first graders. I thought a great way to do this would be to follow along with the Close Reading Book Study with Lyndsey at A Year of Many Firsts and Tara at Little Minds at Work.

The book is Close Reading in Elementary School  by Diana Sisson and Betsy Sisson.

Chapter 3 is an overview of close reading strategies. The authors suggest that the best way to learn about and get started with close reading instruction is to learn the framework for conducting a lesson. They give ten steps to creating a close reading lesson. 

A framework is just what I needed to get started. As I read, I was particularly focused on how to do close reading with younger children. Here are a few key points that I especially found helpful:

Since most of my first graders are just beginning to read and are at different levels of reading ability, I wondered how they would all be able to access the text. The authors talk about using a progression of read alouds, shared reading, and then transitioning to small groups with primary students.

They also talk about ways to scaffold the text - start with video productions, next oral text {read aloud or audio tape}, and then move to picture books {which we use all the time in first grade}. 

Close reading can also be scaffolded with hands-on strategies. These strategies can be used as intermediate steps. One suggestion is to mark up the text. We use Wikki Stix all the time in our classroom, so the suggestion to use Wikki Stix to "circle" important words, main events, etc. caught my eye. I always mark up text as I read. It really is helpful when I go back to reread. I can see how this would be helpful for children. 

Another suggestion is to have children annotate - write down thoughts, questions, understandings, etc. in the margins. Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies has a great idea for doing this. She places articles in plastic sleeves so students can mark on text - an idea I plan on using. 

I'm organizing as I'm learning and gathering information about close reading. 

In need of a binder cover? I created a few before deciding on this one. Click on the picture to get a Close Reading binder cover. 

If you are just beginning to learn about close reading or have even been instructing close reading lessons, I definitely recommend Close Reading in Elementary School. Read the book and join the book study here.

Hope you're enjoying your summer reading.

Are you ready for a sale?

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin for the Three Million Strong TPT two day SALE!

It's a huge celebration sale!

All the products in my store will be 20% off. Use the promo code TPT3 to get additional savings at checkout.

This is a great time to stock up on products for the rest of the school year. I already have my wish list ready!

I have two new St. Patrick's Day products you'll want to check out.

St. Patrick's Day Activities is a packet of activities to learn about and celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

It has non-fiction and fiction writing activities, posters, booklets, and a craftivity.

I created some fun St. Patrick's Day literacy and math activities for the week of the holiday. {Of course, your students will be practicing lots of skills as they work thru the activities.}

You'll find games, writing activities, measurement, graphing, addition, subtraction, St. Patrick's Day notes, incentives, and more!

Your students will create their very own unique St. Patrick's Day monster. These make a fun bulletin board display for St. Patrick's Day writing activities.

Happy shopping!

Sunday Funday: March School Stuff

Are you getting ready for March? I am! I just returned from a trip to Target with some special new "school stuff."

I went there to buy a Yoga mat (decided to take a Yoga class), which I bought. But, I also ended up with some extra school things. Does that ever happen to you?

It was so much fun finding such great finds for my March collection of activities. I read that Molly at Lucky to Be in First and Deirdre at A Burst of First are premiering Sunday Funday. So, I'm linking today to share some of my "Sunday Funday" finds.

One of the first things I do when I enter Target is head straight for the dollar bins. I always tell myself that I'm going to walk thru just in case I see something (never intending to purchase anything), but it never fails . . . I just can't resist all the school stuff I "absolutely" need. Ideas start to filter through my head and resisting the purchase is a lost cause.

So here's what I bought:

We'll be celebrating Read Across America Day. I bought some boxes that I decorated with reading graphics. They make great surprise boxes for the students - boxes of brand new erasers and pencils. 

I  hand out new pencils {The children LOVE new erasers, too.} at the beginning of the month. It's such a great motivator for getting down to business with assignments. The books above are small hard-covered notebooks with blank writing pages. 

Had to get this book bag for extra copies of the children's favorite Dr. Seuss books.

Love these bags! 

I have them pinned on the walls throughout the classroom. I'll use the bags for St. Patrick's Day and March activities. 

I put the weekly job name cards in one bag. I'll use another one for review vocabulary and sight words. Each Monday we raffle off the prior week's morning messages. We'll use one of those bags for the student names. The children earn Be tickets for positive behavior. The Be tickets are drawn from a bag for special prizes. I plan on putting some surprise gold coins and St. Patrick's Day stickers in the surprise box.

Thanks to JC Sweetpea Designs KPM Doodles, and Melonheadz Illustrating for the graphics.

I'm looking forward to some fun March activities. How about you?

Check out Lucky to Be in First and Burst of First for more Sunday Funday activities.

Happy fun Sunday,

January's Snowmen

January's last day. The bulletin board will be changing to valentines, groundhogs, and presidents.

I just had to share these delightful snowmen, before they're taken down to make way for February.

Start with white paint and blue paper. Let the paint dry.

Cut around the snowmen and leave a border. Glue to a large colored piece of construction paper.

Cut out shapes. Glue to the snowman. {This is where the fun begins.}

I'm always amazed at how different they become. 

Happy snowmen, aren't they?

Some so simple and others fully adorned. 

I love walking into my classroom to see children's artwork on the walls. The children do, too.

I sometimes have students write in connection to an art activity or a craftivity. 

I created some snowman writing printables that can be used with snowman art or the winter season.

Now, on to February.