Thursday, August 14, 2014

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.

Monday, August 4, 2014

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!