Yippie! BINGO! {Behavior BINGO, that is!}

Tonight is the board meeting where my new job will be official!  Cup your hands around your ear at about 6:23pm tonight and listen... you'll hear me hooting and hollering!

When school begins in the fall, I'll be teaching reading to four different groups of 3rd graders.  I've had to re-think my behavior management systems and have something new and exciting to show you about my clip chart in a few weeks!  I can't wait to show you what we're going to be doing with clip charts in 3rd grade this year!

One new thing I'm going to add is behavior BINGO.  I haven't used it in a few years, but I think it will be a nice way for each of my groups of kids to get rewarded for their good choices.  I'll have a different BINGO board for each of the four groups I'll be teaching and each class of kids will be able to earn BINGO numbers for their good choices.

And then... on the happy day when one of the groups gets a BINGO, they'll get a little reward, clear their board, and start all over again!

If you aren't familiar with Behavior BINGO, you have a BINGO board and pull numbers when good behaviors and choices are made, then you cover up the numbers on the board until you have a BINGO!

I have made a set of monthly themed behavior BINGO boards to use in my class and have just put them on TpT and TN as well.

Find it on TpT      or      Teacher's Notebook

I also think this would be a GREAT way for table or desk groups in the classroom to receive their own rewards for good choices.  I usually have four groups in my room and so I would have given each group one of these boards and allow them to pull numbers for good group choices.  I know my 1st and 2nd graders would have gone bonkers for this last year!

Here's the thing though... and maybe I'm a big meanie... but I'm a huge supporter of "intermittent praise".  In the beginning of the year, I give a lot of it and I do it often.  But then I start to wean them off of my "thank yous" and "wow- good listenings" and "you guys and gals sure do know how to follow directions" and my single M&Ms or Nerds (1 Nerd is a magical thing!).  I still dole out those happy words and tasty singular treats but my students are really quick to follow directions because I *might* say "thank you" to them!  (But... shhhh!... I might not too!)  I really want my kiddos to understand that sometimes we just do the right thing because it's the right thing to do.

So, these behavior BINGO boards have 16 spaces... but there are 20 numbers... so sometimes they might pull a number that isn't on the board.  My kiddos will get to have a 1 second silent party and cross their fingers that the next time they get to pull, it's a number they need!  Not to mention the best reward there is... just feeling good about the choices you've made!

I'm excited about using these in my classroom!

In the packs on TpT and TN, there is also a full page BINGO board for each month if you want to use it whole class... and there's a BONUS!!!!!  The file includes blank copies of the BINGO boards (2 per month) that you can use as incentive charts for individual sweeties who need a little extra support!

Here's a pic of the bonus!

Want to win the pack?  Just download the preview from TpT and tell me which month you think looks the cutest!  Leave me a comment with your favorite month... and if you choose mine, I'll send you a copy!  I'll do it for the first three people who have my same taste in "cuteness"!  Be sure to leave your e-mail!

Wait!  Have you seen my shared Google Doc for sharing your first day tips for classroom routines?  I hope you'll add to the list!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE GOOGLE DOC!

Share Your BEST First Day Management Tip or Routine

Second post today... and I'm sorry!  But I hope you'll forgive me!  I just got a brainstorm to try something new and it just can't wait!

I'm hosting a DOC-y Party!  You know... like a linky party but with a shared Google Doc!

 

I'm posting a Google Doc that you can add your best piece of first day management. 

Not necessarily an activity or advice... but something you do to help your students learn your expectations beginning on day 1.

I'd love for you to share- be sure to add your grade level, name, and/or blog.  I'll compile everything later this week into a booklet for everyone!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY GOOGLE DOC!

Feel free to send others this way to share their tips!  Since this is the first time I'm doing this, I'm not sure when I'll turn off the document... and maybe this will turn out to be the worst idea ever.  Who knows!

Speaking of CHEAP Stuff...

Have you seen the great new things that Wal-Mart is putting out for teachers... for LESS THAN $1.00 a pop?!

My local store is just beginning to set out their products...

But, earlier in the summer, I got this box of goodies for free from the good people at CraftProjectIdeas.com as a sneak peek at the kinds of thing that Wal-Mart will be selling this summer...

And I was immediately so excited!  Get a teacher around this much school stuff and, well, I'm sure you all know what happens!  It was like an early Christmas!

Just look at all of the goodies you'll be able to find at Wal-Mart soon if you haven't already!

So... what do you think?  And how quickly are you going to be dashing out to the store to pick these great goodies up?!  :)

Head over to The Learning Tree to find some other great buys that other wonderful bloggy friends have found!

What I'm Reading...

I just finished an AH-MAZING book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and have blogged about it over at The Best Endings.

I hope you will check it out and consider reading it!

If you have, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

I am about to start obsessively scouring the internet for more information on Henrietta Lacks' family and what is being done to honor her life.

Go and read my review... and then read the book!!!!!

Target Finds, B-day Winners, and 2nd Grade Treasures Long Awaited Product!!!!!

The Dollar Spot at my local store (which is 35 miles away, but SO worth it!) overfloweth!

Here's what I got...  The first is a picture of everything...

*SO* psyched about these "Star Student" seat backs!  I have been eying these from Really Good Stuff for a loooong time... you can't beat spending $2.00!  And, of course, I had to get pocket charts!  When I unpack my classroom, I'll take a picture of the insane amount of Dollar Spot pocket charts I have that are unopened.  Now I can add three purple ones to my hoard!

Two super cute dry erase boards for word work, erasers, and prize pencils.

Foam pennants... you know- for my whole "bunting" thing I have going on!

CONTAINERS!!!!!!!  What do I need these for?  No idea yet... but how could I pass them up?!  Love the little yellow "5 Minute Quick Quiz" book in the bottom corner.  I'm going to laminate them (they're all spelling/vocab related) and use them as a word work activity!

And... the two winners of my impromptu giveaway for my new b-day bulletin board set are...

You're both winning this and I'm e-mailing it to you now:

 
If you missed it, check out the comments of THIS POST for some awesome new ideas for celebrating birthdays in the classroom!  If I get time today, I may compile them into a book like I did for Christmas!

Last but not least... a while back I posted my first grade Treasures spelling packets and I have had many, many requests for the 2nd grade set.  It is FINALLY done!

This one is a little larger than the 1st grade pack... it's 306 pages... and, due to the size, it's only available at TpT (thanks for increasing the file size, Paul!).  Right now it's only $10.00!  If you download the sample, it's Unit 1, Week 1 so you can see what the packet has in it for an entire spelling week.

 Grab it on TpT!

I guess next would be a 3rd grade set with some slight modifications.  This set is identical to the 1st grade set- since it's what I used in my split class last year.  But, now that I'm movin' on up to 3rd, my brain is spinning with possibilities for the bigger kids!

Mini Birthday Bulletin Board... Want to Win?

Hey there!  Happy Wednesday!  I'm on my way to the dentist... so maybe not to happy for me... however, I do see a trip to the Dollar Spot in my future this morning!  I went to Target on Monday and the Dollar Spot was completely empty except for some Spam stuff... Spam?!  Who knew!  But the workers were busily unpacking loads of boxes and getting ready to stock it up!  So, I'm hopeful that it will be full of goodies today!

And I'm going clothes shopping!

And to get a coffee at Biggby!

So, before I go, I wanted to share with you what I made yesterday!

In my quest for the perfect birthday bulletin board kit, I realized that what I wanted only existed in my brain.  Everything else was too big or just not right for 3rd grade.  I wanted something more than a poster but less than a mondo massive bulletin board display.

So, I ended up making my own!

It has 2 different sets of month cupcakes- one set has month names in plain fonts and the other has month headers with little graphics that coordinate with whatever holiday/season is that month.  There are candles you can write students' names on or type and two different bulletin board titles.

I'm psyched about getting these laminated and hung up!

 Find it on TpT          or          Teacher's Notebook

You can win a set!  If you will share the fun birthday things you do in your room on your students' birthdays, I will use the random number generator to choose 2 winners tomorrow morning and then everyone else can look through the comments to get some fun new ideas to add to their classroom traditions!

I'll go first.

I have this guy:

and the b-day kid gets to keep him at their set and press his foot at any time during the day if I am not giving direct instruction.  He sings "Happy Birthday" and does a little dance!

I used to have all of the words to "Happy Birthday" printed separately on cards and the b-day kid would arrange them in a pocket chart and we would sing their version to the right tune... it was fun!  But last year, I just had kids stand on a chair and we would scream at the top of our lungs "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" and they really liked that!


I also give out a pencil and a b-day sticker badge with their name on it.

The last thing we do is create a birthday book for the kid.  Each student writes a birthday message and colors a picture and then I bind them all into a book.  My theme packs at TpT and TN all include a themed birthday book cover and themed book page.  Or you can download a general one on my class website HERE.

Calendar Pieces Freebie!

Yesterday I was looking at all of the amazing pieces of Poppin' Patterns stuff I bought from Creative Teaching Press... and I loooove it!

But, the calendar pieces only came with numbers and so I made my own set of special dates and such.

The background on the set I made for me is yellow, but I wanted to share with you too and didn't know if you'd appreciate a yellow background... so here it is in white!

It's got graphics from three sources... which I usually don't do.  Mixing graphics?  Whaaaat?!  DJ Inkers, Melonheadz, and Thistle Girl Designs living together harmoniously in one document?  I do think so!

I'm pleased with how they look!

So... here's a freebie for you!  Hope you can use it!  Just click the picture- there are 33 of them to supplement your calendar numbers!  And I'd loooove some comment lovin' if you can use them!

I'm Moved Out!

That's how I feel about some stuff today.  I'm annoyed.  Not about moving rooms or schools- I'm thrilled about that.  But other stuff.  GRRRRR!  Or, as Judy Moody would say... ROAR!  But, in an effort to keep this a positive place, I'm getting it all out... nooooow.

Let me just preface this blog post with a;sdkjl;kqwjerf0sadfjkld;joi34ej-!  And a big GRRRR!

Now a deep breath... and...

Better!

On to a happier topic...

I went in today and got the last of my things out of my classroom.  Currently, the back of my vehicle is full of more STUFF.  Most of it is stuff I'm not planning to use but wanted to keep, so when the hubs gets home, we'll be doing some unloading!

My living room can't take much more classroom storage... there are boxes everywhere of stuff I've bought but haven't taken into my new room yet.

Oh well!

Tomorrow is a meeting of 3rd grade teachers and I'm looking forward to tossing around ideas and doing some collaborating with my new colleagues!  And peeking in my room and crossing my fingers it has been cleaned so I can start making it home!

Happy Sunday & Advice!

Katy and Lori both guessed my dad's age correctly (56, btw), so I'm e-mailing you both right now to see if you would like my set of reading comprehension flippy books or my new syllable activities!

Thanks everyone for your guesses and b-day wishes for my dad!  The hubs and I went to my parents' house for the day and we had a cookout and lots of swimming with my parents and other family.  It was so fun... but I am burnt from spending hours in the pool!  Oops!

Today's agenda is coffee, groceries, and laundry.  Hope your Sunday turns out more eventful than mine!

Deb over at Fabulously First is hosting a linky party where we can give some advice to new teachers!  And who doesn't love to share their opinion???

So, here's mine:

1.)  If it's 10:08 and you thought you were going to start your math lesson at 10:07... it's OK!  Sometimes you can't fit everything in and if you don't get to it today, you can try again tomorrow!

2.)  It is not your stuff that makes you a good teacher.  I learned this my 3rd year after my school suffered a fire and I lost almost all of my possessions.  I had very little stuff for a while and my students still learned and I was still good at my job!  You can see some pics and read a bit about the fire at this "3 Year Fire Anniversary" post from last August.

3.)  Just keep in mind that your kiddos who try your patience are the ones you will look back on in a few years and credit with making you better at your job.  My most famous ever sweetie jumped out the window the first day of school when the bell rang and I chased out after him, carrying him back in... my first day as a new teacher!  He threw desks and chairs... but he made me good at classroom management and I will truly always credit him with that!

4.)  When you're flying by the seat of your pants, your kids won't know the difference... so just smile and teach on!

Head over and link up... share your tidbits of wisdom too!

Reading Comprehension Flippy Books, Syllables, Mr. Rogers, and a Contest!

I'm so excited!  I finished up my reading comprehension flippy books yesterday and they are now available!

I decided just to bundle them together- there are six of them for $4.00 in predicting, questioning, inferring, visualizing, summarizing, and making connections and they would be great for grades 1-4... as long as firsties are using them with teacher guidance.  I'm thinking they would be GREAT for guided reading too!  I am so psyched about using these in my 3rd grade ELA class this fall!

Here they are on TpT and TN...

Get them at TpT or Teacher's Notebook!

I also worked on a new "Let's BUG OUT for Syllables" pack!  This is a teeny, tiny pack with 17 pages including 2 games/center activities and a follow-up worksheet.

 

Get the set at TpT or Teacher's Notebook!

Third... have you seen this autotuned Mr. Rogers video?  I understand that it was created in conjunction with PBS and there are more in the works.  I hate to admit this, but I pretty much listened to this on repeat while I worked on that syllable pack yesterday!  I LOVE IT!!!!  Love the tune, love the message, love that it's MR. ROGERS!  I shared it with my blog's FB friends yesterday, but needed to get this out in mass form to all of you!

And... happy birthday today to my dad!  :)

So... the contest!

I will give the first person who guesses my dad's age correctly a free copy of either of my two new items... winner's choice!  Be sure to leave your e-mail address in your comment!  Good luck!  There's a pic of me and my dad to help your guessing... it's from my birthday, which was in October!