Behavior Beads

I am excited to share these Behavior Beads with you today. They are from Run! Miss Nelson Has The Camera.  I think they are a great alternative to the Reward Basket that I've used for many years, but have never been completely satisfied with.

Here is a link to Miss Nelson's TpT store where you can find all the sets of Behavior Beads including a bunch of freebies. I couldn't decide between the Primary set and her original set for my grade two's - there were some in each that I wanted - so I asked her to make a customized set of 9 for me to go with the original set that I settled on to buy. (I couldn't resist a bunch of other sets, too...).  Here is a sample of 3 of the 9 customized tags in the set she made for me.

Other tags included in the set are Kind Kid, Top of the Chart (for use with behavior clip chart), Awesome attitude, Ready to Learn ( for use with behavior clip chart or for when students are displaying "ready" behavior), Looking and Listening (I have them show that they are listening by using listening eyes and hands), Perfectly Polite.  I am just so pleased with the way they turned out and feel a thrill every time I see them that I had a small part in their creation.  I am also happy to see that other teachers have downloaded them and have commented about their usefulness.
You can grab these at TpT on sale today by clicking here.  

Can you tell that I can hardly wait until school goes back in to start using these in my classroom?  I think that the kids are going to be really excited about getting them.

Second Post (with pictures!!) and a Freebie (if I can figure out how to link it...)

Wednesday August 14, 2013

Only three weeks left of summer and I'm really getting excited about getting back to school. At the same time I am beginning to panic a little about all the things I want to cram into these precious last weeks of summer:  visiting my parents on Vancouver Island,

View of the glacier in Courtenay, B.C.

 making dill pickles and canning peaches,

Last year's dwindling supply

cleaning, weeding, the list goes on and on.

Oh, did I mention getting my classroom ready?  I went in for a few hours on Sunday. It took me ages to figure out a new floor plan because I got a great new carpet (YAY!) late last year which I can have over in a corner instead of in the middle of the room.
I have been busy over the summer (inspired by the excellent blogs I've been following) updating some of my mismatched classroom items and making things that I've seen on Pinterest and in teaching blogs. I decided to redo some of my older things that needed a facelift (and after 20 years of teaching that added up to a lot) in primary colours - bright and simple.  I blew a wad of my Scholastic bonus coupons and picked up other goodies at dollar stores.

Here is one of the things I made. It is a set of washroom flipcards ala Clutter-Free Classroom.  After much thought I decided to go with student numbers on some things that will be used from year-to-year.  When kids go to the washroom they flip the cards so their number is on top.  When they return to the classroom they flip back so the "boys" or "girls" card is back on top. I made it easy for them to flip back to the "boys"or "girls" card by making them a bit bigger than their number cards. This picture is before it was assembled. I printed it on cardstock, laminated the cards and hole punched them, then attached the numbers on metal rings (after I took the pictures).  I think this will be a big improvement on having the kids print their names in a corner of the board, both aesthetically and functionally.

I am hoping to place a link to the flipcards here so that you can download them if you like them.  This is my first attempt at doing this so if it doesn't work and you'd like a copy please leave a comment and ask me to e-mail them to you.

I am planning to post my next blog much sooner than I got around to this one.  To be honest I was procrastinating while madly wishing for a copy of Blogging for Dummies (which I actually found in a google search!).  My next post will be about building a positive classroom atmosphere at the beginning of the school year.  I will include a freebie for an activity that my class does in the first week back.

Sunday Poetry Slam

This is my very first blog post and I'm pretty nervous. I hope it works....please leave me a comment to let me know.....

This poem is from the CanTeach website which has a good collection of poetry for kids. I used it with my grade one and two kids during the last week of school this year. There was no author credited with writing the poem so if you know who penned it please let me know too.

I gave my kids a 3 x 3 bingo sheet with 9 choices of activities on it. They had to complete three. If I was more experienced I would include a freebie of the sheet here:

But the sheet is locked up at school.  On it there was a variety of choices including reading the poem to yourself then to a friend using several different voices (eg whisper, excited, squeaky - you get the drift), draw a picture of your favourite line of the poem then print the line under the picture and write a sentence telling why you chose it, write 2 new lines for the poem ending with beach and peach, park and dark, etc., use your 5 senses to tell about one of these lines:  It's eating outside, It's water to wade, It's a tree-swing ride, It's dew in the morn. The kids LOVED this activity and I was surprised how many chose writing activities, and how many asked if it would be okay to do more than three!         

Summer 

I love summer! Summer is hot.
It's sun and shade.
It's water to wade.
It's frogs and bugs. It's grass for rugs.
It's eating outside.                          
It's a tree-swing ride.                        
It's tomatoes and corn.
It's dew in the morn.
It's dogs and boys
And lots of noise.
It's a hot sunny sky.
It's summer. That's why.....
I love summer.