My students eat crayons!

Well,  at least that is the only explanation I can come up.  I always keep baskets of extra crayons on a shelf so that students can borrow what they need instead of asking me for them.  In past years I have keep the extra crayons separated by color families like reds, blues, greens, etc.  Like this:

This works okay, but when I ask students to use a red crayon sometimes they color it red violet or some other reddish color. 

That.

Makes.

Me.

Crazy.

I know it seems silly, but on our math tests sometimes I ask students to color one shape green and something else yellow and they grab a yellow green crayon for both.  So when I grade it I'm thinking  "what is that supposed to be?  Surely my little darling did it correctly and just thought they were using two different colors, right?  Right.  Well...."  And it goes on and on.  Maybe I'm too picky, or nuts, but I can't stand it. 

Anyways, back the story.  I decided to sort out the ACTUAL colors into smaller containers.  So, only "red", not scarlett, red violet (or violet red- seriously, is crayola trying to make teachers go crazy?)  This is what I ended up with:

So, obviously, the only logical explanation is that my students eat crayons.  
Okay, maybe not, but geeezzzz!  What am going to do now?  Two black crayons and some little brown fragments.  Do I buy the cheap packs of 24 crayons for the 7 or 8 colors I need or buy the more expensive 8 packs. Bummer.  I decided to leave them on the floor of my classroom and decided what to do another day.
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I did manage to get some other things accomplished today.  Here is what I did to my white board today.  The Rockstar section will have a cutout (maybe guitars or stars, I haven't decided) with each students name.  This is where they will start each morning. 
Our school-wide behavior program has paws that students start with and they lose if they make unfortunate decisions during the day.  At the end of each quarter, we have a party for students that have enough paws left.  That is what the paws lost section will be used for- students will have to move their paws into the corresponding box when they lose paws.  I also made a box for the date and day of the week, obviously.  
I used the decorative tape I got from Walmart (for $.88) to make the boxes and then cut out the words with my silhouette machine.  I'm really happy with how it turned out, except I think I might make the "paws lost" bigger, but maybe not.  

Oh yeah, and see the border?  I put magnets on the back of it so that I can easily move it or take it off. 

Here is my headphone storage idea.  I was going wait to blog about this until it was finished, but I won't be able to finish it up until I get pictures of my kiddos, and I thought someone might want to do something similar before school starts.  I use my Silhouette machine to cut out iPod shapes (because we're rockstars, remember?) and I plan to put a picture of each child inside of the rectangle and then laminate them.  I bought magnetic chip clips at the Dollar Tree to hang them.  Students will drape their earbuds over the clip to keep them tangle-free.  Last year, I was ready to pull my hair out because every time students got out their earbuds they were a tangled mess.  And guess who got to do the untangling??? 

I'm really hoping this will keep them accessible an ready to use at all times.  They are on the side of my filing cabinet- I put some on each side.  

Do you have a brilliant idea for headphone storage?  I would love to know how others stay organized.

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I also want to say a big THANKS to Courtney from Teaching in Paradise for my prize.  I won her 100 follower giveaway and it came today!  I was so excited to get some mail.  Thanks again, Courtney, and congrats on 100 followers!

I don't know why it is sideways.  I give up. 

Have a great evening!

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Punch Card Rewards

For the past two years, I have had a punch card reward system in my classroom.  It has worked very well in the past and I'm planning on using it again this year (with a few tweaks).  Our primary team met today and decided that we will all use our school's PAW Buck system as our main behavior management program and punch card rewards.  
I'm thrilled that we are using the punch cards, but not having students turn cards will be an adjustment.  I'm ready for it, though, and I think it will be a good change.  
When I had a card turning system, I gave students two punches each day that they remained on blue all day (the best), and one punch for green.  No punches were given if the student was on yellow or red.  I also have a heart shaped hole punch that I used when students were caught being extra good (or received a compliment from another student/teacher).  So, students had an opportunity to earn a full punch card every other week (or sooner with hearts).  I loved that this really focused on my students who always make the right decisions.  I'm always afraid that they don't get enough credit for being sweet and helpful.  
The first year I tried this, I had one page of rewards that students could choose from when their card was full.  Last year, I had three pages and students could save up full punch cards to earn bigger prizes.  I only had one student that managed to hold onto her cards long enough to get to the third page, so this year I decided to cut it down to two pages.  Most of my rewards are things that don't cost a thing - which is great for us poor teachers, right???

You can get a copy of my punch card rewards for free by clicking here. 

I have used Vistaprint in the past to make my punch cards.  They usually (and I just checked and they do right now) have free business cards you can order.  You just have to pay shipping on them.  I tried to pick something with a pretty plain design to leave me plenty of room for 20 punches (4 rows of 5).  This year I decided to change things up a little bit.  I found some really cute little pockets at the Dollar Tree (and forgot to take a picture of them).  They are black with bright colored stars on them and will match our other rockstar items awesomely (that's a word, right?).  They are similar to library card pockets (which our Dollar Tree also had in neon colors).  I don't think the business cards would be big enough to stick out of them, so I made my own.  I am going to print them on card stock and store them in the pockets.  There are 20 stars so when each of the stars has been punched, the card will be full.  

You can download these for free by clicking here.

Aren't these perfect, too???? Heading off to order them in just a minute!  Star punches instead of the stars.  Yay!  It's the little things, you know?  You can find them here. 

What ways do you reward positive behavior in your classroom?  I would love to hear others' ideas.  

Don't forget to "Like" me on Facebook.  :)  I'm hoping to figure out how to link my blog and Facebook page soon- if you have any words of wisdom let me know! :)

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Class Dojo

Last week I read about Class Dojo on a couple of different blogs and I was interested in trying it out.  If you haven't heard of it yet, you have to check it out.  Class Dojo is an online behavior management system.  The great part is kids can earn positive points for good behavior.  I don't know about you, but I feel like sometimes my sweet, well-behaved students sometimes get overlooked when I'm dealing with the negative behaviors.  Well, not anymore!  

This is a screen shot from yesterday.  All students started with the little round polka dot guy and the students with the highest points at the end of each day got to choose a new avatar.  Click here to go to Class Dojo.

I headed over to the Class Dojo website and started playing around with it on Wednesday night.  I set up a my class and I also set up a class for my RtI small group. I use my SmartBoard to show the students their points several times a day.  They begged me to show points all day.  The really cool thing is you can hear a little *ding* every time a point is given.  If you leave the Class Dojo window minimized while doing other things on the SmartBoard, students can hear points that are given (or taken away- it's a different sound) while working.  


I decided that I would give Class Dojo a trial run for the last 20 days of school so that I can decide if I want to use it next year.  So far, I'm loving it.  I just use either the iPad or my iPhone to give points to students.  I like the iPad because I can see all students on the same screen, so I have been using it in the classroom most of the time.  If we go outside for recess, I tell the students I'm taking my phone so that I can give points.  (I always tell them I'm taking it to GIVE points, so hopefully this will focus on encouraging good behavior).  I also told our superintendent what I'm doing so that if she sees me on my phone in the hallway she won't think I'm texting.  


The reports from Class Dojo are also very good.  You can do an overall classroom report.  I actually pulled this up and showed my students at the end of the day.  (What a great little lesson on graphs, huh?)  An even cooler feature, is the email reports tab.  If parents give you an email address you can automatically email them the daily (or weekly) report.  I love being able to share information so easily.  


I also like the fact that I can see if we are meeting our 85% goal for good behavior (school-wide goal).  We just barely made it today, but I did have one student that had a tough day.  

I'm liking Class Dojo so far, I hope it continues to be a good motivator for students.  I think if I do use it next year, I will come up with a list of rewards students can earn at certain point levels.  You can reset students points at anytime you want to.  I can't decide if I want to do daily or weekly points.  Have you tried it yet?  If not, you should check it out!Pin It