Sunday, June 15, 2014

Behavior Management Ideas and Freebies

I start my year with reading Quentin's First Day.  It is our book about a scared penguin who is afraid to go to school, and his mom teaches him the"Quality Student " song. It makes him feel better because he knows what to do now.  He also shares the song with his penguin friend Mandy.


Then we sing this "Quality Students" song which teaches us how to be quality students.  My kiddos love spelling and acting out each letter to "Quality."  You can grab it for free. We would really appreciate your kind comments when you download it.  Thanks!




We also learn about not be bullies by singing this song about Bully Prevention.  You can also get it in our store.





Next we have a class meeting where we go around the circle and say our names and what a quality
student is.  My name is...... and a quality student........


The student who is talking is holding Quentin the Quality Penguin.  Nobody else is allowed to talk.



We also write a class big book on Quality Students.





Free Download at our store.


These are our Quentin Dollars which we can earn for being quality students.  When you get 10, you can go to the small store.
Or you can save to 20 and go to the larger store.
You could also do computer time or give out homework passes.  My kiddos love the store!  I even had some of them using their dollars to buy gifts for family members.  One student wanted something for her brother's birthday and didn't have 20 dollars, so she borrowed from the bank-me:)
It was so great to use this opportunity to talk to her about a loan!

This idea has given me opportunities to teach economic concepts as well as have well-behaved students!



I have used many different behavior management ideas, but this has been the best for me.  It is easy to do and the kiddos love it!

No more turning signs.  I just take a Quentin dollar away when someone is misbehaving, and discuss how it cost them.

I also have students asking me to do extra work to earn dollars.




I send home Quentin every night in a bag with a book and journal with a "quality student"  and they write about what he did at their house.  Some of them have given him toys and books.  They have also made him things.  One kiddo sent him this scarf in the winter so he wouldn't be cold.  The deal is you have to be a quality student in order to take him home.  This includes getting your work done.  This has really helped my kiddos to be quality students. 






This poem is also a Free Download.




You can get the book and song in our store.





We have a Back to School Bundle that has the book, song, read around the room cards, Quality Student poem, activities, and printables which include questions about the book.  This igloo and small Quentins are also included.  We use this as a classroom management tool.  We put Quentins on the igloo when the class is doing well and do something, like extra recess, game day or a special treat when we earn 20.










We hope you got some ideas for behavior management.  We will be selling Quentin puppets soon if you're interested.




Be sure to check out some other awesome ideas from these other great ladies!

                                       





Friday, June 13, 2014

FUN FRIDAY and $1 SALE for Birthday Bash:)








This is our May Word of the Day Calendar and I have my kiddos to circle 5 of the words that go together and they write a story using those words.  It has really helped to improve vocabulary development as well as writing skills.





These are a few of the great writings that they did using the words.  Some of my kiddos actually wanted to use more than 5 words.  Yay!!


 I just love what this ELL student wrote about "culture"

This little ELL student couldn't write a complete sentence in September, now look at him go!








We had fun playing our Quest Game.




These are the cards included.  You can use them in a center or you can use them in the game. I chose to just use the list of words and recording sheet in the class version







I always let my kiddos study their calendar words before we play our Bounce Game.  The Bounce Game has questions about their calendar words for the month.  My students love this game!

This is my ELL teacher listening to one of my kiddos read her question card for her team.



We also have used the cards as a read around the room activity.  My ELL teacher said, "Our Word of the Day Calendar Words and Word of the Day Products have really improved her ELL student's vocabulary development.  All of our WIDA scores for our ELL students improved this year!  Yay!!

These are our Word of the Day Products we use each month.  We have all of them on sale for a $1 today June 13 and June 14 as a Birthday Bash for Brittany!  All ya'll have to do is go to our store and look under custom categories and look under Word of the Day to see all of them.







http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-May-Brain-Bounce-Game-1218110










We hope ya'll enjoyed FUN FRIDAY and will come back Sunday for our Behavior post.

Have a great weekend!




















Saturday, June 7, 2014

Math Workshop



I usually start my Math Workshop with about 10 minutes of group  math instruction.  Then I  begin 20 minute guided math groups like you would do guided reading groups.  This is one of my centers that my kiddos might go to while I am meeting with a group.  It is our Quentin Task Cards.  They are word problems using addition and subtraction.  There are fish manipulatives to help the kiddos who need them.



This little gal even drew the fish.




This center is one of the favorites because my kiddos love the coin books.  They like to match the coins to each page and then count the amounts when they are ready.   There is a book for each individual coin and then one that is about counting all the coins together.  These little books are in our Money Bundle.







This is a missing addend center.  There are also flower manipulatives.  They are in our Plant Bundle.







My kiddos also love the pattern blocks.


And of course, we love our computers!  These guys are doing Moby Max.  It is a great program that you can try out for free for a month.




















We also have Scoot Math Games that we play.  They are fun ways to review math skills that keep the kiddos up and moving.  You can also use these cards in math centers.



We are having a SCOOTin Sunday SALE today, June 8. You can grab this popular Scoot game that can also be used n a math center with coins for $1.  You can also look under Categories under Scoot Games on our store and see several SCOOT games, including our Bundle with 4 games in it, all for a $1 today.












We hope that you got some fun ideas for your math workshop.  Check out some other great ideas here: