The Beginning of the Year

The Beginning of the Year 

 I have this display of Quality Quentin on my wall outside of my classroom.  I take pictures of my kiddos to put on the little glaciers.

They are greeted by Quality Quentin when they enter the classroom.

 I read Quentin's First Day.  It is a book about how scared Quentin is to go to school and how Mama Penguin makes him feel better by teaching him the Quality Student song, so he knows how to behave at school.  You can get the book in our store.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Back-to-School-ELA-book-Quentins-First-Day-808786


Then we sing the Quality Student Song and act out the letters of "Quality"  This song is included with the book. You can also grab just the song for FREE:)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Quality-Students-Mp3-Song-450741

 After we have read the book and sung our Quality Student song, we will pass around Quality Quentin and each of the kiddos will say their name and what a quality student is.
"My name is Jon, and a quality student listens to the teacher."  We have these class meetings every day the first few weeks of school and then we will have them weekly.  My students really learn how a quality student acts.

I also talk to them about how they can earn these Quentin Dollars when they are Quality Students.  They also can lose them if they are not being quality students.  They get to go to the store when they earn 10 and they can save up 20 to get larger items.  The cool thing about this is they are learning about saving money to purchase something bigger.  I also had students to use their dollars to buy gifts for family members.  One little girl even asked about getting something for her brother's birthday but didn't have enough dollars, so I loaned them to her and was able to give her a mini lesson on loaning money from a bank.  It was great! And she was so proud and happy to be giving her brother a present that she felt like she earned.  I use these dollars now as my behavior system because it is so much easier and it takes away the pressure from the kiddos when they were changing their signs.  It is a free download in our store.  I just run them off in grayscale.

 I also use this as a class incentive.  We will vote on an activity that the class wants to do and when we get enough Quentins on the igloo, we will do the activity.  The kiddos love seeing the number of Quentins grow.  You can get these in our Back 2 School Bundle.  It is at the bottom of this post.

 The parents are very good about helping me with donating items for our little store.  I just ask for parents who can to sign up at the beginning of the year to donate.

 As you can see, they love the Quentin Dollars!

This is our September Word of the Day Calendar that we use at the beginning of the year.  My kiddos are given their own calendars so they will know what the word of the day is and the calendar has a pattern for the kiddos to follow.  They get so excited when they see Quentin on the pattern pieces!  We have these Word of the Day calendars for every month.  I am finishing August and then we will be bundling the whole year for a discounted price.  We hope you will follow us so you know when it is posted:)  Here is the link if you just want to try the September calendar.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-September-Calendar-829261

 This is something new that we just added to our Back 2 School Bundle.  You can also get this sample pack for free.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Freebie-Back-to-School-Sample-Pack-with-Quality-Quentin-1305041




Our Back 2 School Bundle has everything you have seen, the book, song, puppet, pocket chart poem, plus a whole lot more to get you ready for the beginning of school with Quality Student behavior.  There is also a Mandy and a Mama Penguin puppet for your kiddos to help act out the book.






This is just one of the printables in the bundle.

This is a book that the kiddos can illustrate themselves.    I just love their own pictures!  it makes each book unique:)

This is the cute Quality Quentin hat that is in the bundle. It has a word family color code.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Beginning-of-the-Year-Newly-Revised-752399

We hope ya'll got some ideas that will help you at the beginning of the year.

Please comment on what you like to do at the beginning of the year to get your kiddos ready for a successful school year:)

Have a great week!

Check out these great blogs for more ideas for your year!

http://wherethemagichappensdaily.blogspot.com

July 4th Blog Hop

We are joining 20 other great bloggers in this terrific Blog Hop.  Lots of FREEBIES and a rafflecopter where we all went in to give ya'll a chance to win one of the 4 $25 TPT gift certificates and a $15 Target card.  Good Luck!

We would like to remember any of ya'll that may be in the military or know someone who is and say "THANK YOU"  for everything you do for our wonderful country!

This is our sample pack you can grab as a FREEBIE from our store.  It is a short poem about being a quality student. It has pocket chart cards and a Quality Quentin puppet you can use to act out the poem.  Please remember to leave us a nice comment at our store if you do download this and you will get store credit if you do:)  We also hope you will follow our blog so you can read about all the activities we blog about.  We do a FUN FRIDAY where we share classroom activities and offer discounts or FREEBIES.  Be sure to watch for those:  We appreciate all the support!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Back-to-School-Sample-Pack-with-Quality-Quentin-1305041

You will get a Quentin puppet in your FREEBIE for your kiddos to color and cut out.  Just glue on a craft stick or paper bag.  We put dotted lines around him to make him easier to cut out.

This is a book about Quentin's First Day of School and how Mama Penguin helps him by teaching him the" Quality Student Song."  Our kiddos just love acting out the letters of "Quality" as they sing and dance to the song that is included.

This is just one of the cute printables that is in the bundle.

There is also sheets that your kiddos can illustrate from the Quality Student song.


This is a big book I had my kiddos do after we learned all about Quality Students.  They loved going back and reading it throughout the year.

 This was done by one of my ELL students who couldn't speak much english at the beginning of the year, but he loved singing and dancing to the Quality Student song.   He wrote words from the song on this picture.  He said that this was him dancing to the song:)  How cute is he!

You can get this book, rocking song , word family sheets, read around the room cards for letter sounds, printables and more.  We are offering the whole bundle for more than 50% off during the Hop. July 4-6.  Check it out.  Link under the picture.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Back-To-School-With-QuentinLiteracy-Pack-752399

We also have other bundles and products with Quality Quentin.  If you want to check them out, just go to our store and look under Custom Categories and click Quentin the Quality Penguin.  There is a fun book with Quentin in the pumpkin patch about being a quality student in our Fall Bundle.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Sol-Train-Learning


You can get all of the rest of  our products on sale for 20% July 4-6.  We also hope you are following our store so you can be notified of all of our new offerings.  We are working on a great Five Senses product now that will also have a rocking song that we are recording now, so look for that:)  

Happy July 4th!

Please leave us a comment about what you would like in Back to School Products.  We value your opinion!

And as an added bonus, all of the participating bloggers have 'pooled their cash' to purchase 4 $25 TpT gift certificates and 1 $10 Target gift card!

The first four selected will receive the TpT gift certificates and the 5th winner will receive the Target gift card!

Enter here, or on any of the participating blogs:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Just click on this link and follow all the other awesome blogs so you can grab more FREEBIES:)




                                         

An InLinkz Link-up

Fun Friday: Messy and Educational

Hello teacher friends,

So Fun Friday has moved into Slow Saturday given my current pregnancy hormones and yucky feelings :).  Since it's Summer for a lot of us, I decided it would be fun to share an outdoor activity that teaches the kids about abstract art and the modern artist, Jackson Pollack.  It also involves process art, which is very popular in early childhood education.

This is also a great activity for recycling unwanted clothes or extra rags.  I put rubber bands on various clothing items and also stuffed a few to make "ball" shapes.  The kids threw, slung, flicked, and smacked paint onto this giant butcher paper canvas.

They loved being told they could be messy.  All the paint was washable, but I do recommend messy clothes.  It was all over them.

The kids walked across the wet paint on the ground and accidentally created footprints!  It was a really cool effect.

Once the project is finished, you can use pieces for picture frame mats, wrapping paper, or you can put it on your bulletin board as a backdrop.

Excited to be a Grandma and $1 SALE

So I got this awesome news that my sweet daughter and partner is expecting my first grand baby!

We got this call that she and her hubby Kevin were stopping by with Sweet Frog-Yum!

Tim, this handsome man in the picture started to fix us coffee and Brittany said"You should drink it in these mugs, and places them down in front of us.  Best surprise and cup of coffee ever!!!!

So, I decided to share this awesome news with ya'll and put items on SALE in our dollar store.  We put some of our most popular products as well as tried to put something from preschool up to a high school item.  They will be there all day June 26, 27.

Just go to our store and look on the left where it says Custom Categories and click on Dollar Store if you want to see if there is anything that interests you.  Also, if you do get anything, we would appreciate kind comments if you like it.  You get store credit if you do.  We would love it if you would also follow our store if you like what you see.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Sol-Train-Learning

Here is our newest Scoot Game that is in there.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Scoot-Snow-Cone-AdditionSubtraction-to-20-1291380

We also have this fun Brain Bounce Game there:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-Quiz-Game-Candy-Brain-Bounce-1004173

And you can get this for Back to school: September Word of the Day Calendar:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-September-Calendar-829261

And there is more!:)

Please share comments about any advice you may have as a new parent or grandparent.

Thank ya'll so much!!

The Creative Teacher Giveaway: 1 for me and 1 for you!

Stephany Dillion is the winner of Quality Quentin!  We hope you enjoy him!!

We are so excited to join these wonderful, creative teachers!  You have an opportunity to win some great crafts for your classroom and home.  We have created and made Quality Quentin to help improve behavior in our classrooms in a fun way.  Our kiddos just love taking him home!

Meet Quentin the Quality Penguin.  He is our class mascot, and helps my kiddos to be quality students.  They take turns taking him home in a bag with a journal, so they can write about his time with them at home.   The students will read the journal during our carpet time.  They have to be a quality student in order to be able to take him home.  He has really helped the behavior of my students.

My kiddos just love Quentin!  They even give him little gifts from home.  One little gal made him a belt and one little guy gave him the scarf during the winter because he didn't want Quentin to be cold:)

I also use Quentin during our class meetings.  The students pass him around as we discuss "What Quality Students are"  We usually listen and sing this song first.  It helps my kiddos to remember what a quality student is.  You can get the song in our store for a dollar.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Quality-Students-Mp3-Song-45074



We also sing this song about not being a bully.  Quentin raps about bully prevention.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bully-Prevention-Song-Quality-Quentin-Rap-808752


I use these Quentin dollars for good behavior.  My kiddos love earning them and using them in our class store.  They are a free download at our store:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Quality-Quentin-Dollars-711585

We also have a book about Quentin's first day of school and how his mom teaches him the Quality Student song.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Back-to-School-ELA-book-Quentins-First-Day-808786

We have several products with Quentin in them.  If ya'll are interested in checking any of them out, just go to our store and look under Custom Categories under Quentin the Quality Penguin.

I use Quentin to welcome my new First Graders.  I take their pictures and put them on the ice floes.  They get so excited to see the real one in my class when I show him to them.

We are giving a Quentin away for the Teacher Giveaway.  It will just be the penguin.  The clothes aren't included.  We bought the clothes, hat and shoes at Build-A-Bear.

We will be selling Quentin puppets soon.  If you're interested,  you can follow us so you will know when they are available:)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


And here is my blog button: 

See who's next in our FABULOUS giveaway: