The Ticket to Better Behavior!

Everyone knows the last few days before break are CRAZY, especially summer break!  I think I have found the ticket to keeping their behavior in check.  I tried it today and it worked amazingly well. 

I know you are asking, what is it?!?!  I brought in a beach bucket and a basket full of treasures from the dollar store (and various things hidden in my classroom).  I also had a roll of star tickets (from oriental trading).  I explained to the kids that when I see a behavior I like, I will give out a ticket.  They are not guaranteed and can not be asked for.  They never know when I might start handing them out or for what.  They write their name on the ticket and drop it in the bucket.  (I also did a quick probability review of the more tickets in the bucket the more likely you are to get picked!)  Several times during the day, I draw a few tickets out to win.  Students can win more than once, that way they keep working for the chance.  One of the most popular prizes today, believe it or not, was a bag of Cheetos! 

It worked like a charm.  I hope the school year runs out before the novelty runs out!  I will keep this in my arsenal to use the week before Christmas and Spring Break too!  If you aren't one of the lucky ones already out for summer, give it a try!

After school today I went by Publix to pick up a few things for dinner and was so excited by my awesome find!  Next year I am doing a Lego/ Building Brick theme in my classroom and check out what I found!

They were finished with it and going to throw it away.  Who could throw away a 5 foot tall Lego dude with a surfboard! (The picture does not do it justice.) Much to my embarrassed daughters dismay, I asked it I could have it.  So I left the store with a cart full of groceries, and 5 foot tall Lego cut-out and a daughter pretending not to know who I was.  It made my day!!!  I can not wait to use it in my classroom next year.  Oh the ideas I am have!  I can cover the surfboard so easy.

Speaking of my upcoming theme, I am putting together some great things and I can't wait to share!

Ready for Summer

Are you ready for summer?  I am and I'm not.  I'm not ready in sense that I have way more work to complete than the 8 days I have left to complete it in.  Of course there are the typical grades, graphs and end of the year paperwork things.  Then there are the awards and end-of-the year projects.  I am also moving classrooms this year.  This may not seem like a big deal, but if you have seen my classroom, you know this is a huge deal!  I am a collector of stuff!  My fellow teachers joke about going "shopping" in my office for various things they may need.  The sad part is I usually have at least one if not two of what they are looking for.  I am always prepared, even over prepared when it comes to stuff!  Not to pack and move all this STUFF!

I am ready for the summer and the fun and extra time that comes with it.  As I write this post I am actually sitting on the dock enjoying the Suwannee River!  The town of Suwannee, where my family has a vacation home, is so laid back and relaxing.  It is like going back in time.  My girls are jumping off the dock having a fabulous time swimming.  They got to walk to the only store down here all by themselves and then for the ultimate fun they got to ride in the back of the truck.  These are all things I took for granted growing up.  With all that goes on today, most kids don't get to enjoy the simple pleasures.  I'm so happy my girls get to enjoy it once in a while. 

I was reading the latest Organized Classroom End of the Year e-magazine and saw an idea for the cutest writing.  (If you haven't discovered this e-magazine yet, make sure you check it out!)  I do several writings about what the kids want to do over the summer.  (Such as this Have a Ball freebie featured in the TpT 10 Free Downloads Newsletter today!)  I have never done a writing where I ask the kids what they think their teacher will be doing over the summer.  I can't wait to hear what they think.  From the reactions I get from my students when they see me at the grocery store, I think they believe I live at school.  Here is the writing paper I will have kids do this week.  You can grab it FREE here!

I am also happy to be the featured blogger on www.teachingblogroundup.com today.  Make sure to come by and read my post.  It features a Summer TIME freebie and information about several summer reading incentives.

Digital Media Awards

Woo Hoo!  I just got back from a fabulous event our county holds every year.  It is a "Grammy's" type award show for digital media created by collaborative groups of kids in out county.  Each school selects their best projects in the various categories, the the county narrows it down to the top 3 in each category.  Every year it amazes me to see what the kids can do!

One of my class projects that won tonight is this digital flip book.  The kids wrote original word family poems and illustrated them on iPads.  Then we recorded them reading them using Quicktime.  This was so easy to make on flipsnack.  The text and illustrations were saved as a PDF and then uploaded to flipsnack.  Check out the finished project here!

Each of the 4 girls who created this project received a bog of S.W.A.G. including a t-shirt.  They also received a beautiful glass award.

I had another group make it to the top three finalist for a movie about hatching the ducks.  Unfortunately, their project didn't win (although I think it was the best!)

My oldest daughter, had a movie project make it to the finals.  It was a video diary and scavenger hunt of their field trip to the Kennedy Space Center.  The things she can do amaze me more and more every day!  Their project won!

They also select a Digital Media Award Teacher of the Year.  The teachers who have finalist projects are eligible for this.  The winner gets $2,000 DMA Dollars to spend on technology for their classroom.  I was shocked and honored to win this award this year!  Woo Hoo I can not wait to figure out what to get for my kiddos next year!  If you had $2,000 for technology in your classroom, what would you buy?

Have a BALL this Summer!

I know I have been out of touch lately.  It is the crazy end of year stuff.  We just found out our grade assignments for next year.  I am staying in first grade again, I was kind of hoping to go to kindergarten again and loop up, but hopefully the following year.  I am a little (a lot) sad that my teaching partner is moving up to second grade.  I will miss her so much!  We were a phenomenal teaching duo.  I have been lucky enough to have had two great teaching partners, hopefully I will find another one next year.  One good thing to come next year is I get to move to a new classroom with windows!!!  I have been in a classroom for 2 years without an outside view.  I have a fake window in my room with a big sunshine, so it's always sunny in my room!  So now the dilemma is with a new room do I do a new theme?? (more on that to come...)

I plan to have a ball this Summer!  I am sure your kids are getting very excited about Summer too.  I think Summer fever is way worse than Spring fever!  I have a fun writing activity I am planning to do this week and thought I would share!

It is the new feature item in my TpT store or click here to download it directly.  This freebie and many more are featured on Classroom Freebies Manic Monday!

Teacher Appreciation Freebies Roundup

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week and Five for Friday!!

1. Thank Goodness it's Friday!

OMG after GMADE/GRADE testing all week I am soooo happy it is Friday!  This has been the longest week ever!

2.  M-I-C    K-E-Y  M-O-U-S-E

I am so excited to get to spend the weekend at the most magical place on Earth with my Mom and daughters.  I am even taking Monday and Tuesday off.  I can not wait and need this so much after this past week.

3.  Mother's Day Project

This year for Mother's Day, we decorated tiles.  We used 6" x 6" tiles and decorated them with Sharpie Oil Paint Pens.  They turned out so cute!  Even better they were easy and cheap!

We also wrote acrostic poems for our Mothers and a book "What Mommies Do Best.  I think everyone will love them!

4.  Bobcat's Got Talent

I just got back from our school's talent show.  My youngest daughter competed and did fantastic!  This was her second year doing it.  She won last year!  This year she was in a different, harder category and received honorable mention.  I think I was even more proud of her this year for taking it all in stride and congratulating the winners.  I think it is important to learn to win and lose in life.  Lucky for Tori, she normally wins!

5.  Teacher Appreciation Freebies Roundup

Teacher Appreciation Week may be coming to an end, but the celebration isn't over yet!  Teaching Blog Roundup is teaming up with 20 of the best blogs to host this Teacher Appreciation FREEBIES Roundup blog hop.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!  I would like to show my appreciation with this great freebie for you.

This is a perfect end of year writing. Makes a great bulletin board.  I copy the cover of the Popsicle books on various colors of neon paper.  Click here to grab it free!

I'm glad you hopped by!  If you are new to my blog and liked what you see, don't forget to follow me!  Now head over to Happy Teacher Heaven to roundup the next FREEBIE!

We Appreciate You!

Today's Ahh Ha Moment!

Hi everyone, I have just a quick post to share my ahh ha moment today!

Our county Technology Department does a Digital Media Awards for students K-12 every year.  Students can submit projects done in class throughout the year for this Oscar's type awards show.  We were finishing up one of my student's group projects and adding the video/audio recording.  I frequently have the students record themselves reading on the mac.  Normally they have the book or paper they are reading from in front of them or I hold it up above the computer.  Then the video is normally of them looking at the paper while they read.  Today I had time crunch and couldn't print the student poems they were reading.  I had them typed on my computer already, so I decided they could just read them off my computer screen.  I opened Quicktime Video Recorder and shrunk the window so the student could see it and the poem on my screen.  So now the student was looking straight ahead at the screen (and camera) while reading.  It worked fantastic!!!!  I know this isn't a major discovery for some, but wow I love it!  I can't wait for the new reading series next year with the books on the computer, I can have the students record themselves reading in a center.  Great fluency practice with real accountability!  

On another note, I hope you are having a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week!  Huge sales at TpT and TN today and tomorrow.  I also want to let you know about a big blog hop taking place Friday!  You don't want to miss it!

May, Worms, Ducks, Sale and a Freebie Oh My!

Hello May!  (How did I miss the first 5 days?)  At any rate I have so much going on as you will see in my post.  It may be a little long... so I am giving you 2 3 FREEBIES!

To start things off I am linking up with Farly's Oh' Boy 4th Grade May's Currently.  This is a great link up with so many fabulous blogs featured.  I can literally get lost on this linky for hours....  I only a few days late linking up, so here is what I am currently up to!

I want to update you on our little ducklings.  We had 9 of our little ducks hatch Saturday during the day.  I was so bummed that it didn't happen on a school day.  I was able to stream it live and many families watched.  I also recorded it to show my class too.

Aren't they adorable!!!  I will bring them in for my students to see tomorrow.  I will have to wait until after we complete the sections our standardized test for the day.  I will hide them out in my office until then.  Here is a "Hatching Announcement" we will complete to share the great news!  It can be used for ducks or chicks!  Students draw pictures of the new arrivals, list their names and their hatchdate.  Grab it FREE here!

In addition to hatching our ducks, we also have been learning about earthworms.  Before you ask, NO I am not going to feed my worms to my ducks!  Although I could use it to teach about food chains!  Before doing this earthworm unit, hatching eggs was my favorite unit/ lesson I did.  Now, I will have to say I think I like teaching about Earthworms just as much as my little guys love learning about them!

I have put together everything I have used while teaching about these amazing little diggers in to my new (finally completed) Primary Unit All About Earthworms!  The unit is packed with so many activities and printables.  It is for sale in my TpT and TN stores for $2.95.  There is a great FREE activity in the preview.  If you are looking for a fun, educational and dirty activity for the last few weeks of school, this is it!!

It gets even better with Teacher Appreciation Sales this week!  Teachers Notebook is running a sale all week!  Teachers Notebook is giving an extra 10% off sale prices for the entire week!  My items, including my new Earthworms Unit are 20% off, for a total discount of 28%.  Teachers Notebook is also having a giveaway everyday!  Make sure to stop by for your chance to win!

In case you haven't heard, Teachers Pay Teachers is having a 2-day Teachers Appreciation Sale May 7th and 8th!  You can save up to 28%!  So start adding to your wishlist!

Speaking of Teacher Appreciation Week, I thought I would share one of the items I am giving a few of my favorite teachers this week!

Click here to grab these tags free!  They also make great gifts for volunteers at the end of the year!  I actually make up a few to have on hand for whenever I may need them.  You can get these cute coffee cups at the dollar tree!  Include a coffee gift card if you like!

OK, I guess this about does it!  I am linking up with Manic Monday!  Don't forget to check in over there for more great freebies!  Check back later this week for information on a Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop coming up packed with freebies for you!

Friday Five and Freebie!

1.  My Little Duck Eggs

Today was day 25 for my little duck eggs and it was the last day I was supposed to turn them.  This morning my daughter went to turn them and says “Mom, they have cracks!”  I responded, “did you drop them?”  She said, “No and I hear them peeping!” They should have started hatching possibly Sunday but most likely Monday and Tuesday.  Well apparently, the eggs did not get the memo!  As much as I was excited, I was bumbed too because the students won’t be there.  I am streaming live with the “egg cam” on the class blog.  If you would like to check it out, click here.

2.  Do UStream

Speaking of streaming the eggs hatching live, UStream makes it all possible!  This is a great site and FREE!  The one downfall is the ads.  A few of them are not really appropriate for school.  You can pay for a membership and not have the ads.  I tried finding another site, but couldn’t find one that was this easy.  Does anyone else have a site they use??

The best is there is a few second delay.  SO right now my youngest daughter is sticking her hand under the camera and then running to see it on the computer.....

3.  Ducks Can Have Are Freebie

Well with all of the rain we are getting this weekend, it is a great day for ducks!  Here is a Friday Freebie for you!  Click here to grab it FREE!

4.  Teaching Blog Roundup

My new collaborative  blog, www.teachingblogroundup.com is up and running.  There have been several great post this week.  I love meeting all of the new partner bloggers.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, it is a must!!! 

5.  A Better Day

Today was a much better day!  (Well at least 90% of it!) It has been a tough week to say the least.  However today we made it through most of our day with fewer meltdowns and interruptions.  We made it to the last 30 minutes of the day.  I am still excited to have Saturday and Sunday!

I'm off to blog hop!  I love looking through the links at Five for Friday to see what everyone is up to.  I have found some of my favorites. 

What a Day!

I have had the most stressful few days!  What do you do when you have a poor kiddo who can't help themselves or control their behavior.  Especially when the behavior is so disruptive to the rest of the class and hinders their learning.  It isn't the student's or the rest of the classes fault.  Then there is nothing you can really do to help until all of the paperwork, graphs and steps are complete.  Ahhhhhh!

It is also stressful because the student is new to the class and school.  So my class is in the home stretch for the year.  We are doing some great projects, stepping up the level to get ready for 2nd grade and the class is running smoothly.  This is my favorite part of the year!  Then it is like I am back at day 1 with my new student. 

I guess I will just do the best I can to make it through the last few weeks and hope it gets better.  I am trying positive thinking!  Tomorrow WILL be a good day.