I love my clip chart as you know, but every class comes with is own specific needs and there have been classes that needed something a bit more.  I've got two simple whole class motivators I've used in conjunction with the clip chart. I'll share one today and one tomorrow, you know, to build suspense and stuff.

Today's focus is the Fun Friday Bus. I'm no Ms. Frizzle, but I must say this is a pretty awesome bus.  I've been teaching gifted second graders for a while and man, they can talk! Most of the time I love it. I love a little hum in the room almost all the time. Almost. Sometimes it's hard for seven year-olds to understand when it's time to be really quiet (like when Mrs. Boehm just needs one.little.second to catch her breath! But I digress...)  In that case, I like for the whole class to have a visual way for them to work together to earn something fun. Some years I don't need this at all, some years I need it starting around March and some years it goes up the minute those cute little faces say good-bye on the first day of school. Today my kids were seriously vibrating with energy that was a little hard to channel, so on Monday they will be boarding the bus! There's no fancy name for this one, I just call it the Fun Friday Bus. It's a strip of border attached to the top of my white board with some printable road signs.

For those times when more than just one or two kids needs a clip down or up, I move the Fun Friday Bus to get their attention. The bus was a bulletin board piece attached to a magnet.  I always have Fun Friday, but the kids have to earn the length of time by moving the bus to various road stops. Added bonus: somehow they are usually downright angelic on Friday morning if they are a bit far from goal. As if you needed another reason to love Friday~You're Welcome!

This works great for entering in the morning, transitions, coming back from lunch - basically any time they got a little wound up and I don't want to have 10 kids moving their clips. It's also great if they earn a compliment in the hall or when everyone comes in from recess the first time I call them.  The bus can also move back and forth all during the week as needed.

If you want to get the bus moving in your room, click on the bus below to get a copy of the signs. There are some blank ones so that you can write your own ideas for road signs and customize them for your room (and a bus of course)!  Click on this link to get the Road pattern border.You could always create your own with construction paper.

Eat your heart out Frizz, you're not the only one with a magic school bus!

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I forgot to mention in yesterdays post, that I had my first observation with our new evaluation system on Friday. Yes, Friday. I had an inkling it was coming as the administration had been around to most other classrooms during the week. I would have been happy for them to stop in at any time during the week. I had such cool New Year's things going on and my reading groups were humming along, plus I had ClassDojo up and running and it was really working well. By Friday afternoon at 1:35, I figured I was off the hook for this week. We started Fun Friday and I was working on a special art project for a fun event I'll blab about soon. With all that going on and about 20 minutes left in the week -guess who pops in. Uh huh. For real. My face must have been a mix of oh crap-are you kidding me-now?! because my principal's face immediately softened and she actually apologized for coming in at such an odd time, but apparently I was the only teacher left in the school no one had visited. Grrrrreat! I explained that it was Fun Friday and she said she was just going to sit and watch my management style. OhhhKay...I wasn't really managing much at the moment. But my kids were pretty calm for a Fun Friday and I was working with a couple of girls at the back table. I interacted with the kids who were enjoying their free time and there was a neat little buzz in the room without it being too crazy. There was plenty of evidence of my management style up and around the room between my clip-chart, my Fun Friday Bus, my Behavior Bingo chart and my Dojo (Oh man, I AM Miss. RewardsALot!).  I think it went ok even though I wasn't actually teaching anything, but I'll let you know.

The standard they were looking for is:
 What will I do to recognize and acknowledge adherence or lack of adherence to rules and procedures?

* Demonstrating “withitness”

* Applying consequences for lack of adherence to rules and procedures

* Acknowledging adherence to rules and procedures

Now, for those of you using ClassDojo already, you can see how EXACTLY perfect Dojo is for this one! I was a bit hesitant to use a system that made the negative points obvious to the whole class, but I do believe that certain children seeing that they "lost" a point has a lot more impact than getting a thousand points. I do still definitely believe in focusing on the positive and for almost all children that is the way to keep them moving forward, but as we all know, not all kids respond the same way to the same things.

If you are new to Dojo, you'll see when you set up your class that you can choose which behaviors you want to show on the positive or negative side. You can also customize and add your own.

When you first sign in, you'll be walked through exactly what you need to do to get started - they make it very easy. One thing I noticed is that even though I had done the steps to start, it kept asking me to repeat the steps. That actually went away after a few times.

I was going to add some photo tutorials, but I realize that I'm already writing long past what I had planned and I'm sure you probably have better things to do this Sunday than read about me and Dojo.
Instead, I'll tell you a few things I've found so far. I've only been a Dojo teacher for about a week, but honestly it is so easy to set up, manage and use that I kind of feel like a Dojo Sensei already! Ok, I may be reaching there, but really it is easy to use.

Things I love:
-Ease of use
-Customization of behaviors, avatars, and sound alerts
-The audible alerts really motivate the students even if they can't see the screen
-Printable reports for each student or the whole class. The reports are incredible! I can do a whole post on the reports (they are perfect for RtI)
-Using my iphone as a remote
-Its FREE! (but it's so good, I'm wondering how it can be free or for how long)
-My admin loooooooooved the idea
-Dojo really can replace all of my supplemental behavior plans and just work nicely with my clip chart
-Someone from ClassDojo actually read and commented on this post yesterday! (Hi Kalen!)

Things I'd like to see:
-The visual alert disappears too quickly from the screen. Sometimes by the time they look at the board, the alert is gone
-I'd love to be able to award points to a group of kids that would then also be applied to their individual avatar
-It would be great if the alert would come up over other programs running on the Smartboard (although I think this one is in the works)

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to help the best I can. Don't miss the help/feedback sections. I learned a lot sifting through there.

Well friends, I'm off to whip up some breakfast and finish up the de-Christmas-ization of my house. I swear the older I get, the more I understand my grandmothers little ceramic tree, but before I go, I have to say something about your comments. I can't even tell you how thrilling it is when I get an email alert that someone has left a comment on a post. Even though I might not respond to them individually, I do read each one! I have a comment thing though. I even read comments on other blogs before I post my comment. It's a good thing I'm a fast reader when I visit Kristin or Kristen.  Jennifer is so incredible about commenting that I feel like we're real friends - the same with Jen. Thank you to everyone who takes a second to comment. It really means the world to me!

P.S. I just uploaded my newest product to tpt that I'm pretty stoked about. It's a whole pack of classroom resources for the Super Bowl! Check it out {HERE}

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Many years ago, a good friend of mine came to work at my school mid-year to take over for another teacher who was leaving.(Hi Gina!). Gina is my friend, not the crazy interesting teacher I'm going to tell you about, we'll call her Miss RewardsALot. Gina is by all accounts a master teacher. One whom I credit with many of my good teacher habits, but that's a whole 'nother post. Gina and I are very similar in our teaching and management styles, both very down to earth, very real with the kids and sometimes just the teensy-tiniest bit of sarcasm sneaks out (not the mean kind, I promise. The kind like when a kid comes to you with a nearly invisible paper cut and you ask if they want you to call 911. That kind.)

Around lunch time, I saw Gina looking less than laid-back. I just figured Miss RewardsALot's class was giving her a run for her money, which surprised me because she can handle just about anything. When she started telling me what was going on, it was like someone was setting her up to be on Punk'd- Sneaky School Edition.

Apparently, up until this point, in Miss RewardsALot's class the kids earned a cotton ball in a jar every time someone moved their stick in their pocket which allowed them all to get a marble in the compliment box as long as they walked quietly in the hall so they could also get a link on the hallway chain which also earned a point toward the pizza party reward if they reached the top of the behavior chart by getting 100 points in class bingo. Following? Yeah, neither did Gina, or the kids. This has become a running joke between the two of us. This teacher seriously had about 8 different behavior management strategies and none of them were working. It didn't take Gina long to empty the cotton balls, sticks and marbles and put one good system in place.

Now, why do I tell you this rambling story? Because lately I was starting to worry that I'm turing into a Miss RewardsALot. True Confession. I implemented the Clip Chart system two years ago and LOVED it. Still do. Then I found Behavior Bingo and it was a nice little addition. Then even with that, I felt like I needed a little something to motivate the class as a whole group, so the Fun Friday Bus drove into town. Now I recently stumbled upon Class Dojo and I'm hooked! I've been introducing my students to Dojo this week and it's really working. I actually have figured out how to seamlessly  make all of my plans work together, but I really am starting to feel a little like Miss R. eek!

ClassDojo is an online, interactive classroom management system that has really got my wheels spnning. Go ahead and check out Dojo and I'll be back again tomorrow to give you my review so far, complete with some changes I'd like to see and some that are already in the works.

I'm off to take down my Christmas decorations. Don't judge.

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Yesterday, I drove the Fun Friday Bus through town and today it's making a stop at the bingo hall. I loved the Fun Friday Bus and I may go back to it in the future, but last summer I created something a bit different which simplified things. Behold~Behavior Bingo!

This little chart is laminated and mounted on the side of my filing cabinet. I used to use raffle tickets as extra rewards and collect all of those tickets in a big jar. Then on Friday we'd pull 5 tickets from the jar and those little luckies would get to go to the treasure box. Two things bothered me about that. Number one: getting, giving and keeping track of tickets. Number two: hearing kids (and parents!) complain they never get picked for the raffle. So, with behavior bingo I now pick one bingo number at the end of every day and whoever is in that bingo square gets to go to the treasure box that day. So, still only giving 5 trips to the treasure box, but once a day so it's not such a big once a week deal.

I use Behavior Bingo in conjunction with the clip chart. When a kid moves their clip up they automatically walk over and write their number in a square on the bingo chart. Sometimes I'll offer bingo numbers for things like bringing back field trip forms the next day, great hallway behavior, the team that wins a class game, etc. It just adds a little something extra to the positive reinforcement I try to maintain with the class.

The bingo jar is an old hair conditioner jar (Matrix Biolage~looooove it!). I added some matching graphics  and inside there are Scrabble tiles for B-I-N-G and O and extra plastic numbers from a math manipulative kit from 1-10. At the end of the day I pick one letter and one number from the jar. If I choose B7, the kid in square B7 trots over the treasure box and his number gets erased from the chart.

Keeping the treasure box stocked is always a bit of a challenge. So I started to use reward coupons and the kids ended up loving them way more than any little trinket in the box. Here's a sample of some of the ones I used. Click on the picture to scoot on over to Google Docs to download some for yourself.

You can easily create your own behavior bingo chart, but I do have one for sale in my TpT store if you're interested. It also comes with extra graphics to decorate your jar and directions for use. It's normally $3, but it's on sale for $2.40 from now until 8/6. Click here to take a look.

Just a few more days until I can get back in my classroom. I'm always so excited to get back in there and then I stand there so overwhelmed and wonder what the heck I was so excited about! I'll be taking lots of pictures of my progress along the way to share. See you soon, friends!

BREAKING NEWS! Our 600th follower celebration winner is Becki! 

Becki, email me at ShopSunnyDays@me.com :) Thank you all so, so much for entering and for being here with me on the sunny side of the street!

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I've taught in many different settings. I started with 5th graders in a  dropout prevention program and I'm currently teaching gifted 2nd graders. In between I've taught just about everything else. I've tried many different behavior management strategies along the way with varying degrees of success. Last summer I was on a quest to simplify the whole deal and what I stumbled upon was genius! It was one of those "Man, why didn't I think of that?" moments.

Again, my fab friends at ProTeacher.net are the ones who turned me on to this. It's the Clip Chart Management System. The beauty of this system is the simplicity. The real selling point was that it allows children to redeem themselves during the day and allows me to reward positive behavior. I am of the firm belief that you catch more files with honey and this plan really allows for that.

In this system, the words at each level are more significant than the color. Basically, the students start on "Ready to Learn" which is in the middle of the chart.  I love that this eliminates that false sense of accomplishment for being on "green" or the highest level just for walking though the door, and then having no where to go but down. It is completely fine for a student to remain at Ready to Learn all dang day, but now you can recognize and differentiate for students who go above and beyond. Now your ok/quiet/usually-on-task student and your always-ready/super-helpful/ultra-responsible students are no longer on the same level.


Throughout the day students move up or down the chart as their actions require. Some other points I really like:

1. It doesn't cost anything to implement.
2. Teachers Choice allows me to choose an immediate consequence proportionate to the action and student.
3. The chart is easily modified to your classroom theme, expectations or grade level.
4. It emphasizes intrinsic motivation.

Here is a link to the program. It's a free e-book that will really explain it all. If you like my chart, Click here and here  to get a copy of the titles.I printed them, trimmed them and then attached them to these headers before laminating the whole thing. 

I also created a little report that went home each day to communicate with parents. Students mark their movement on the chart throughout the day, not just where the ended up. Get a copy by clicking on the picture:

My whole team jumped on board and really liked this, which then caught the eye of my principal. Now it seems that the whole school will be using it next year! (I hope they like it as much as I do or I may have to duck some flying clothespins at faculty meetings.)

Find some more great classroom management ideas on Falling into First's Team Teaching Linky!

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