After reading the book, my students were coming up with many Dollar Words on their own! I decided to showcase their Dollar Words (and amp up the competition) by creating a Dollar Words bulletin board by my writing bookshelf.
If you've ever read the book (and if you haven't, you must go and read it now!) Because of Mr. Terupt, then you know about Mr. Terupt's famous "Dollar Words" challenge. In the book, Mr. Terupt challenges his fifth grade class to come up with as many "Dollar Words" as possible. Basically, each letter of the alphabet represents a cent, so A= $0.01, B=$0.02, C=$0.03, and so on. After reading the book, my students were coming up with many Dollar Words on their own! I decided to showcase their Dollar Words (and amp up the competition) by creating a Dollar Words bulletin board by my writing bookshelf. My students actually designed the board, and every time a student comes up with a Dollar Word they get to proudly display their word and initials on the coveted board. It has been a great challenge for my kids, and a FANTASTIC activity for them to work on when they are finished with work! I have attached a copy of my Dollar Words below. Feel free to download my Dollar Words sheet and use it in your classroom! I ask if you do download it to please leave me a comment below! :) Happy Monday!
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I'm so excited that my school is implementing The Leader in Me this year! I actually read the book last year after attending a conference with my sixth grade principal and I am absolutely thrilled to incorporate the seven habits in my classroom this year! We've been discussing one habit a week, and we are up to habit three: put first things first. My kids wanted to write about one habit that they want to focus on, so I used that opportunity to showcase their habit on our bulletin board! I know the bulletin board isn't necessarily the cutest ever, but it got the job done! And, it's perfect for football season!
I'm all about instant recognition in the classroom. I don't like to wait to award a kiddo for doing something great. Case and point: last week, one of my more difficult students had an AMAZING day so I asked him to grab a reward from our "Caught Ya" jar. He reached in and randomly drew the reward, "Lunch with Mrs. Tackett," which would make his reward the next day at lunch. Well...the next day he was not behaving well...AT ALL. However, he still got his reward. Frustrating for me? You bet.
One reward that I am loving though is my "Kiss Your Brain" jar. When a kid says something amazingly smart, or applies knowledge in a new content area, etc., I have them choose a Hershey Kiss from our Kiss Your Brain container. It's a quick and simple way to instantly recognize when a student is showing off their smarts! Cute huh? My students LOVE it! It's easy to feel overwhelmed going back to elementary school. The extra planning, grading, bulletin board making, etc. can get stressful. Managing the same classroom of kids for seven hours and keeping them engaged and stimulated all while meeting the needs of each individual student can feel daunting. Tuesday was one of those daunting days. We had an assembly, library, lunch, a quick writing lesson, specials, and then an impromptu fire drill. Needless to say, at the end of the day, I was spent. I directed School House Rock Live, Jr. during my second year of teaching. Yesterday really brought me back. Then yesterday, while teaching about compound sentences and conjunctions, I decided to grab my new toy microphone (a Dollar store score over the weekend) and started singing and dancing to, "Conjunction Junction." My students were giggling as I lowered my voice to the classic tune, "Hooking up words and phrases and clauses..." Then, they started getting up out of their seats and singing along. Before I knew it, we were all dancing! It was awesome!
It's easy to get wrapped up in the details, and for a new teacher (all over again) like me it's hard to find your groove and feel comfortable and happy during those overwhelming days. Yesterday though, man, it felt like I finally had my groove back. Like Stella, only, it was me. :) Tackett is back. :) Sorry for the lack of updates last week. My life has certainly become far more crazy since school has started. I'm finally starting to get into a routine, but unfortunately last week blogging didn't quite fit into my schedule! Needless to say, Labor Day weekend was exactly what the doctor...er, teacher...ordered! Friday we had a work day and I decided that my room needed some rearranging. Isn't it so funny how once your students arrive, you quickly find yourself re-doing classroom management plans and your room layout? After meeting with my guided reading groups last week I realized that my guided reading table needed its own special place. See where I moved it? I like it so much better moved over by my classroom library. I found that my classroom library was just a little too massive on that wall, and now my small group kids have a little more privacy. :) I also moved my black table to my window, for my computer. Kids were trying to perch up against it during reading time, and since the table has a curtain with goodies hidden underneath it, many of my precious hidden treasures were tumbling down during reading. Oh no! And...yes...I realized my "S" was upside down after taking this picture. It was a busy week...what can I say? :)
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About MeTeacher of leaders. Life-long learner. Space geek. Lover of all things color-coordinated, organized, and cutesy. Categories
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September 2015
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