Teacher Tips

Recognizing Student Achievement

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I love recognizing the student achievement in my classroom.

From hard work, a great attitude, to the most improved in a subject student achievement is important to celebrate.

There are many different ways to recognize students.

Here is a small listing of a few ways I have used over the years in my classroom:

Phone Call Home

Calling home to parents at the beginning of the year is a great way to establish a connection with the families in your classroom.

Random calls throughout the school year are especially important for families who you do not see on a regular basis.

Positive praise points

A simple kind word of recognition goes a long way to build character and encourage students in their learning.

This is often the most effective and personalized way to acknowledge student growth!

Brag Tags

Brag tags are a fun way to recognize student behavior and learning in the classroom.

Students can collect their tags throughout the school year or take them home nightly to share with their family!

My students love earning these on a regular basis and it is a great motivator for helping in the classroom.

  

Points

Students earn points through achieving learning goals or through positive behavior with classroom management programs like classroom dojo.

Have students compete against themselves so that they see improvement and gains throughout the year!

Before or After School Chats with Parents

Children love it when they hear their teacher proudly share about all the great learning they are doing in the classroom.

Parents know whether or not their child’s teacher understands them and they love to hear about their child’s growth.

Instant feedback is a great way to do this!

End of the Year Awards

Student awards at the end of the year are one of my favorite ways of celebrating student achievement in a tangible way for kids to take home and share with their family the growth they have made throughout the year.

If you want to check out the end of the year awards I use to recognize my students click on the link below!

Kindergarten Fundraiser Ideas

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We are always in need of a little extra cash for running our kindergarten program.

Most of our fundraising goes towards our outdoor classroom.

We are constantly finding new ways to make our learning environment more engaging and, to be honest, outdoor materials wear out a lot faster than our indoor materials.

1. Cupcake Sale

Make cupcakes as a class and sell them!

2. Art Gallery Fundraiser

Buy canvases of various sizes for students to paint at the Dollar store or local art store.

Parents come to either purchase the paintings at a fixed price or auction them off.

I’ve heard of action prices start at $20/piece. For a set price I have heard schools successfully sell the artwork for $25.

At a fixed price, each parent can buy their own Childs art. Saying that there is more motivation to spend more at an auction.

3. Cookie & Lemonade Stand

Make some cookies with a favourite recipe or two!

Make several drinks and sell them to the staff, school or parents at a special event.

4. Prepackaged Popcorn

Prepackaged popcorn is great for selling as there is no prep.

Perfect for a nutrition break sale! You just need a place to store the boxes throughout the week.

5. Sell Popcorn to the School

Have a popcorn machine at your school? Put it to use!

6. Book Sale

Parents donate books they no longer need.

Then, sell them to students and parents in the community. Students can learn lots by organizing the books!

7. Gift Cards

This can be done around the holidays or all year long. I’ve seen it successful at some schools and not work at all at other schools.
www.fundscript.com

8. Basket Raffles

One for each class (allow each student in each class to pick a theme) and at a time people need gifts (Christmas or Easter)

* Be aware of local gaming licensing

9. Spaghetti Lunch

Make a meal together and sell a limited number of tickets.

Looking for a staff meal for a Friday? This might work!

10. Label Fundraiser

Students always need to label their school supplies!

11. Bulb Sale

Perfect for organizing from January to March to help families prepare for the spring weather.

12. Cake Raffle

Our school loved this!

The kindergarten teachers organized it and gathered parent volunteers from our kindergarten parents to help facilitate with the organization. We charged $1.00 for five tickets.

13. Movie Night

Although you cannot charge for watching a movie where I live, we can charge a minimal amount for pizza or popcorn.

Although this fundraiser will not earn a lot of money, students and parents alike enjoy coming to spend time together at the school and be with friends! An average of $200 per night would be considered great.

14. Pizza Kits

This works best if it is sold to the whole school. Companies such as Little Caesars sell kits to schools!

What other ideas have you found work great for your school?

Welcoming Families To Kindergarten

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Including parents in their Childs education is extremely important.

Children feel more comfortable sharing about their school day when they know that their family understands what they area talking about!

Parents feel more involved with the school and it becomes a more welcoming place.

Some thoughts

I wanted to make a list of activities to invite parents in on a regular basis.

Having something fun or exciting makes the activity a bit more engaging for families to want to participate. Our first invitation was for Stone Soup and we did not invite siblings as we knew the participation was going to be huge.

Our suspicion was correct and our classes were bursting at the seams!

In the future I will consider inviting younger siblings to help ease their transition into kindergarten!

Ideas

The following is a list of the ideas that I would like to use in my classroom.

Several of them I have used in my classroom already.

I hope you find this list to be useful.

As I come across new ideas I will be adding them.

Play Invitation

Invite parents to learn along with you as a natural part of the day.

Some teachers do this quarterly, monthly or weekly.

I know colleagues who have invited parents for the last 45 minutes of the day. Others invite them for the last block and I have even heard of a “drop in” style where parents are invited any time of the day to stay for 30-60 minutes at a time.

“Welcome Wednesdays” and “Family Fridays” are two coined phrases I have heard of over the years to help parents remember when the visit days are scheduled.

Stone Soup

This is the very first family visit that we had in our class. Students bring in a vegetable and we made a soup together. During the last learning block, families were invited to eat with us and learn with us as we shared our soup! Click here to read about our stone soup experiences!

Games Day

Who doesn’t love playing a game?

Children love to play and harnessing this energy makes learning fun! Most games have many math concepts which support the math curriculum. Plus, the extra bonus of social/emotional development.

Have families bring their favourite to play and swap for the afternoon with other families to learn a new game!

Puzzle Day

Families bring their favourite puzzle to school and build it together with friends.

Share/swap with other families for a new challenge.

Math Event

Provide a variety of math games for parents to participate and learn along with their children.

Reading Invitation

Provide a wide variety of books from the library and invite parents to come in to read with their child a wide variety of books!

Baking Fun

Students bake something that they all can enjoy (we have many allergies in my classroom) and share with their visiting family members!

Class Concert

Practice a song or two and put on a concert for your families!

Children love to perform and what can be better than an intimate concert? If you’ve already presented for an assembly, perform the same activity for the families!

Class Play

If your students have created a play, shown an interest in puppetry or love nursery rhymes this is a perfect opportunity to put on a show!

Inquiry Celebration

After an inquiry, students can show off all they have learned to their families!

Multicultural Food Day

Have families bring in a special food from their culture to share with others. Make sure they bring an ingredients list if there are allergies.

Build a Community

If your students have an interest in community helpers, 3D figures, maps or even treasure hunts this might be a big hit in your classroom! Have students create a community and show it off to others. This can be done with Lego, recycled materials or even as a mural that they create together. The options are endless!

Gingerbread Traps

The gingerbread man is on the loose in the school! Challenge parents to make a trap with their child in order to help catch him. When parents come the children can share how they created the trap with each other.

St Patrick’s Day Trap

St. Patrick’s is on the loose in the classroom! Challenge parents to make a trap with their child in order to help catch him. When parents come the children can share how they created the trap with each other.

Teddy Bear Picnic

Invite parents to a teddy bear picnic with their child. Bring your own food or make it a special event to share food.

Create Gifts

Teaching others to reach out to the greater community is a valuable lesson to teach even young children.

We have hosted parents coming in to make crafts that we have donated to local senior homes in our community.

Parents and children love to be a part of this and the seniors love to decorate their residence with gifts from our class! In the past we have made wreathes with patterned paintings of our hands and door hang decorations for during the holiday seasons.

18 Activities for Learning With Buddies

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Having learning buddies is a great way to foster friendships between students in different grades in a school and helps encourage a community.

I am always scrounging last minute to find activities. Not that I don’t love our sessions with our learning buddies. I’ll be brutally honest, I often forget about it in the midst of planning for everything else in the week!

1. Read library books together

2. Read home reading books or levelled books together

3. Go on a letter hunt in the school for hidden letters.

4. Go on a letter hunt in and around the school for letters found naturally in buildings or in nature and take pictures of them.

5. Go on a environmental print hunt in and around the school.

6. Create a puppet play together. Older students can write the script and the younger kids can create the puppets.

7. Create art to display around the school for a school event.

8. Educate the school about the environment by creating posters together.

9. Write letters to each other.

10. Create a presentation for an upcoming school assembly.

11. Spend some time “getting to know” about each others grade. What do you learn? What do you like to do? What do you find challenging?

12. Write some poetry about an approaching holiday.

13. Create a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day card together.

14. Create your costumes together for an upcoming concert. Older students can help the younger students do tasks much quicker than it would occur independently.

15. Fill in an “All About Us” booklet where they spend time getting to know each other about their family. What they like to do. Special occasions that they love. What they cannot do yet… etc.

16. Older students can scribe letters for younger children for their pen pals! They also can read the letters to younger students, if it is difficult for some students to read.

17. Solve simple math problems together to learn new strategies.

18. Play math games to support fluency in math.

What are your favorite activities that you engage your students with during their learning buddy time?

Teacher Tips for Writing Report Cards

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I don’t know about you but there are a few things that I need to consider before I am in the right frame of mind to start report cards.

Many teachers do not need to do all of these activities, but I find them to be beneficial for me.

I hope you find something that helps you in your journey through your report card writing!

1. Have a good drink readily at hand. 

What I drink varies depending upon the time of day. Often my drinks are of a coffee early in the morning or an iced tea in the afternoon.

2. Have a  snack to keep me focused.

Although I don’t like to admit it, a good snack helps to keep any urges to wander to the fridge due to boredom. Sweet peas and blueberries are my favourite to snack on.

3. Have a comfortable place to kick my feet up.

I don’t know about you, but I need to be able to relax and write at the same time. Some need a good desk or table to write but I am not as productive as I am looking out my front window, enjoying the view to stay motivated.

4. Good Music

I think I use this as a deflection so I cannot always hear everything that is going on around me in the house. It helps keep me focused!

5. A general house clean up.

I do this because if I don’t I’ll stop writing due to the distractions all around me.

6. A clean classroom.

Yes, I did clean my whole desk this week and I did tackle my art closet in my classroom.

Sound crazy? Yes! But a good purging also declutters the mind!

It also is a nice reward to walk into your class in the midst of the stress, and after reports are done, knowing you don’t have a mess to greet you.

7. Supportive colleagues who are willing to share ideas.

Don’t be an island!

Find colleagues who are willing to collaborate with you and share ideas.

Writing report cards can be very stressful, especially if you are having to change how you write them. This term we have decided to share our comments on our Google Drive at work. It has worked fantastically for generating new ideas and different comments and allowed us to collaborate from home!

8. Find something to distract you.

Every once in a while you’ll need to take a break. Find something that you’ll find distracting enough to be a little lure for a brain break but not too distracting to totally disengage you from writing your reports!

Yes, I will admit, I wrote this post in the middle of writing report cards this year! Yikes! This was one of my “good” distractions! I hope you’ve found it helpful!

Good luck! You’ve got this!


Student Gift Ideas for Busy Teachers

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Affordable gifts for students are not always easy for teachers on a budget. Here are some ideas worth considering, if you choose to give your students gifts.

Books

Check out sources like Scholastic and buy books of interest in bulk for a great sale! 
Remember to use your reward coupons for a discount.

White Boards & Markers

Check out  your local Dollar store. Whiteboards are a great gift idea to support
 printing and writing skills at home!

 Reindeer Food

Make a batch of reindeer food for your students. It sparks their love of the holidays and helps make the holiday season a bit more exciting as they anticipate Santa! Click the image above for a recipe!

 Hats

Hats are awesome to support oral literacy by encouraging dramatic play! Change up a ‘hat’ theme over the years.  by considering fun hats like animals, community helpers, or even holiday themed hats! Perfect for inspiring dramatic play at home!

Gak

Gak is an awesome homemade recipe, similar to putty, which is excellent for hours of fun.  It is a great way to support fine motor skills in children of all ages! Find a recipe by clicking on the image above!

 Personalized Clocks

Take photos of your students throughout the school year. Buy a cheap wall clock from your 
local Dollar store and replace the numbers with small printed images of each child OR place the photos beside each number.

Bells

Every other year we have Polar Express theme in our classroom. As a gift, Santa brings a bell with ribbon tied to it as a gift for each of the children. It is quite beautiful to see them full of wonder and walk around carrying their “treasured gift” from Santa.

Play Dough

I don’t know about your class, but our play dough centre is always one of the busiest centres in our classroom. Having a “gift” of several bunches of different colors would be most of my students best dream come true!

Individualized Bookmarks

If I have a large number of students I have made individualized bookmarks for each of my students with a favorite quote or something inspiring. Many students end up using it throughout the year, especially in the older grades for their self-selected reading in class.

Click on the image above to check out some growth mindset bookmarks perfect for student gifts!

I hope that you can find an idea to make your gift giving easier this year! I would love to hear about other ideas you give to your students!

11 Jobs for your Parent Volunteers

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Looking for ideas for your parent volunteers? There are many ideas that they can help out with and they don’t even have to enter your classroom!

Over the years I have noticed that I have had many parent volunteers who would like to help but I have not been prepared for when they come.

Check out my new list of ideas to take advantage of that help as best we can!

At School

Art Master

If you have a creative parent who is available during your art period and would like to help out with art activities you can always have them come in.

Volunteers can collect the art materials, cut out what is needed and even help supervise. They can clean up the art materials at the end of the day, after the activity or during your lunch period (when you may have other supervision duties).

Home Reading Helper

If you have a volunteer who is willing to come in daily, this is a huge support for classroom teachers. There are many ways it can be organized.

1. They supervise the primary students exchange of books, ensuring that cards are returned to the correct book and books are placed back properly into the cart.

2. They bring the cart to each class and quietly call students in small groups at a time in each class to exchange books so the cart is never overwhelmed by too many students.

3. If your volunteer can only come in weekly or once a month, have them sort through the books to make sure they have been returned to the bins properly (e.g., in the right bin, with the right card and facing forward for students to see the cover).

Homework Helper

Having someone to go through the homework bin to check off who has completed their work is a huge time saver.

If desired, they could check through the work and make a list of names of students, who still needs support in learning the concepts that were covered in the activity, in order to plan next steps and small group instruction.

Pencil Patrol

When you have young students it can be very tedious time consuming task. A volunteer could come once a week or daily to sharpen your pencils and pencil crayons quickly for you!

Portfolio Patrol

Many classes have student driven or teacher driven portfolios. Often the items inside the portfolio are contained in sleeves which need to be stuffed.

Items often need to be sorted and organized. If these items are not “graded” and thus not confidential, volunteers can help organize these!

Reading Buddy

Lots of families do not have time to support their child with reading their home reading nightly for various reasons.

Having a volunteer who is willing to come into the school and sit down with your students and read their book daily is a huge support to students and families.

At Home

Home Reading Book Repair Service

Create an Ziplock bag filled with a laminated instruction page for how to repair books.

Send a small number of books home to parents with all the tools they would need to repair the broken books once a week. Ask for them to be returned by the end of the week!

Lucky Librarian Repair Service

Just like with the home reading book repair service, send home classroom library books that need some TLC. Send the books home with the required supplies and detailed instructions for how to fix them.

Photographer

Stop multitasking by asking a willing parent to come to events to use your school to capture events like class trips or special assemblies!

Skyper

Know someone who would love to be read to by your students throughout the day but cannot come to school due to mobility reasons or because they live far away? As long as you have the ability to use Skype or a similar technology, children can take turns read to them live them during your language block!

Super Slideshow Maker

Know a volunteer who loves to make slideshows?

Having someone do this for assemblies, special school events, and even end of the year gifts would be appreciated by many parents in the community!

75 Quotes to Encourage Growth Mindset

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Are you looking for quotes to encouraging a growth mindset? Here is a collection of 75 that you can use!

1. Change your words. Change your mindset.
2. Get ready. Get set. Learn!
3. I cannot do this yet!
4. “Mindset {noun} a set of beliefs or ways of thinking that determines one’s behavior, outlook and mental attitude.
5. The power of yet…
6. All things are difficult before they are easy. {Thomas Fuller}
7. You have to get in before you can win.
8. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.
9. Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change along with it {Steve Maraboli}
10. Shoot for the stars!
11. We cannot control the wind, but… we can control the sail.
12. The expert in anything was once a beginner.
13. You have not failed unless you have quit trying. {Gordon B. Hinckley}
14. Mistakes make a difference!
15. “Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it when we use it.” {Ruth Gordon}
16. Sometimes what we call “failure” is really just that necessary struggle called learning.
17. Every mistake you make is progress.
18. May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. {Nelson Mandela}
19. A comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing ever grows there.
20. “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” {Confucius}
21. We learn from failure not from success.
22. “If at first you don’t succeed… you’re normal! {Kid President}
23. Mistakes help us learn.
24. I do not fail, I succeed in finding out what does not work.
25. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. {Winston Churchill}

26. Be the change you want to see in the world!
27. “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” {George Bernard Shaw}
28. Believe in yourself!
29. Mindset is everything
30. A good attitude is contagious. Pass it on!
31. Mistakes are portals to discovery.
32. Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. {Confucius}
33. The person who does the work is the only one who learns. {Harry Wong}
34. Just because you haven’t found your talent, does not mean you don’t have one. {Kermit the Frog}
35. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. {Charles Swindoll}
36. If you quit once, it becomes a habit. Don’t quit! {Michael Jordan}
37. There is no failing, only feedback.
38. There is no failing, only ways to improve.
39. Be so busing improving yourself that you have no time to criticize others. {Chetan Bhagat}
40. Learn to be a risk taker because there is more to gain.
41. Never give up.
42. Practice makes perfect.
43. Just don’t quit.
44. Everything you don’t know is something you can learn!
45. Never stop trying!

46. Believe in yourself!
47. I can keep going until I know it’s my best work!
48. Failure is not the opposite of success. It’s a part of it.
49. I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy, I’m going to tell you it’s going to be worth it.

50. I learn. What’s your superpower?
51. Don’t give up until you are proud.
52. Don’t let a failure be an ending. Make it a beginning.
53. If “plan a” does not work remember there are still 25 more letters!
54. Be better than you were yesterday.
55. “Believe you can and you are half way there.” {Theodore Roosevelt}
56. The one who falls and gets up is much stronger than the one who never falls.
57. “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think! {Albert Einstein}
58. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity!” {Albert Einstein}
59. Failure is not the opposite of success it is a part of it!
60. Mistakes are proof that you are trying.
61. Keep trying and never give up!
62. Celebrate every victory no matter how small. All progress counts.
63. FAIL: first attempt in learning
64. Hard work outperforms talent when talent fails to work hard.
65. Mistakes are beautiful
66. Strive for progress, not perfection.
67. Bring on the challenges!
68. I am always doing what I cannot do yet. In order to learn how to do it. {Vincent Van Gogh}
69. We only get stronger when it is difficult.
70. Stop being scared of what could go wrong and start looking for what could go right!
71. Choose the challenge, not the easy way.
72. I made an error so I’m going to try again!
73. Going fast does not mean you are smarter!
74. You are capable of so much more than you can even imagine.
75. It’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday.

Want to read more about growth mindset in primary grades? Read these other blog posts by clicking here!

If you are interested in displaying the following quotes in your class, click on the images below or see the wide variety of different options now available in my growth mindset category of my store!

Setting Up Your Home Reading Program

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 Although there is a bit of a front load in preparing, setting up a smooth running home reading program will save your sanity throughout the year as students will have a well established routine.

Bag size
I always have used a Ziplock style bag so that I can easily see inside to see if the book is inside or if it is missing.  It is waterproof against the lunch or drink spills in backpacks that do occur. It also allows clear, easily read communication from parents. I try to reinforce the bag. I’ve tried packing tape but it often rips for many students. This year I used Duct tape and I only had to reinforce one bag after 8 months of use!

Naming Bags
Ensure each bag has a student name on it. I use identical labels for easy sorting. This allows non-readers to be independent. If you don’t have much time a permanent marker works fine!

Prepare some sort of communication between home and school and frequency of reading.
The type of forms filled in can vary depending upon the grade taught.

Especially as there are large variations in abilities. Some teachers have a monthly checklist for parents to fill out.

Others like to have parents sign in for each 10-20 minutes that their students read. I personally prefer a home reading book.

I have used this booklet for 10 years now and find it quite successful.

Parents fill out each book read and then they circle the difficulty of the book.

They leave it open and I can easily check feedback from parents. I also like to reward reading efforts with a small sticker for every 10 books read.

Exchanging Books

Make sure you have a sign out system. I have used many different styles over the years.

Here are three suggestions with varying degrees of responsibility depending upon the needs or the dynamic of your classroom.

Independent Option

Have students independently take out their books, put the cards back into the book envelope, and return it to the home reading cart.

This is best with older grade students or students who are very responsible. It can work in a kindergarten classroom with adult supervision.

Independence with Teacher Direction

Students retrieve their sign out cards from a sign out chart and I put them inside the books myself to ensure that the books are taken care of and the correct card is placed inside each booklet.

I hand each student their empty home reading bag and then they immediately go and pick a different book and place the card into their name on the sign out chart.

I collect and sort all the books as the whole class exchanges and then I return them back into the collection myself to ensure the cart does not get mixed up and books are not ruined trying to be stuffed back into the collection.

Teacher Directed 

This works best with smaller class sizes or when you have a dedicated parent volunteer. Have a sign out in a binder where children come to you. The teacher can control returning cards to books sleeves in order to ensure the appropriate card is returned and what books are returned.

I usually call one student at a time in a quick rotation Students are then given their bag to get their new book to sign out and return their new card to the teacher to be place inside the binder.

The only reason we have ever had to resort to this type of control is due to ensuring that the teacher has “seen” all books returned. We have parents who say that they have returned their child’s book when we inform them that one is missing.

Teacher directed book exchange allows me to say say with full confidence that it hasn’t been returned. Lost books are bound to happen (found at in the daycare, a siblings classrooms and at home etc). It is one way to ensure that parents are aware that you know what is going on in the classroom and provides them with reassurance.

Teacher Tips: Start the School Year with Success

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1. Make sure you take the time to get to know your students.

In the younger years, this might involve a lot of time spent with your students. Asking questions and just listening to them tell you all about their day and their interests.

In the older grades, get to know you activities as a whole group or as inventory checklists are great ways to find out more about them!

The better you know them, the easier it is to make good connections which will provide the foundation for learning and a smoother year both for them and yourself.

2. Make sure you talk to your students about your own life.

Yes, it is true. Children find it fascinating to find out about our own lives and that we do not live at school! They need to know it is normal to have a life outside of school and that you have a family too.

3. Prepare in spurts!

Save yourself stress by getting things done before school starts.

I try to prepare basics at the end of the school year but just leave student names off of them. This way, when I come back to school I can focus on setting up the classroom and preparing lessons with less stress.

Everyone does this differently, but try to find a good balance of spreading your “to do list” out in a way that will not overwhelm you at the beginning of the school year. If you have access to your classroom early try to head in to set up in the summer

4. Collaborate with others.

Collaboration is one of the best parts of teaching. Getting to know your colleagues and having each others back is imperative to having a smooth year.

5. Purge when you can

When you start planning and you come across an old resource that you were saving “just in case someday you may need it,” it likely means that you will never use it.

I know many colleagues, as well as myself, who had good intentions like this. We eventually have learned that hoarding isn’t to our advantage and we often never use those “old keepsakes” anyways.

I’ve learned the hard way, don’t feel guilty about purging!

Teachers are notorious for saving everything. Give yourself the freedom to let things go.

6. Enjoy your summer.

Take a break from school!

If you are constantly thinking about school you will never get reenergized the way that you will need to prepare for the new school year.

Relax, enjoy your family and enjoy life!

7. Enjoy each moment along the way.

The curriculum is important, but not so much that you forget to enjoy each day to its fullest.

If you’re organizing your primary class, you might be interested in one of the following bundles which are offered at a reduced rate! Click on the image for more information.

  

Please feel free to post your favorite tip for starting the school year with success. All the best in a successful school year!