Elf in the Classroom {{Week 1}}

Grocery shopping is done, all of my papers are graded, lesson plans have been submitted, I found chevron wrapping paper && I have a cup of coffee with a brand new creamer (Hot for Cookie...I couldn't resist). Life is good friends, life is good. There are 10 days left before Christmas Break. Yes, yes I know the P.C. term would be Winter Break, but I'm tired of being P.C. all the time so I'm letting my Christmas light shine and I'm jingling bells all the way through the 10 day mark. This is truly my favorite time of year both in and out of the classroom. Buuuut Christmas at home is completely different than Christmas at school. One is definitely more relaxing than the other...I'll give you one guess as to which side the relaxation meter points to. If I had to pick a song to describe Christmas at Home...Silent Night. Everything's peaceful (unless the doorbell rings...release the hounds!), it's cozy, and there are plenty of comfy blankets to curl up in with a cup of coffee.  Christmas at school...well that would be more like Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. Holy sugar cookies my kids are all jacked up on the Christmas spirit and they're barely holding on to reality.

I can't be the only one with a few tricks up their sleeve to help contain the madness from boiling over. &&&& I'm definitely not the only one out there to send for help from the Elf Squad. If you've never heard of the Elf on the Shelf I'm not sure what rock you've been living under, but you need to google it. Pure genius I tell you! Once upon a blog ago I posted my schedule for the elf antics that are hitting my classroom this year. You can find that {{here}}. Since then I've discovered through Instagram that there's an entire hash tag devoted to elves in the classroom and I love hash tags almost as much as I love chevron. I also love that I'm not the only one that puts in extra work to conduct under cover elf operations...I was starting to worry that I was a complete whackadoodle party of one so thanks a million Instagram. Through my Insta-hash tag browsing, I found a blog link up featuring classroom elves from all over the place. My heart fluttered because 1. I'm a dork (clearly) and 2. I'm nosey and like to see what other people are doing with their elves (honesty is the best policy). Naturally I'm joining the Elf in the Classroom link up because I think Layla the elf is pretty amazing and making new friends is pretty swell too!

 Layla arrived nameless on Monday morning like a wrecking ball...seriously chaos erupted when they came back from special area && found her. Before I had the chance to read the book && explain some ground rules for keeping her around curiosity got the best of one of my loves and he touched her. You would have thought the Grinch himself had arrived in B-104 to snatch all of our Christmas spirit away. It was a border line riot. Kids were angry. Some were close to tears. My curious friend was crushed that she lost her magic because of him. Things were about to get ugly so I set my phone to a Santa-ish chime alert tone, announced that I just texted Santa to ask him to fix her, and made my phone go off. I "read" Santa's response "Ho! Ho! Ho! My sweet friends. I'll let this one slide, but if it happens again back to the North Pole your elf must ride!" I held my breath praying that they would fall for it...and they did. Bless you Apple for that magical ring tone. After I narrowly escaped from having to crush a full blown 6 year old riot, I quickly read the book that comes with the elf and all was well. Everyone knew not to touch her...everyone knew she was watching them...and everyone knew that she needed a name. Compared to last year they rocked the name brainstorming activity. I only had to explain that she couldn't have a boy name and that we weren't going to name her after anyone in the classroom once (no, not even Mrs. Owen could make the cut for the naming ballot...they tried). On the ballot: Snow, Sophie, Sophia, Layla, Bella, Emily, Emma, Belle, and Elfa. To narrow it down to the top 2 names I did a quick raise your hand to vote session. The top 2 contenders: Bella and Layla. For the final vote, each friend got a sticky note that they wrote their name choice on. All of the ballots were counted and the winning name was...Layla. Day 1 was in the books. Easy as pie.

Day 2 Layla climbed up our mini Christmas tree. Day 3 she got into the glitter...I left an apology letter to the custodians because glitter is an ugly, ugly thing to clean up.

Day 4 Layla got into the jewels and used them to build her name. Their faces were priceless and hearing them talk to their friends about it...even better.  One of my friends thinks the world revolves around him so naturally "Oh she definitely did that because of me...because I love diamonds. This elf is awesome!!!!"

Things were good in B-104 and I should have known things were too good to be true...call it hopeful...call it naive, but by the end of Thursday I'm surprised I had any hair left on my head. The tattling had to stop (or at least get bumped down a few hundred notches) so Layla cranked up the magic factor && moved twice in one day on Friday. I had her set up on the lamp with a snowman book for the beginning of Day 5. After special area they came in to find her with lights strung around our "We Can" objective board and a special snowman snack for all the friends who were not currently on the naughty-ish list. Worked like a charm and I guarantee you the kids running around like mountain dew was spewing from the water fountain won't be letting all shades of their craziness loose again. FYI assemble snowmen at school because they DON'T travel well...at all...true story. Week 2 of Layla's observations start tomorrow.

Layla watching works well in managing the Christmas craziness, but extra reinforcement never hurts. Enter: The Holly Jolly Basket. In my room we use the clip chart model. I know everyone has their differing opinions on the use of clip charts, but I happen to really like it as I  focus more on the positive aspect of it rather than the negative. Anyway, in a nut shell, everyone has a clip that they clip up or down to different colors based on their behavior. Green, blue, purple and pink are good colors to end the day on because you earn a sticker. Most days everyone earns their sticker and they're smart enough to figure out you only need to stay on green to get one. MOST of my kids strive to get on a higher color than green, but some of mine are fine with just doing the minimum required to earn a sticker. To encourage all of my friends to aim a little higher than "average behavior" I brought in a "Boo Bucket" in October. It was filled with Halloween treats: pencils, erasers, candy, the whole nine yards. If they were already on "pink" (our highest color) and still behaving perfectly they got to take their clip off the chart and clip it onto the bucket. At the end of the day if their clip was still there they got to pick a treat from the bucket. They begged for a Gobble Gobble bucket, but I was slack and it didn't happen. The last 2 days before Thanksgiving break made me realize that I was going to need a little something extra to make it through December. The Holly Jolly bucket was my "something extra." They're in love and that makes me a happy/less stressed teacher. After all, hair is a good thing to have and hopefully the basket combined with Layla will help me keep it.

I have a lot left on my list of things to conquer today (yes, I hear you mountain of laundry screaming my name), so for now I need to shut down this faithful laptop of mine. Until next time, live, love && enjoy the magic of the season!

Monday Made It {{July 29}}

How does time fly by so fast in the summer time??? Seriously, it feels like I was just waking up after a night out celebrating the last day of teaching for a beloved team member && now it's almost time to go back to work. Where has the summer gone? I guess it's time to start making the most of my carefree days before they've all slipped through my fingers. First things first with the make the most of summer before it's bye bye umbrella drinks and hello water bottles... Monday Made It with 4th Grade Frolics. I have a few different things to share this week, I've been busy designing, printing, laminating and hot gluing so grab a cup of coffee and settle in for a trip to crazy town. Speaking of crazy town, this is my hoarder closet storage closet..my own little slice of crazy town:

Don't dial the number for Hoarders on TLC just yet, it's all making the trip back to the school with me as soon as they let me back in to work my magic. . .which isn't coming soon enough. I'm starting to get really anxious...I've never waited this long to set my room up and to say I'm going crazy would be an understatement. Buuuuut for new carpet, I'll hold tightly to my bottle of chill pills and anxiously await the all clear email. My first MMI project has nothing to do with teaching...maybe once you get home from teaching, but definitely not classroom material {{ain't nobody got time to be fired}} It's definitely a must for an overly anxious caffeinated teacher (I should really try to break myself of this coffee habit) who is more than ready to jump at the chance to organize and clean her classroom (sad, yet true...I'm keeping it real y'all).

Project #1: Homemade Wine {{Raspberry Zinfandel}}

We finally got to bottle up this sweet stuff last night and as always it's delicious. It was 4 weeks in the making, but we have 28 bottles to last us until the next kit is ready. The starter kit is a little pricey...and the wine packets are about $70, but with 28 bottles coming out of the kit it's way worth the money. Think about buying 28 quality bottles of wine (I'm not talking box wine ladies) at the grocery store && what that cost would be...yeah, I'll keep my arm and leg please and thank you. We've made about 8 different flavors and I haven't been disappointed by any of them. They were all delicious (especially the Strawberry Riesling...holy cow yuuuuuummmmm). The wine is a little stronger than store bought wines...I'm talking one glass and I'm relaxed...what's not to love about yumminess that takes half the calories?? Seriously the less time doing push ups and burpies...the more happy, happy, happy my life becomes!

The rest of my MMI projects are all teaching related. If you haven't been reading lately, I decided to redo my classroom this year: changing it from the beachy theme to an owl theme. I've been bouncing from store to store picking up owl pieces that I have to have (ok, want to have...but have to have because they're too cute not to get) for the past few weeks. That's part of the reason why my closet looks like the hot mess that it is right now. I forgot how much actually goes in to changing the theme of your classroom- -all of the tiny touches of the beach that have to be stripped away (cubby numbers, book bag hook numbers, job chart, alphabet line, behavior chart, outside wall display, Meet the Teacher Night, etc, etc, etc)...does your head hurt yet??

Project # 2: Job Chart
My biggest project: a new job chart. Currently mine is a store bought one of overalls. I have no clue why I got overalls...I guess it was cute and it worked. When I first started teaching I hadn't really "found" myself as the designer/organizer that I am now. It was in me, but I didn't really have a clear vision of what I wanted because I was too focused on not drowning. My excuse for the other 5 years...it wasn't a priority? I wasn't as anal as I am now? I had too much time to think about things this summer because I can't set anything up yet? Any way you cut it, overalls just weren't cutting it anymore for me && it was time for a redo. {{nothing against overall job charts if you have one like my old one}} So keeping with the colors/patterns I used in my behavior chart, I put together a job chart. Whooooo's Helpin'? is available in my TPT store {{here}}. If you happen to be using an owl theme as well the work is done for you. If owls aren't your thing, my intention is to upload a variety of themed job charts so anyone can join in on the fun. Why not right? In the download you'll get 2 versions: a ready to print version or a print, place on scrapbook paper matting and then laminate version. I used the second option because it saves ink (enough said) and the scrapbook paper colors are more vibrant (and you can customize the colors a little more). I hot glued a ribbon chain to each side of the chart to hold it all together && a ribbon loop to the top of the chart for easy hanging. The accent bow came from the Hobs (Hobby Lobby). Each job card has a dot or two printed on it. These dots correspond with the amount of kids that assign each job to. My class typically has 18 kids so my job chart has 18 job dots. You'll see clothespins on the job chart...I covered these in two kinds of Washi tape. If you haven't heard about this you better ask somebody for reals. It's amazing...I got it Office Depot...and I'm in love! The clothespins will be used to assign jobs--each student will have a clip with their name on it. Easy breezy, lemon squeezy y'all!

Project #3: MTT Night
My next MMI project has to do with Meet the Teacher Night that I've blogged about {{here}} and {{here}}. I won't go into all of the nitty gritty, but our MTT Night is done drop in style. The kids and their parents drop in to check out our rooms and ask any questions that they may have. I set up my back table....errrr by set up I mean deck it out (I'm a tad bit of an over achiever). I have a sign in station, an estimation station, and a sweet treat station. When my kids and their families enter the room, they receive a to do list. This leads them to the back table, to their seats, and finally to me at the door to check out && get their sweet treat. I've found that it cuts down on some of the awkwardness/anxiety of the night by giving everyone a set list of things to do. It keeps everything organized and above all it looks put together and cute. First impressions are everything and who doesn't love a cute room? The packet in my TPT store has everything you need to make your Meet the Teacher Night styled, organized and simple. You can get your copy by going {{here}}. &&& no worries if you're not into owls, I'll be putting together packs for other themes during the week.

With time ticking away before Kathy Lee and Hoda Woman come on I need to wrap it up. So, until next time live, love && get ready to teach because it's coming up quick ready or not!

Managing Crazy Town & All of Its Craziness

Riddle me this, riddle me that...What's something that's nearly impossible to learn about within the walls of a college classroom, something that changes from year to year &&& something that will ruin a classroom faster than an open canister of glitter left unattended? CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT...duh! For the second week in a row I'm linking up with Leigh Langton over at the Applicious Teacher for her Apple a Day blogging fiesta. This week's topic is none other than classroom management. There are so many different nooks and crannies of classroom management that it's definitely tough to narrow it down to fit on this blog (and not put anyone to sleep).
 
Before I even think of typing another word, first things first...I'm not claiming to be the classroom management guru...I'm certainly not perfect. Secondly, I'm also not claiming to have any brand spankin new twists on managing a classroom. Finally, in my 6 years (moving into the 7th) of teaching my kids have never been perfect, they've always talked a lot, and next to talking wiggling is their favorite thing to do in the world BUT they always know what my expectations are and they always know what the rewards/consequences are for their actions. Seriously...they're so good (or I'm so repetitive) that they can recite what I'm going to say in response to any given behavior before I speak a word.


When I first started teaching (7 years ago) my school adopted a school wide positive behavior model.  With this model, anything we do focuses more on rewarding the positive than the negative. If you think about it, kids want attention...some crave it more than others, but they're all seeking attention.  Our school wide behavior model operates on the belief that if you spend the majority of your time calling attention to the good behaviors/actions your kids are more likely to seek that positive attention and abandon the negative behaviors that don't get them recognized. True, it doesn't work for every kid, but it's a good start and it definitely doesn't hurt to reward your sweet little loves in the process of attempting to transform your littles that think any attention is good attention. In order to recognize the good behaviors and choices of our students we hand out PAWS tickets (our mascot is a bulldog so there's a reason behind the name). At the end of every month the kids get to spend their PAWS tickets at the PAWS store. They have to have atleast 10 tickets to shop which after a month of saving everyone always has atleast that- -the more tickets you have the more/bigger prizes you can buy. If you've read my blog before you know that I can't stand clutter...it makes me panicky. As you can imagine saving paper tickets for a month can get pretty messy and clutter-rific (the stuff nightmares are made of). To fight back against the clutter, I give each of my kids an envelope to store their tickets in and at the end of the week we take them out and count them up.

Their paws balance is placed on their "credit card" and they turn their paper tickets back into our PAWS basket (recycling at its best). They take their PAWS punch card (credit card) with them to the store where the clerk uses a hole punch to punch through the amount used (each block is worth 10 paws cards). It's nothing fancy, but it has been a sanity saver for me. Even simpler, all I do is sign my initials in each box to prove that they have indeed earned those 10 paws. Keeping it simple...love it!

As much as I love the paws system, it's just not enough to keep a classroom moving in the right direction. I know that I've blogged before about what a cohesive unit first grade is so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we've all adopted the same behavior management technique...right??? Keeping in mind that whatever we use has to be positive we chose to use the "clip chart" idea floating around on Pinterest. It's not an original idea, but it's a fabulous idea and really helped to keep my kids aware of their behavior and their choices. My biggest thing in my classroom is that attitude is everything. I always, always, always tell my kids that life can be sweet or it can be sour and that their choices pick the flavor for their day. Just in case you aren't familiar with the clip chart method, here's a simple breakdown...
1. Every student has a clothespin that starts the day clipped onto green "Ready to Learn."
2. Based on their choices, they can either clip up (blue, purple, or pink) or clip down (orange, yellow, red). Up is good...down is not so good.
3. Anything green and above earns a sticker at the end of the day.
4. The kids can move up and down throughout the day...there's always room for improvement (the world doesn't end because you're on red...you can always work your way back up...if you choose to).
5. Anybody on pink at the end of the day gets to sign their name on a BINGO square- -the winner gets a special prize at the end of the week.

Oh so simple and oh so perfect! I know that there are people out there that hate the clip chart, but when it's done correctly (focusing on the positives) it's a beautiful tool for classroom management. I don't have a picture of the actual one hanging in my classroom, but it looks a little like this (just with more colors). This one's from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten...anything with a bow and I'm there.

In my simple description of the clip chart I mentioned stickers for good behavior. If you've ever seen a man on the side of the road holding a sign saying "will work for food" wellllll kids should have one saying "will work for stickers" because they work their booties off for that daily sticker. The stickers don't have to be anything fancy...a simple smiley face sticker does the job on most days. On Friday (and holidays) I pump up the sticker excitement with special themed stickers or smelly stickers. You gotta keep them on their toes with their sticker collecting you know?!? Anyone that has earned a sticker for each day of the week gets to visit my treasure box for a prize of their choice.

There are tons of other little things that go into making a class run smoothly (well as smoothly as possible when 6 year olds are involved), but these are the major ones in my classroom. &&& with that I need a nap in the sun while it's still shining.

Until next time...live, love, && enjoy the summer sun! :)