A Couple of Tweaks: Voila, Much Better!

I have been staying late at school "fixin" things that are bothering me or seem incomplete in my classroom.  One of the things I have worked on is how to improve my clip chart discipline system.  I like the system alot! I found it on TpT and I think it was free...if you know who created it, I need to give credit because it's really cute!  I just felt like I wasn't rewarding the kids who clipped up enough.  So many of them were clipping up once and then I would kinda forget to watch really closely, and they probably deserved to move up higher, but I got busy.  I do have an immediate prize for those who clip up to the very top. But like I said, there were even more kids who clip up one level and they never got anything. It is enough just to be recognized and get to "clip up."

 I just want to encourage them to keep trying and that their hard work will pay off!

I just put their names on a $1.99 chart, framed it with some border and made up some prizes for clipping up 5, 10, 15, 20 times.  The prizes go all the way up to a stuffed animal (fortunately, I have a stash of them from a sweet parent who gave me a sackful one year, all new!)

These are my prizes for five clip ups.  This may be the best thing I've ever found on clearance at Target.  These awesome little "squishies" (remember Finding Nemo...Dori said, "you will be my squishy" - favorite line) were 70% off in the dollar section...that's right .30 each.  So...I shoved another teacher to the ground and grabbed all of them.  Seriously, there was someone watching me dig through the the mess and get every last one of them.  I'm sure they'd never seen someone clean out a bin like that.

Anyway, one of the best things about adding the chart system is that I can see who is never getting to clip up so that I can make sure I recognize them when I see something.  Why does stuff like this make me so happy?  Is it just me?

Another little tweak I made was - instead of passing out the cursive strips that came with our book, I punched some holes in them, stuck a large paper clip through it and hung it on a Command Hook.  Before, I had them keep them in their lockers, hanging on a hook, but when winter came, coats and backpacks crushed them and they never were the same! Our strips are WAY to big to go in desks.  What were the cursive folks thinking?  These things are huge. ANYWAY, problem solved.  The kids can just go get one when they want to.

What little things have you done lately to make your teaching life easier?