Healthy work habits is a topic near and dear to my heart. When Angela Watson asked me to read her new book, Unshakeable, and write about one of the chapters, Establishing Healthy Habits for Brining Work Home and Decompressing was a no-brainer. When it comes to your work habits, it’s often hard to “win” no…
So often we hear about what a terrible job teachers are doing. The stories of teachers who make bad choices seem to outplay uplifting stories in the press. Poor test scores get way more attention that passing ones. A parent who disagrees with your decisions seems to contact you so much more than the parents…
I already shared my first idea for motivating and recognizing your students in 2013 earlier this month. In case you missed it, you can click here to read all about Brag Tags. Today I’m back with another idea… incentive bracelets! Like I said before, of course I prefer intrinsic (and free, haha!) motivation, but it’s…
Oh friends, I am so excited to share this fun idea with you today. We spend a lot of time talking about student engagement and motivation at our school. Of course we want our students to be intrinsically motivated, but let’s be honest… that doesn’t always happen. Besides, isn’t it kind of nice to get…
Way back when I was a new blogger, I posted about using National Geographic Explorer with my students each month. We’re using September this week. One of the other third grade teachers made the coversheet with activities this time, so I can’t share that, but I wanted to pass along the vocabulary cards I made…
We have a new superintendent this year. He sends us an email every morning with an educational quote, inspiring message, or interesting article. The following is one I saved. As I was cleaning my messages out, I came across it again and wanted to share it here. I was just going to share the quote…
Have you heard of Homeworkopoly? It’s a game board similar to the real Monopoly and can be used as a homework incentive in your classrooms. We play every Friday afternoon, but students are only allowed to roll if they have completed all of their work for the week. Students have a chance to earn a…
I believe that engaging instruction is the best way to keep your students on-task, but an effective classroom management plan is also important. I use positive and negative reinforcement in our room, but I prefer to focus on the positive. That’s where our classroom auctions come in. I run ours just like a traditional auction,…