4 A.M Planning

I made the mistake of thinking about school as I tried to fall asleep after a three A.M bathroom break. If you are a teacher, you may know what this means. If not, I will tell you. It means that it is now 5:00 and I am wide awake with a pen and my notebook!

It is usually about this time of the summer that I consider going into my classroom and start getting a few things done to get ready for the upcoming year. There is only one BIG problem this year.

Yikes! So thankful this happened during the summer!

 

This is what my classroom looked like the last time I saw it! In the process of replacing the roof, my celling surrendered to gravity. I know that maintenance and administration is working hard to get this problem fixed in time for school to start, but it does put a damper on me going in and working. I have heard that there is no longer anything "hanging" down anymore, so progress already!

I decided that I would share a new management piece I am going to try to implement this year. I would love to give credit to where I found the idea, but I can't remember where. It was either from the Mailbox Magazine or Pintrest.

The whole class works together showing positive behavior to complete a puzzle. This will be a good activity for the beginning of the year when you are helping the students learn the routines and what you expect of them. Each time they accomplish the desired task, they get a puzzle piece. I am going to keep them in a bag or box and have a student pull a piece out without looking and then place it on the white board. I like this added challenge, because they won't be able to put it together right away, but will have to wait until they draw pieces that will fit together!

I bought a small count piece puzzle (I think 25)  at the Dollar Store (I found a tiger one, which is our mascot, but it was 100 pieces, and I wanted  them to be successful sooner than that) and  then added magnets to the back. I also numbered each piece to help me to make sure that I have all the pieces.

 

This did not work as well as I had hopped once we tried it out on the fridge. Several pieces weren't sticking very well, so I had to add more magnet. By placing another piece of magnet on each tab this helped solve the problem.

 Then after Ms. Wilson is happy 25 times....

 

Once they have completed the puzzle then they will be rewarded with the reward voted on. It seems as if extra recess is a good motivator and is easy for me to provide. We will see how it goes this year! I may try to find another puzzle or two to add some variety.

P.S. I don't plan to take away any puzzle pieces when they do not show the desired behavior, but that may change.

So now that the alarm is to go off in an hour, I am probably going to try to go back to sleep since I have  some ideas and plans written down.

If you are a teacher, what reward system do you do for the whole class?

If you aren't a teacher, do you remember how your teachers rewarded you?