Classroom Management: Poppin' Points

It all started when I posted this picture on my Instagram.

Yep that is my room. Specifically I was posting this picture to draw everyones attention to my balloons. What are the balloons for you ask? Well they are part of my "gotta make it 14 more days" classroom management plan.
Disclaimer. This is not my original idea. I am a #TeacherThief. I totally copied this from
She posted this fab Classroom Management post with some very easy to recreate tips and tricks. I just happened to fall in love with this one and decided to try it. Here is what the original looked like...

Here is how "Poppin' Points" will work in my room.
If you notice I put up 13 balloons. Inside each ballon I have rolled up a Post-It note with a behavior incentive. One of the things I love about this strategy is that I can make it completely positive, and tie it into my schools PBiS implementation. Here are some of the incentives I have hidden in the balloons.
1. Do our work on the floor.
2. Swap seats with a friend.
3. Juice party.
4. GoNoodle Brain break.
5. Five minute dance party.
6. Do your work with a colored pencil.
7. Do your work with a marker.
8. Take a bag of Markers (already used) home.
9. Everyone gets a Mustang Mark. (These are our schools positive rewards)
10. Everyone gets a POP pass. (Positive Office Pass)
11. Sidewalk chalk day.
12. Color a coloring page.
13. Watch a movie (Strategically placed last for the last day of school.)

Now on Monday I will explain to my students that I will have a tally of "points" for them. When they reach 5 I will POP one balloon and they will get the reward. Of course I had to pic colors that matched my classroom decor. ;)
So you all know I teach ELL/ ESL students and see 4 groups in each day. I will have 4 different tallies and not every group will get the same rewards, only the the group that popped that specific balloon. The only exception is the last day when I will play a movie for all my students.

What I love best about this system is that it is completely customizable.
*You could set your goal at any number.
*You could increase it with each reward.
*If you did it with just one class you could color code your balloons for different goals, like if everyone turns in their home work we will pop a blue balloon, or if we walk quietly in the halls we will pop the pink balloons, etc.
*You could pop a balloon each day if you wanted. Disclaimer, I would only do this toward the end of the year so that it doesn't lose it's novelty. 

Whatever works best for your class is what will make this system work.

I got my balloons from Target. They were $1.50 for a bag of 15. Naturally I had to have 2 colors. :) They make it really easy to match your classroom decor.

Warning the navy blue ones made my hands blue. It washed off pretty easy though.

I would love to know if you try it in your class, and of course make sure you drop by...

So check out her other super easy and adorable classroom management strategies.

Show her some love.

Make sure you are following me on Instagram to get more frequent updates on what is going on in my classes.


Finally, don't forget to drop by A Teacher's Plan to pick up your monthly calendar and to do list freebie.

 

Wow that was a lot. Hope you are having a great Saturday!

Saturday Shout Out!

Hi everyone, happy Saturday! Hope you are getting some rest and are not too frazzled over the upcoming hippity hoppity Easter day coming up. While you await the upcoming festivities, sit back and enjoy this little goodie I have in store for you.

Next year my school, no my district is adopting PBIS. Don't know what that is? Neither did I a few months ago. Yet is all any administrator in my district is talking about. It stands for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. Long story short is is all about giving more positive reinforcements than you do negative ones. A 10 to 1 ration is what my admins keep talking about. I know I tend to do this with my kids verbally, but there is a real push to do it in a more tangible and measurable way. 

So all year long I've been working on finding a way to give my kids visual positive reinforcements in a way I can keep track of. My school has these fab POP (Positive Office Passes) that the staff uses when they catch the students doing something great. We check off one of the 3 objectives and the kid goes down to the office for a pencil or eraser. Something small. The secretaries make a big deal about it and the students even get to write their names on a poster in the office. the kids LOVE it.

However, at the start of the year I started using these when my students returned their homework. It REALLY motivates them. But also, because I am an ELL teacher and have a lot of students that don't understand English, nor any of our American customs sometimes the concept of Homework doesn't come across. The POP passes help me express that doing home work is good and important. Because of this I wanted to find another system, separate from the POP passes for my positive reinforcements.

Before I go on, I'd like to give a big shout out to a very sweet lady!

Katie Knight from Teacher to the Core

If you don't know this lady she is as sweet as can be, has a very funny husband, The Writing Pad Dad, and a very cute kiddo.

She also creates some pretty adorable and functional activities. One of which fits in perfectly with PBIS. 

Eye like what I see.

When I first read Katie's post I fell in love with this idea. Yet I struggled to implement it in my room. I struggled keeping track of the sheets I handed out, and felt guilty rewarding one student for something and not another doing the exact same behavior.

Then I found Terri's awards that coordinate with her Clip It Chart.

Again these were great for general purposes and I did use some with my kids. Even made some tiny ones and kept them on my desk for easy access.

However, if you remember I don't see my kids for the whole day. What if my kids didn't have a great day? Or made bad choices in their time away from ELL and I still wanted to highlight something about their time with ME. Also, I don't use a "Clip Chart". These were wonderful, adorable rewards, and I highly recommend them, but for my room, I needed something more specific.
That is when I found Katie's Shout Out pack.

In this pack Katie has created TONS of Shout Outs for students to earn. Take a peek at the table of contents in this sweet pack.

Each award comes in whole sheets and quarter sheets. Being the queen of half sheets I chose the Quarter size to save paper, but also cause my kids love smaller sheets of paper.
I found that I could make copies of several of these that I wanted to highlight in my room and keep them in a place that would be easily accessible to me but also highly visible to the kids. So I decided to put them up on my board.

See them there at the top? All I did was copy them on to bright paper, and clip them together with a binder clip. I flipped on side up and hooked it on to a thumb tack on the cork above the board!

(This is an older picture with other awards but you can get an idea of how I store them.)

Here is a close up one I have been giving to the students who consistently turn in their homework. 

There is more, remember I said that part of PBIS is measurable/ trackable data on who is receiving these positive reinforcements? Well Katie thought of that too. Included in the pack is a monthly tracking sheet. Saving my time and energy!

Yes, I could make one of my own, but why do so when it is already done for me? I keep this at my table and just jot dow the name and award I handed out. Easy! Are you enticed yet?

Here is your surprise.
Katie has graciously given one of these packs to a reader of my lil old blog here.

My question to you is...

What shout out are you most likely to use with your students?

Here is what you have to do...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Make sure you show Katie & her hubby some love. 

Oh and yeah, have a great Saturday!