How are you managing classroom behaviors? How effective is your system you currently have in place? Think about those questions. 

I currently use Classroom Dojo to manage and track behaviors in my classroom. I have been using Dojo for three years now, and I have used it more this year then I have in the past. My sixth graders are enjoying all the features that are included. They love to see points added to the totals and to see what percentage of positives they have. 

I work at a PBIS (positive behavior intervention system) school. We focus on ways to reward the positive and teach ways students how to make better choices. The language at our school is the same. We acknowledge students who are doing the right thing ("Brittney I like the way you are standing in line facing forward") in hopes that the others that are not doing the behavior will want fix it. 

When I see my studens doing these behaviors I give them points the add up to a percentage. My students use their points in our class store on Fridays. I do this so all students can participate. Every Friday we have Friday Specials; the last hour of the day on Fridays we spend doing something special such as an extra recess, movie, play on iPads, games, etc... Students can only participate if there behavior on Dojo is 80% or higher. The same goes for the PBIS parties at the end of the month.

I can also connect with my teammates class and give her students points when I am with them.

I like to keep track of my students attendance and Dojo makes it easy. Dojo lets you take attendance and it saves it for you to look at later. It also shades the student's name that is absent so they don't get any class points accidentally. Absent student don't accumulate points. 

The message sending is new to Dojo. I can now send messages to parent through the Dojo app or the website. This is a really convenient way to stay in contact with all my student's parents. 

To connect your parents just print the parent invitations and send home. Parents download the app and put in the code specially generated for them. Once they are connected they can see their child's total percentage, when they get points, lose points, and parents can send messages to the teacher. 

The teacher can also send individual messages or a whole class broadcast. Each month we have to make a positive phone call to our parents. Sending a positive message through Dojo makes it quick and easy. 

So far I have 14 out of 24 parents connected. It is my mission to get the other 10 connected. I can also say my parents love that they can send me a message anytime and they can see how their child's behavior is in class. Parents alson send messages to let me know if their child will be absent, if they forget what to do for homework and they can ask questions when needed. 

If you have not joined Class Dojo, it is the best kid/parent/teacher friendly classroom management system ever, so go join!!

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I have been working on and off trying to get my classroom ready for my sixth graders. Now I want to share my classroom with you! 

All my desks are ready with my student's name tag. I want to thank my friend and coworker for writing the names in cursive, it looks so much better than my handwriting :). 

I am loving my "what stuck with you today" board. We have to use exit slips this year, this is a quick way for me to see what my students learned each day. My board also says August 18 and today is the 19 and no we have not started school yet. I live in St. Louis where Micheal Brown was killed, so our first day of school has been pushed back to the 25th, in hopes that the violence has died down so it is safe for our student to walk to school.

This is the back corner of my room. I have been following The Brown Bag Teacher's blog and I will being doing th 40 book challenge. I want my students shoot for that goal, but also be proud of any number of books they read this school year!

My library turned out great!! The label are from my TpT store and the baskets I got from Dollar Tree. Quick note all my baskets in my room including the caddies on the desk all came from Dollar Tree.

Small group table is ready for students too!

This is my desk area. I probably will not be spending a lot of time here. I like to sit at my table most of the time. 

This year I have a smart board in my room. Last year I had a promethean board. I really like both equally. They both have their good and bad points. In the front drawers, I keep extra supplies students will need. If they run out of something they can go to one spot to find everything they will need. 

 

I am thinking of changing my star work board, but this will do for now.

Last thing I want to show is my word wall. We will be keeping track of all our vocabulary word in all subjects.

Well that is it for now. I hope you like my room and saw something you could use in your classroom. I also want to dedicate this post to Michael Brown and his family, hope the protesting stays peaceful so students can walk safely to school!

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Wow I really have some gaps in my blog posts. I am setting a goal now that I will post at least three time a month. I love reading all the teacher blogs out there that I forget to talk about ideas I have. This summer has really gone by fast, I cannot believe I go back to work on Monday. I hope every one has had a wonderful summer and is ready to go back to work!!! I wish all of you a happy school year!

Here is my Five for Friday!

I have been working in my new classroom this will and I am happy to say I got a lot done. I covered all my bulletin boards (I have some huge boards LOL). My desks are put in groups of five I have the placement of everything where is should be. 

I am still hunting around school for a shelf and a cabinet :).

I finished putting all my books in their baskets. Now I just need to print more labels for the baskets without them. I posted this picture on instagram and I was so surprised when it go 50 likes. I also had lots of teachers asking where I got the baskets from too. I get all my baskets and the caddies on the desk from Dollar Tree. It has saved me a lot of money by shopping there from my classroom, and I love all the bright colors they have too!

My book bin labels are for sale in my TpT store click here.

These are my little helpers!!! They always love helping my set up my classroom every year. They have been such a great help to me. I have the best daughters a mother could ask for.

They are also super excited to go back to school!!

I created this a couple of weeks ago and I can't wait to use it. This activity will help me get to know my students with having them stand up one by one stating facts about themselves. I have found that some students are shy!

If you are looking for a quick activity to do on the first day of school with your students check out my Back to School Scoot. Click here.

To celebrate back to school, my entire store will be on sale starting August 4th - August 5th. Start your wish list now so you are ready. 

Happy Shopping!!!

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I live in St. Louis and the city just celebrated its 250th birthday. To celebrate there are 250 decorated cakes placed all over the St. Louis area and some is Illinois. This summer to keep my kids busy once a week we drive around trying to find some of the cakes (we have a list of all 250 cakes and their location). We are going to see how make we can find before they go back to school. So far we have found 20, so only 230 left to find! This cake is outside of the science center and it is my favorite one so far. :)

Wish us luck!!!!!!

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First I want to say I am so excited because I got a new job in a new district. I will be teaching sixth grade next year. I am really going to miss my first graders, but I hope to one day go back to primary. 

Now that I am going to a new grade I had to switch out my classroom library. I packed up all my primary book; except for some I will use for teaching like my non-fiction books mostly ( biographies, animals books, science books, etc.). For the past few days, I have been  going through my chapter books to get them level and labeled. 

         

                                     

        

 

Books have literately taken over my living room. My goal for this month is to have all my books leveled and labeled for the school year. I am leveling my book by using scholastic book wizard and book source classroom organizer, which is where I log all my books. 

         

         

I really like using book source classroom organizer because it organizes your library and the teacher can keep track of all the books students check out of their library. With book source you can also quickly scan books into your library using your cell phone or iPad. It makes the process go so much faster, then typing each ISBN #. When students go to check out books (since I will be teaching sixth they will check out their books) they can use an iPad to check out. When you add book to your library you can type or scan the ISBN #.

Since I am moving, my new school will be using accerlated reader and they are starting to implement guided reading, so when I level my books, I put the guided reading reading level, the lexile level, and how many accerlated reader points the book is worth. I also label my books with a please return sticker just in case it grows legs and ends up somewhere else lol! The last thing I do is put a location label on the book. This sticker tells my librarian what basket the book belongs in. 

                           

The last thing I want to show you is how my books are sorted. Because I am teaching sixth grade next year I am not going to sort my books by reading level, like I did with my first graders. I redid my book bin labels and they are avabile in my TpT store for purchase. I have sorted my books by series ( captain underpants, bad kitty, Harry potter, 39 clues, etc), historical fiction, humor, horror, fantasy, non-fiction, etc...

             

With my book bin labels there are blank labels for you to choose what you want and all the labels that are numbered are also editable. 

Thank you reading my post. Let me know if you have any advice for me in sixth grade or any suggestion about organizing my library!

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OMG!!!! It has been a month since I have written a blog post. Sorry to my followers I jut finished my graduate course work, where I had to write a 25 page research paper and it took forever and all my free time. I'm happy to be back and ready for this link up.

This is like finally a happy moment. We don't get to go to the computer lab because of testing in the upper grades, so when the new laptop cart came available I was happy my student could be the first to try them out.

......we have been waiting all school year!

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This might be a couple days late, but I still wanted to share this with everyone. I currently coach the basketball team for my school. The team consist of 2nd thru 5th graders. All year we have been playing the same team and it has been fun for my girls and boys. Sadly we have lost every time. 

This past Friday was different. My players played their heart out on Friday and went into overtime. 

We won!!!!! 34 to 33... 

This is me on the right and the other coach Ms. Lewis on the right. She is such as great coach. Can you tell that we were very excited to win. If this picture does not convince you look below!

We were so excited that the cheer leaders and all my players ran on to the court jumping up and down. Ms. Lewis the other coach up on some victory music and the top picture is everyone dancing including the cheer coach, myself, and Ms. Lewis (see it you can point out the adults in the picture)!!!

We were so excited that we forgot to line up to shake the other team's hand ☺️!! We did call and apologize!!!

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Earth Day it coming up so I have created the perfect activity pack for you class. 

This pack includes: 

The history of Earth Day and questions

Sentence scrambles

Writing prompts

And a fact and opinion game

I will be giving this away to a lucky follower. To enter follow my blog and leave a comment with your name and email. Winner will be announced tomorrow. This will also be in my teachers pay teachers store and on sell till the 31st.

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Yay!!!! This is my first five for Friday and I am excited to tell you about my random week!

To kick off my spring break last week I took my two oldest girls to work with me and I also brought their Wii. My students had so much fun dancing all day long.

After the students went home, this is what teachers do while waiting for parent conferences LOL. This is one of my good friends. She teaches kindergarten and our rooms are connected by a bathroom. We yell each other's name through the bathroom a lot. I know the kids think we're crazy at times. My oldest decided she was tired of dancing, so she watched at the computer.

During spring break I got to spend some time with my baby girl, who turned 1 on the 16th. 

This is how were spent out days on the couch watching TV. Oddly this child is glue to me. She is like my little shadow. My oldest is now 9 and she was the type of baby that just wanted to do things on her own. My middle one is 6 and she it the biggest daddy's girl. As a baby, she was his shadow and would hate for my to even hug him LOL. I have really enjoyed this time with my little one this week. 

I'm happy I was finally able to get my hair done this week. When I get back to school on Monday, my students are going to be surprised at how much my hair has grown this week LOL. They have not seen me with long hair since the beginning of the school year, and others that are new have never seen me with it. I am ready for all the questions about how did I get my hair to grow so much over spring break. 

I love my new hair (sew in). The weather is starting to get warm, so now it is time for a change. 

I saw this quote on instagram and loved it. 

This is exactly how I feel about my job. I do not see what I do as work, I see it as a passion.

Lastly number five. I have started on some earth day activities 

This is a work in progress and I hope to be finished with it today. I will also be giving away two free copies of this to a lucky blog follower and a Facebook follower. Keep a look out!!!

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