A Few Of My Favorite Things {Morning Must Haves}

I'm linking up with Across the Hall in 2nd for the These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things linky. The first edition is morning must haves.

I should start of by saying that I am NOT a morning person. I wake up to my iphone alarm on vibrate. I can't stand any sound that early. I hear the vibrating noise since my phone is on my nightstand. And I quickly shut it off for some snooze time. It's an awful habit, I know but I can't seem to beat it. :)

I'm not perfect makeup applier but I do love this primer from Ulta. I put one squirt on and let it sit for a few minutes while I work on my hair and then put on my makeup. It really helps my look last longer. 

I don't drink caffeine but every now and then I swing by the Dunkin Donuts drive through and grab an iced decaf mocha. So so yummy!

Once I'm in the car I need some jams to wake me up. My commute is short but I still need to get my brain going. I either listen to CD's or switch between my favorite country and variety radio stations. I should not that when I say switch I truly mean "avoid all commercials". I can't stand radio commercials! So lame!

What are your morning must haves?

Happy Summer!!!

Sorry I've been MIA for a bit. The end of the school year is always crazy for me as I'm trying to pack SO much in at school plus lots of travel for me. I've now been out for 2 weeks and it has been GLORIOUS. I only get a month since I'm year round but I have been busy having fun!

I thought I'd do a little catch up with some end of year school things with pictures.

I found these cute folders at Kmart and decided to use them to organize papers. My school is using MCREL next year for assessments and we had training the last month of school. I wanted to make sure I had a safe place to keep all of my notes.

We released our butterflies. This is an awful picture but it's always such a special moment. I often think of my kiddos as butterflies ready to fly away at the end of the year. 

I love the sweet things they give me. One of my kiddos gave me this for the end of year/my birthday. 

Isn't this school supply tower so neat? I love it! It's so practical and pretty too!

That's all for now! Check back tomorrow for more about what I've been doing during my track out!

Winner Winner {Chicken Dinner}

I'm sorry but I just had to use that title. :)

The winner of the Behavior Contracts for Student Success Pack is......Storie

Congratulations Storie, be looking for an e-mail from me.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there! I'm going to celebrate my mom in a bit. I'm pretty excited about part of her gift. My mom loves homemade gifts/cards, she's one of those people who never wants anything (I did not inherit that trait!).

I made her a jar of notes that have reasons why I love her, special memories and bible verses. I think it turned out pretty good and will probably make her cry. I love her SO much!

Five For Friday

Happy Friday everyone! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

1. Do you like my new blog design? I'm in LOVE with it. I knew my blog needed a change and the fabulous Christi from Designs by Christi designed it for me. She did an awesome job and I feel like I'm coming "home" every time I open my page.

2. I loved being appreciated by my students this week. I got all sorts of sweet stuff. My favorites are their little notes and how they get me elephant things! I love elephants and it's no secret and they always give me cute elephants.

3.  Today was an Early Release day and we worked really hard to cut out all the pieces for our biography lapbooks. Whenever we do a lot of cutting I let them throw their scraps on the floor and then at the end we do a big clean up. The room was a serious disaster during the process!

4. We finished our Mother's Day flipbooks. These came from Shelley Gray. They turned out sooooo good! I love all the things they say - they are too funny!

5. Don't forget I'm having a giveaway for my new product - Behavior Contracts for Student Success. It closes tomorrow at midnight. And my dear friend Amber, at Adventures Of A Third Grade Teacher is having a giveaway as well that I'm participating in. Be sure to check it out!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Beyond the Clip Chart...How I Use Behavior Contracts

I've posted before about how I use my clip chart. I love the clip chart! It is fabulous! It's amazing what happens when I start saying "Hmm I wonder whose clip I can move up". For me, the clip chart works for about 80% of my class. The average student is motivated by the rewards and praise and quickly bounces back from moving their clip down.

But for the other 20% the clip chart may not work all the way. Students who need more behavior support are not going to benefit from constantly moving their clip down. It becomes a pattern and a) they give up and don't care b) you find yourself not wanting to follow through with every move down and c) doesn't provide enough documentation of negative behaviors.

So, how do you motivate those students who need more support to improve their behavior? Well, please believe me when I say I am NO EXPERT on this subject. People have written books about this and I can tell you I haven't read them all. But what I have learned from my humble experience is two things:

1. Students who misbehave frequently need frequent positive reinforcement for desired behaviors.
2. Documentation is essential!

Thus comes the behavior contract. Believe me when I say I have tried many different kinds of behavior charts. I remember coming out of some meetings about students with yet another contract to try and just feeling overwhelmed. I couldn't figure out how to keep track of all of the different ones!

There are now two kinds of contracts that I use in my classroom and I mean it when I say I love them and THEY WORK! Here's why:
~ They provide constant positive reinforcement.
~ The student becomes more responsible by keeping track of their data.
~ The student is motivated by rewards.
~ The reward frequency is easy enough for me to implement without feeling overwhelmed.
~ The covers/themes increase student excitement and engagement.
~ I have constant data on the student's behaviors.
~ They keep parents informed about their child's behavior and allow for parents to also reward their child at home.

So after developing two kinds of contracts and using them all year in my classroom I decided to make pack of them. This pack includes two kinds of contracts - one for the student who needs to improve one or two behaviors and one for the student who needs to improve multiple behaviors. Check it out in my store!

It's on sale today for the teacher appreciation sale. Don't forget to enter the code TAD13 at checkout! 

In honor of teacher appreciation I'm going to do a giveaway of the Behavior Contracts Pack. Enter below! I'll pick and announce a winner on Sunday. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Have a great rest of your week!

Follow Me on Facebook & Let's Shop!

Anyone else have a busy weekend? Mine was go, go, go. Phew. I volunteered and hung out with some good friends at local Derby Day event. It was a cold and very windy day but we had fun anyways.

The event took place at a local stable/horse farm and it was beautiful!

Of course it wouldn't be a Derby event without a Derby hat! 

Today kicked off Teacher Appreciation Week. Some of my kiddos came in with some sweet treats for me. 

One kiddo gave me this huge elephant! How cute is it? It is also SO soft I just wanted to hug it all day. :)

I also got an Appalachian bucket that ended up full of little treats by the end of the day. 

Speaking of Teacher Appreciation, who's ready for a big Teachers Pay Teachers Sale?!!!! 

I am!!! Everything in my tpt store is 28% off when you use the code TAD13 at checkout.

I've also started a Facebook Page. I'm excited to use this as a way to communicate, interact and offer freebies and have giveaways with you all. I've got a Life Cycles Metamorphosis Sort/Freebie up right now, all you have to do is like Second Grade Style on Facebook.

Alright, I'm off to work on my wish list for tomorrow. Happy shopping everyone!

Five for Friday

What - my five for Friday is actually going live on Friday? I know, shocker huh? :)

1. Last week we read a Bad Case of Stripes as our story of the week. I couldn't resist Clutter Free Classroom's Writing Activity that goes with the book. The kiddos striped themselves and wrote about their favorite foods using their senses. They turned out awesome and they were very into it!

I love black olives! 

2. For our word study this week we looked at Shades of Meaning, aka closely related synonyms. We talked about how words can be synonyms but not mean exactly the same thing - some are "weaker" and some are "stronger". I got an awesome pack on TPT - Charades of Meaning by Teaching & Tapas. It had lots of fun games and activities. We also made shades of meaning kites. 

They wrote their names on the kites and then I gave them 4 synonyms that were closely related and they had to put them in order of "strength". 

I love how they turned out and they are really starting to get this objective! (Which is awesome since it was definitely one of those objectives that I had to do research on at the beginning of the year to figure out what it meant!)

3. I don't have a picture but I met my first bloggy/internet friend. Stephanie from First Grade Fabulous Fish and I met up for dinner. We had a blast chatting - our poor waitress felt bad interrupting us to take our orders haha! Stephanie is super sweet, be sure to check her blog out!

4. We've had book fair going on at school. I just LOVE books! I feel like I could never have enough! My mom packs up my books for me every track out and always says I do NOT need anymore haha. I had some sweet kiddos get me some things from my wish list.

I'm working on a reading group guide for this one. Stay tuned!

Can't wait to read this one on Monday to the kiddos! We are BIG Mo Willems fans! 

5. I'm going to give away a copy of my new unit, Ungrouping Unlimited with a little pin it to win it fun. All you have to do is pin one of the images below and then leave a link to your pin in the comments. I'll pick a random winner on Sunday. 

Have a great weekend!