Tag: teacher resources

Inspiring Positive Character: A Reading Response Bulletin Board or Research Board

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I created this reading response and interactive bulletin board to integrate my two passions, social emotional learning and reading instruction. I’m a strong believer in allowing students free choice of their independent reading, but sometimes it can be hard to plan assignments that keep students accountable for that reading if you don’t know what they will be reading. I have found that this is a reading response that all of my students can do no matter what their book choice may be, and it is just enough of a response that I can monitor their comprehension of that reading.

In my opinion, any time is a good time to have your students thinking about positive character traits. You could choose to use this as an ongoing, year-long, reading response activity, or as a Black History Month or Women’s History Month activity to celebrate inspirational change leaders in history. Because of this flexibility, this reading response could be used as a quick research project, or with any independent reading choice, fiction or nonfiction, during your students’ daily independent reading time.

Another option to note is that you can do this a couple different ways. You could focus on one character trait at a time, a few, or all at once. I take time to introduce all of the character traits with my students. Then, as they are reading and come across an inspirational example or story (from nonfiction or fiction), they can choose the trait paper that best fits the example they want to share. You could set an expectation for a certain number of responses per week, or leave it open-ended.

My favorite way to store all of the writing page choices for the bulletin board is in a large 3-ring binder, with dividers for each trait. I use the cover page of this file as the binder cover page. You may choose to display their responses using the bulletin board option, in a binder for students to review and check out, or just as an assignment your students turn in to you. Students could also keep their writing and share it in a daily response journal that they keep as a record of the characters they read about throughout the year. Really, there are so many possibilities 🙂

I’d love for you to try it out! You can grab it by clicking on the link here to start using in your own classroom.

A Career Research Project to Boost Intrinsic Motivation

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Almost weekly, my teammates and I talk about our fifth graders and the lack of intrinsic motivation that some of them seem to have. My biggest concern has always been the potential that I can see in them, but that they don’t put out into their daily efforts in the classroom. And truly, I just don’t think they all know why that’s so important.

You see, I could say it to them all the time, just how much I believed in them, how I knew they could dig just a little deeper, take their assignments just a little more seriously. I could preach about how what they do now matters for their future. But that wasn’t making the difference that I so desperately wanted to see in some of them.

How serious was this problem? My best example is this, I give my students the opportunity to revise and resubmit their weekly reading assignments. If they don’t get the grade they want reported on their graded assignments, they can ask me to send it back to them to redo and resubmit. That’s an amazing opportunity, and about half of them (maybe even more) don’t take advantage of it. Unbelievable, right? I mean, they see their score immediately, may see that it’s a 50, and they move on to do something else. Why wouldn’t a student ask to retry that assignment to get a higher score? It puzzles and worries me, and to be honest, are we really doing our jobs if we aren’t building more intrinsic motivation in our students?

So when New Years rolled around, I came up with a plan. I knew that I wanted to work on goal-setting with my students, but I also knew that I needed to do so on a deeper level. You can read about the conferences that I had with my students for setting goals and reflecting on their performance in my previous post, Help Your Students Set Meaningful Goals Instead of the Same Old New Year’s Resolutions. You can also get a link to the forms I used during these conferences in that post.

That was part one. Part two of the plan was a research report. I had my students research the requirements of their future career goal. They researched the education, task, and skill requirements for that career, and then the reflected into heir current performance and made plans for the meeting their goal. It’s just the right combination! I called the report, “My Future’s So Bright”.

Since having these conferences and discussing their future career goals and plans for getting there, I’ve seen a significant change in some of my students. They had realizations that mattered to them and that they knew they could work on NOW. To be honest, since doing this, I’ve shared how impactful this plan was with pretty much anybody at school who will listen. It’s that good!

If this is a problem you’ve seen in your own classroom, with your own students, any time is a good time to address it. You can grab my conference forms and the career research report and bulletin board kit in my store, just go to the shop tab.

My Most Successful Parent Communication Tips

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Staying in touch to keep open communication with parents at school used to be one of the hardest parts of this job for me.  I am NOT good about picking up the phone and making calls during my planning or after school and no matter how many reminders I set for myself or how many times I make this a goal to improve each year, phone calls just don’t happen often enough for me.  I’ll bet there are plenty of teachers out there that would say the exact same thing!  Yet, working with and communicating progress with our school parents is extremely important!  Here’s what I’ve found that has made ALL THE DIFFERENCE:

  1.  ClassDojo – Watch this video on youtube for an intro to ClassDojo and some of the resources available in this AMAZING (FREE) app!  My team and I share our classes with the resource teachers, the lunch team, our parents, favorite substitutes, etc. to keep our behavior management strategies uniform for our students throughout the school day.  Those of you who know what it’s like to share your class with other teachers, know how important this is.  My parents are also connected and can see their student’s behavior points, whether they are growth or grow points, and why their student is earning that point at any time of the day.  I can message my parents one-to-one or send out whole group reminders.  I can send pictures, videos, or text messages.  This allows me to send updates or just some “yay” moments that allow my parents to help celebrate those moments with the class.   Parents can message with questions or concerns, they don’t have to wait for you to initiate communication.  Students can keep digital work portfolios for parents to see what they are working on in class.  It really is an all-in-one resource for the classroom.  Best of all, the parents that have connected with my classroom have given nothing but RAVE reviews about my communication throughout the year.  Go to classdojo.com to learn more and set up your own class!
  2. Seesaw – Seesaw is a student-driven digital portfolio.  Teachers can enable students to create, reflect, share, and collaborate; showing what they know through drawings, text, videos, photos, links, PDFs, and by uploading files from Google apps.  It is FREE and easy to use, allows for parent connection, including the ability to comment on posts (if enabled by the teacher), offers a free “class blog” site to give your students more of a world-wide audience (again this must be enabled by the teacher), and no posts are uploaded without teacher approval.  In my experience, parents LOVE being able to see their child’s work and send encouraging comments or suggestions to stay connected to their child at school!  My students LOVE this site too. It has been a highly engaging addition to my classroom.  I suggest browsing the resources section of this site for great ideas and PD opportunities to get the most out of your use of this AWESOME resource for your classroom!
  3. Google Classroom – This one is only available to teachers who have access to Google Apps for Education.  It is a classroom website that enables the teacher to send assignments, announcements, questions, files, videos, and links to students and connected parents.  Students can turn in their assignments directly on the Classroom assignment page and teachers can grade, comment, and send the assignments back for revision if necessary.  The teacher has full control over what is added to the Classroom page, including frequent links or files used in the classroom.  It can even be shared among teachers for team collaboration.  Assignments can be differentiated and viewed while the students are working, allowing the teacher to check in and make suggestions before the work is turned in.  Connected parents are able to track their child’s work and progress, making for more informed communication.  I use this one DAILY in my classroom.  This is truly a resource that has transformed my teaching!

I know there are other great apps and communication sites out there, but in my experience (and I’ve tried quite a few), these are the best!  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like any more information about any of these classroom tools.

thanks for reading!