Two Stars and a Wish!

Today I’m teaming up with a ton of fabulous bloggers to share “Two Stars and A Wish”! This blog hop is meant to help y’all transition into the school year smoothly with some new ideas in your tool belt. Every new year and new class brings its own special joys and challenges, am I right?

My first star idea is having a motivational wall that keeps you inspired all year long. I did this in my classroom every year and I loved it. Just when I was having a rough time I would look over and read words like “breathe” and “laugh” and it would help me remember to take things as they come and to not let myself get overwhelmed. We all have those days where it seems like nothing is going right and there just isn’t enough time in a day…it happens to us all!

Here’s a picture of my motivational wall in my home office:

This is something super easy and will help keep you going when things get a little crazy! All you have to do is decide which words you want to post, use some funky fonts, print them out, cut and staple to a bulletin board. If you want to use the words I have on my wall you can pick them up in a file here.

My second star idea is to begin your year with data notebooks. I taught at a Leader in Me school so data notebooks were a big deal to us. I absolutely LOVED using them. They were so amazing for several reasons:

1.     

         * I felt like they significantly increased my students’ motivation to set             and meet goals

         * I felt like my students took more ownership of their behavior,                   academics and attitudes 

         * They were a great tool for parents to see their children’s progress

         * They were an extremely helpful tool to take to RTI/ARD meetings               because everything was right there in one place

                         * They are relatively easy to maintain

Even if you’re not at a Leader in Me school data notebooks would be an excellent addition to your classroom. Here are some things I kept in my students’ notebooks:

*Classroom mission statement and students’ personal mission statement

*Goal setting and check in pages

*Graphs for grades, reading levels, behavior, etc.

If you’re interested in starting data notebooks I have a little sampler for you to help you get started. You can pick that file up here.

This year I am beginning a new journey as an Early Childhood Specialist. I am SO excited and I cannot wait to get going but of course I know I will have many challenges to face. Doing my best at work, being an awesome mom and wife, running the blog and my TpT store…is going to be a challenge! Oh yah and finding time to exercise….saayyyy whhhaaat? Ya…we’ll see about that… My point is that I will have a lot on my plate and I need to get more organized!!

Lucky for me I just treated myself to an Erin Condren life planner…eeek!! I haven’t gotten it in the mail yet, but I will share the style I ordered:

Do any of y’all have a planner from Erin?? I am so excited! J I will definitely post a picture when I get this bad boy in the mail!

I hope you enjoyed these ideas and freebies! You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and TpT for tons of freebies and updates.

Now you can head back to Mandy’s site and take a look at ideas from all the other bloggers!

An InLinkz Link-up