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!
