Happy Summer! Welcome back to the Crazy Critter Café! So I've been thinking about how I'd like to use my Class Dojo reward system and here's the latest...Numbered Tubs to match the Class Dojo "point clubs". I used this idea toward the end of the school year and it seemed to work well. Students gave input on what they'd like to have in the tubs (thus, the 2 levels of sweet treats!) My goal was to have a daily Dojo time, but due to our hectic afternoon schedule, that couldn't always be done, so I'd find time during the week for our class Dojo time (or every 2 weeks if I felt more time was needed for students to reach certain Dojo Point Clubs). I had a checklist and whenever we had Dojo time, I would write the point club for each student so I would know which reward tubs they've picked from during that particular Dojo time. At a designated date, all Class Dojo points would reset and students would start over. I bought 2 plastic organizers to help keep the rewards separate. All I have to do when we have Dojo time is snap apart the 5-15 trays and pull out the 20-30 point drawers for easy distribution of rewards! I'm sure there are tons of ways to use Class Dojo in the classroom. I found that starting simple was more effective. I didn't get overwhelmed with keeping up with rewards and trying to grab my iPad to give Dojo points every second of the day. I used it mostly during transition, independent work, and center times. Make it work for you and your class! I'll switch out rewards periodically so students don't get bored with these. I'd love to hear how you use Class Dojo in your class. Please add a comment below! :-) Thanks for stopping by the café!
Celebrate the last day of school with a fun gift for classmates, you're sure to find something you love with one of these 30 End of Year Class Gift Ideas.
It's time for another Monday Made It! I actually did some calculating today, and there are only 3 more Mondays after today until I go back ...
Here's a fun and colorful end of the school year gift idea! When I found a 6 pack of huge bubble wands at Wal-Mart for only $3.88 I knew they would be perfect for the end of the year! Plus, they were already packaged in rainbow order! I made a cute tag to go with them and we're ready to go! Here are some pictures! You can download the tags for FREE by clicking on any of the pictures in this post! Happy end of the year!
Welcoming new kids to class this year? Check out these back-to-school gifts for students.
It's hard to believe it's already that time of the year again! The End of the Year Countdown is on and I wanted to share some EASY and inexpensive student gifts for the end of the year! Let's get this party started!!!! And, at only $3.88 for a pack of 6 these Bubble Sticks from Wal-Mart are an AMAZING deal! I am giving my sweet students these bubble sticks this year and I am going to personalize them using my Silhoutte Cameo! Another option are these adorable popsicle bubble blowers from Dollar Tree! Sand Buckets make a great end of the year gift because they can be used to hold ANYTHING! My own kids play with sand buckets all the time for anything and everything, not just at the beach! I gave my students each a sand bucket a few years ago and personalized them with their names! You could also put some fun items inside! You can find these anywhere, but I found some great deals at Dollar Tree and Michaels! My kids LOVE water bottles and the great thing about these is how easy they are to find for pretty cheap! I found these ones at Dollar Tree and last year I personalized them for each of my students using my Silhouette! I've also seen great options at Michaels and Hobby Lobby! When I was in third grade, my teacher gave my entire class a book for our end of the year gift. But, she didn't just give us any book. She picked out a different book for every single one of us that would mean something to that student. I STILL remember that gift, and I'm sure I still have the book in a box in my parent's attic. One simple little gift that has truly made an impact on my life! One year I hope to do that for each of my kids! It is definitely not a cheap idea, but one that might impact a future teacher! Books are ALWAYS a good idea to give! And, even if you don't want to choose a DIFFERENT book for every student, you can easily purchase a class favorite for the class! Make sure to check out the Scholastic teacher section for dollar deals, and if you are lucky enough to have a Scholastic Warehouse near you, their sales are AMAZING! When I was a little girl, I LOVED playing school! So, giving dry erase boards as an end of the year gift is always a good idea in my book! And, there are so many different options! I have these plastic trays and dry erase board paddles from Dollar Tree! But, you could also go to Home Depot and have them cut pieces of Shower Board for you! I did this my first year teaching and STILL have the same boards TEN years later!! It would also be cute to personalize the backs of the boards using a permanent marker! What kid doesn't LOVE sunglasses!? These are such a fun gift for the end of the year! These are also a pretty inexpensive gift and would make the cutest picture of your entire class wearing them all! You can grab these options from Dollar Tree! And, these NEON sunglasses are only $15 for a 24 pack on Amazon! I am all about some memories, so giving a picture frame with a class picture inside is a great gift idea in my book! I can just imagine this sweet little picture frame sitting on a night stand for years to come! And then maybe one day it'll be placed in a box and bring back lots of memories and smiles! I grabbed this little frame from Dollar Tree, so it was a great deal! I just love the idea of giving students beach balls at the end of the year! And, these work out perfectly because you can have your class sign each ball with a permanent marker as a fun little memento to keep for years to come! And, at only $1.00 a ball they make the perfect gift! You can find these at Dollar Tree! You can also grab this 12 pack of beach balls for under $10 on Amazon! For all those crafty teachers, I bet you could come up with something CUTE to put on a t-shirt! I'm thinking tie-dye or some Heat Transfer Vinyl! And then you could also have students sign the backs and have a sweet little gift that they can keep forever! You can grab this pack of t-shirts on Amazon! How FUN is sidewalk chalk during the summer!? My kids LOVE using sidewalk chalk at recess, so I know this would make a great end of the year gift that they could use at home! These 20 packs are only $1.00 at Dollar Tree!!! Because what kid doesn't LOVE candy!? This is always an easy idea! And you can get ANY kind of sweet treat! Gummy Bears are some of my favorite!!! I found these Krazy Straws at Dollar Tree and there are 6 in a pack for only $1.00! I mean, it doesn't get much cheaper than 16 cents per student! You could even add one of those packs of Kool Aid or Crystal Light to it to make it more fun! I also found these cute mini Krazy Straws at Hobby Lobby! Or, you can grab a 36 pack on Amazon for only around $7! So, I'm going to be completley honest and I HATE playdough! But, as much as I hate it kids absolutely LOVE it! Dollar Tree has TONS of options! They even have a 4-pack for only $1.00! This would make a great gift for primary grades! You could even send home a cute little list of things that they could use the playdough for to practice over the summer- letters, CVC words, sight words! Anything! And, for those fun and silly years how FUN would Silly Putty or Silly String be for a gift!? You can find both of these fun things on Amazon! I love the idea of paint and some paper or an art pad! As a mom of two, this would give kids something fun to do over the summer! Markers or crayons would also be a cute idea! And again, not expensive at all! I also found some large Art Pads at Dollar Tree for only $1.00! Because when it's all said and done, the years really do FLY BY! It always amazes me how fast the school year goes by! Frisbees are such a fun gift idea, and I think it would be super adorable to have your students sign each other's frisbee! So, I just LOVE when I find cute little plush toys to give to my kids! Especially when they aren't very expensive! How ADORABLE are these little plush fish that I found from Dollar Tree!? I love the whole o-FISH-ally theme and got super excited when I found them! And, these cute little caterpillars make the CUTEST little bookworms! I found these at Dollar Tree, too! I mean, how ADORABLE are these little plush fish from Oriental Trading!? They would make the cutest little gift with an O-FISH-ALLY tag! Or, these sweet little bears from Oriental Trading would make the sweetest gift for a BEARY sweet year! Pencils are always fun! But, personalized pencils are even better! How adorable are these pencils that you can grab from Oriental Trading!? Clipboards are always fun! The best part of these is they are a blank canvas and you can personalize them in different ways! You can add their names with vinyl, stickers, or a permanent marker! You could even write a special message on the back! And, if you wanted to you could add some summer review pages to the clipboard for students to practice over the summer! You can get a 30 pack on Amazon for around $30! One of my FAVORITE things we did on the last day of school was give our students this fun little Last Day of School Snack! It was such a fun way to end the year!! You could really use ANY candy for this and come up with cute little sayings for what they stand for! Just a FUN way to end the year in a positive way! I hope that you found some ideas for your end of the year gifts!!!! If you need a tag, you can grab my End of the Year Gift Tags in my TPT store! It has ALL the tags shown in this post, including the treat bag topper for the Last Day of School Snack! They come in color and black and white versions and you can personalize them in PowerPoint with your name! For more {Fashion, Fun, and Favorites} make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Teachers Pay Teachers! Want to save these ideas for later? Make sure to pin the image below!
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Creating student birthday gifts can be a challenge, but it doesn't have to be! Make each of your students feel special with this FREE download.
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This is a fun and easy card to make for Teacher Appreciation Week from the whole class. All we did was print the ‘Thanks from …
Make these shrink film keepsake keychains with your students using Shrinky-Dink paper! These fun names will preserve how they wrote their name when they were first learning! We share how on Simply Kinder.
Tomorrow is my first day of *real* school! I am so excited to meet my new group for this year! Back to school night was last night. I gave my new group a very quick and easy gift. Glow bracelets or necklaces will work perfect. I’ve learned to keep it simple since the turn out...
If you're tired of digging into your own pockets to find ways to motivate your students, you need to check out these FREE reward coupons. You can even use the editable option to add your own coupons.
Getting close to the end of the year? Here are several fun end of the year student gifts that you can put together for your students!
This Jitter Juice recipe is perfect for the first day of school! Pair it with the fun back to school book, "First Day Jitters."
It's time to celebrate the end of school and say goodbye to friends and teachers. Welcome summer with fun and free end of school printables.
It’s about that time. My Sneak Peek (or Meet the Teacher, whatever you want to call it) is on THURSDAY MORNING. Eeeek! I truly cannot believe that it is already time to meet my next batch of babies. I can’t wait, but I’m also on edge! What a crazy time of year this ... Read More about Simple Back to School Student Gifts (with a FREEBIE!)
I don't know about you, but if I'm not organized ahead of time with student birthdays I will undoubtedly forget one until the student casually mentions that it's his/her special day. In which case, I plaster that great big smile on my face while my heart begins to race and my brain is spinning trying to think of how I can make the day special now. That all changed a couple of years ago when I realized that planning for student birthdays was something I could do during the summer and be checked off of my to-do list for the school year! So, while I want the day to be a special one for my students, I want it to be one less thing for me to organize during the daily grind of the school year. The Gift: {This post contains affiliate links.} To make sure the day is special, I do like to give my students a little gift. I create these birthday sundae cups during the summer and store them so they are ready to place on students' desks on their big days. If I've forgotten a birthday - no problem, I have these on hand and ready to go! I buy the cups from Amazon for convenience (hello, Prime love!) but I've also went to my local Starbucks for donations in the past. I fill the cups with a few little treats (think bookmarks, candy, erasers, etc.) along with a No Homework Pass and then add white crinkle paper on top to look like whipped cream. I punch a hole in the cup lid and then stick a pre-sharpened Happy Birthday pencil into the hole to look like a straw. Finally, I top it off with a "cherry" sucker sticking out of the hole in the top and add a label to the cup. It really is a simple little treat, but it looks so special sitting on the birthday kid's desk! They eat them up. :) The Card: I also place a Happy Birthday Certificate on the counter so that classmates can sign it throughout the day. Everyone likes to receive birthday wishes from all of their friends and what a precious keepsake it makes. If you have a special classroom theme, you can find themed birthday certificates in all of my theme décor packs. I'll be using the Superhero ones this year and know that my little marvels will love them! The Song: Finally, we have a special cheer that we sing to the birthday child. I change it up from the traditional birthday song, as my students were getting WAY too silly with that. This cheer is more of a bootcamp style chant and they love that it's different! If they birthday kid is a girl, the girls will lead off with the boys echoing and if the birthday kid is a boy, the boys will lead off with the girls echoing. Everyone joins in on the last line to make the birthday kid feel extra special. Throughout the day, I let the birthday student be the line leader so that they're feeling a little birthday love all day long. That's it! Birthdays are a breeze with pre-prepped gifts and students feel extra special with a little birthday love from the teacher and wishes from classmates. If you would like to use these ideas, you can grab them all in this birthday FREEBIE from my shop! Enjoy!
Send students off with gifts that won't break the bank.
Hey bloggers! It's JUNE! I can't believe it. BUT, June means good news for us...it means we found out about Baby J's gender!! And... It's a boy! We took the first picture the day before the reveal and posted it on facebook for friends and family to make their final guesses about gender! Clearly you can see that hubs is VERY excited :) Haha. This is my 20 week picture. I have taken a picture every 4 weeks! I can't believe we are already half way to meeting the little guy! We have started talking names now...we have only had girl names picked out until now. For some reason, they were much easier for us to agree on. Boy names are much more difficult...I don't want something that you hear all the time...but we also have the difficult task of finding a name that we both like that we haven't had a student with that same name (you know the kind of student I'm talking about...). But, we still have time to figure it out! Now, it's time for my June Currently with Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade! Not much explanation needed...I REALLY want to get started on baby's room...but our spare bedroom has pretty much been a place where we have just thrown things over the last few years. We have a lot of cleaning to do before I can start working on that room!! One last thing that I forgot to blog about was the end of the year gifts for the kiddos. The other first grade teacher and I gave them each 2 popsicles with a little note :) Go link up your end of the year gifts with Seusstastic Classroom! Have a great week!
WOW! Is all I can say. Thank you to everyone who has viewed and liked this post. It is by far my MOST POPULAR post ever. I have had quite a few questions about my end of the year gifts and h…
first grade teacher blog
No reason to stress out over Meet the Teacher this year! Check out these simple ways to rock your meet the teacher event!
Free Printable End-of-School Gift Tags for teachers and graduates!
See my favorite End-of-the-Year Student Gifts to make your busy time less stressful! These are perfect for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten.4
Last year I shared the end-of-the-year gifts that I made for my students. This year my gifts look just a tad bit different… same basic idea, just slightly different items! First, I was in love with the sunglasses I found last year in the Target dollar section. They are cute, colorful, and pretty good quality (for […]
I Wish You More makes a wonderful end of the year read aloud for the classroom. Grab the free template to make your own class book!
Every teacher needs to see these 7 amazing end of the year gift ideas for students.
Celebrating classroom birthdays is the kind of thing that made me feel a lot of pressure when I first started teaching. I didn’t realize that my kids would be grateful for just any kind of acknowledgement. I didn’t know (for some reason) that I should plan to give them all identical things. I just d
Welp, the end of the school year is approaching and teachers all across the nation find themselves thinking things like, "It feels like it was just August." or "Is it summer yet?" I know this because…
Mother's Day Thumbprint Magnet Gift- simple and inexpensive gift perfect for kindergarten and first grade student gifts to mom.
Bag 'Em Up! {Birthday in a Bag} 19 comments Birthday Bags, Freebies, Popular Posts, Student Gift I've been on Spring Break all week, and I am not going to lie, it has been amazing! I have done my fair share of relaxing, enjoying the weather, working out, and generally having a nice time with my loved ones. I even tackled a few organizational projects at home, namely organizing our closets and my office. In my quest to forever be organized, I stumbled upon some materials/items I've been stockpiling for next year. More specifically, items to be bagged up as student birthday gifts. I was going to save the project for summer, but I figured now is as good a time as any! I know it isn't necessary to give students a gift on their birthday, but it is a nice way to let them know that you care about their special day. And, who knows, for some kids, it might be the only gift they get. Here's a look at what's included in my birthday bags. What's Included A homework pass! I mean, who wouldn't love a night off from homework. If you work with younger kids, be sure to explain how this pass works. The concept is new to many of them. :) A special birthday reward tag. My students absolutely love reward tags. You can read more about reward tags here. And, you can find these specific reward tags here. I also have a black and white set available here. Finally, they get a super fun pencil and a mini container of bubbles. How cute are these pencils I found at Michaels? Thankfully, they have had them for a few years now, but of course, any fun, cute pencil would work here (I've used basic mechanical pencils in the past and they were a hit too). The mini bubbles are from the party aisle at Target. That's it! I live by the philosophy of K.I.S.S. (keep it simple silly). They get a homework pass, a fun pencil, some bubbles, and a new brag tag. The gift is by no means over the top, but the kids are always happy to get their bag of goodies! Click {here} to grab a free copy of the homework pass! How I Wrap Up the Goodies For me, the easiest way to give the students their goodies all at once is to bag 'em all up. It's a birthday in a bag! I simply put the items into a cellophane treat bag and tie them with some curling ribbon. Storing Birthday Bags Throughout the Year I store all of the bags in a storage bin from Target. How do you recognize birthdays in your classroom? Tell us in the comments below! DON'T FORGET IT: PIN IT! Share It:
Celebrate the last day of school with a fun gift for classmates, you're sure to find something you love with one of these 30 End of Year Class Gift Ideas.
Are you looking for an easy craft for Mother's Day for the students in your classroom to gift to the amazing women in their lives? Look no further! This activity uses only a small amount of in class time and only a little time outside of class to prep and finish.
