Lets start my post with the happy, positive stuff... It's Wednesday which means it's time for a Teacher Dollar Days link up with A Teacher Without A Class. The first exciting bit of news with this is that one of my TpT products is featured in the post this week over on A Teacher Without A Class. It's my Welcome Banner and seeing it as part of her post makes me all sorts of giddy and excited. This week my find that I picked up cost me $1.99 each and I got them from Carson Dellosa. They are these cute little "A Little Birdie Told Me" note pads (well, they call them certificates, but I'm using them as special notepads). There are 24 sheets per note pad, so I decided to splurge and order 10 of them (only so I don't have to reorder them too quickly since I plan on using them every week). My classroom theme this year is going to be the Boho Birds collection that Carson Dellosa makes, and when I saw these little notes from the collection I was super happy because I knew I could use them. My plan with these ties into my Tweet Box that I'll have in my classroom. Here's a pic of it and if you'd like, you can read about it in my blog post here. My kids will be using the Tweet Box to leave positive notes/compliments to each other every week as a part of my character education portion of my curriculum, so I thought I would use the "A Little Birdie Told Me..." notes in a similar way and use them as a way for me to send home positive notes to the parents of my student's about something their child did well during the week. I'm all about the positive in my classroom, and in the past when I've done positive notes homes the kids loved it (even the one kid I had who refused to cooperate 9 out of 10 times a day), and the parents appreciated getting good feedback from the teacher about their children. Now for my second Dollar Day Item...it's another item in my store that is only $1.00, and it ties into the whole Tweet Box/Positive Note thing...just on the opposite end of the spectrum. As positive as I like to keep my classroom, I am also a realist about the fact that sometimes we do get those kiddos who like to test boundaries and push buttons. In my classroom, I put a lot of emphasis on helping my students become responsible for themselves and their actions/choices. This includes teaching/reminding them that they control the choices they make, and that those choices can have consequences. That's where my Behavior Reflection Sheet comes into play. It's part of my Behavior Management System that I use (I plan on doing a whole blog post on this in the near future). Basically, This sheet is the third step in my System. Once the kids get to this step, I send them to a quiet area of the classroom to take a break and fill out one of these sheets. It gets them thinking about the choices they make and what they can do to make better choices. It also requires them to list what they think a fair consequence would be if they keep acting up. The other perk to this sheet... I make them have their parents sign it and return it to school (I usually photocopy the filled out sheet before sending it home since we all know that kids sometimes "forget" or "lose" things they were supposed to give to their parents). That helps me on my end because then parents can't say they weren't aware of what was going on in the classroom, and I can hold on to the sheet in my Student Info binder as documentation if things ever progress to a point where the child needs a referral. So those are my items for this week's Teacher Dollar Days. I hope you guys like them, and don't forget to head on over to A Teacher Without A Class and check out the other posts too. Now for the bit of not so happy news. I got my Erin Condren Lesson Plan book today. I was all sorts of happy and excited when I saw it on my doorstep this morning (seriously...I was really excited to the point that I was waiting for little elves to appear singing a cheery tune while throwing glitter and confetti everywhere as I opened the box). So I brought my package inside...opened up the box and the pretty paper the book was wrapped in...and that's when I saw it... My book...my beautiful, absolutely adorable book was basically useless. There is a HUGE dent in the coiling that binds the book together. I can't even open it all the way without having to fight with it to turn pages without tearing them. BIG dent!! All misshapen to the point the planner doesn't open all the way. So I called the Erin Condren people. The lady was very nice (and apologetic) and asked me to send them pictures of the damage so they can see what they can do to fix the issue...they didn't even ask me to return the planner I have yet. Now it's a waiting game to hear back from them about what, if anything they can do to make my pretty pretty planner a pretty AND functional one. I'll keep you all updated as I hear back from them.