VIP Box

Life has been so busy over the past two weeks! If you follow me on IG, you know I have been super busy in my classroom setting up! We go back...TUESDAY! We have four days of trainings, meetings, and workdays, meet the teacher is Thursday and then kids come MONDAY! 

I am in love with how my room is turning out. I am giving flexible seating a try and super excited to see how it goes. I will blog more later on my flexible seating and classroom reveal soon! 

Last year I blogged about starting a VIP table. You can read about it here. Overall, the VIP table went well last year. As a class we talked about what would make a VIP and created a word cloud together. 

I picked two students each day to sit at the table with our new ball chairs. They had fun chains to wear, a box of cool materials, and sometimes I would leave candy. 

Every morning on the daily message I would tell the kids who the VIP's were for the day. I kept a Google Spreadsheet of who has been VIP. 

Like I said, it went well...for awhile. Here are some of the things I sit back on and reflect from last year.

• sometimes the kids didn't like who they sat by
• I would sometimes forget to update the supplies or leave a treat
• the table took up too much room in the classroom! Fifth graders get SO big after winter break! 
• I started picking kids for the sake of picking kids
• It started to lose its value about mid year. The spark was gone and they didn't really care about it. 

Most of this was my fault. I plan on being better about it this year. The part that I am so excited to change is the table.

You see, with doing flexible seating this year I don't have a special table just for the VIP. The chairs in the picture are actually a spot for anyone to use. I still wanted to do the VIP but had to think of something creative. I thought a VIP box would be perfect!

I had this blue shoe box, bought from Target of course, in my classroom and felt it was perfect! I added things I had already and new items I bought inside the box. 

In order to make this VIP box work, I knew I needed to add some directions inside. This is what I came up with. I printed it in black and white on card stock and then added some color:)

I created the materials list from what I added to the box. On the first week of school, we will pick some music together and add to my iPod...I made a mistake and write iTouch. Oh well! 

I also changed the fact I want some input of who they think should be the next days VIP. We will discuss this together. 

I am really excited about having a VIP Box instead of a table!

Would you like to try the VIP Box? I would love to hear about how you would use this in your classroom. Leave a comment with your email and I will send you my editable VIP Box labels so you can create your very own!

Have a great rest of your weekend!

40 Book Challenge {100% PAPERLESS}

I am SO excited to bring you something special today! 

Last year, I read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller and I was HOOKED! It changed my whole thinking about the way I was teaching reading...and I have a Masters in reading instruction! 

So I went on Teachers Pay Teachers and found what I thought was an awesome resource to go with my 40 Book Challenge. I required students every day to write down what they read for homework, do a book review after every book, do book projects after every 10, I gave points, took points away, graded and used rubrics. This was EVERYTHING Donalyn said NOT.TO.DO!

I failed, bad! I never checked their logs and students lost their love of reading. I love the whole idea and concept behind the 40 Book Challenge so I knew I had to do something different. 

My school is trying to go as paperless as possible. Each student in my class has their own Google Drive and their own Weebly portfolio. I do not use Google Classroom but have Hapara, a teacher dashboard for Google. I am able to send students Google Docs, Slideshows, Forms, and more. I can also monitor what they are doing. I love it. 

So I decided to make a change with my challenge this year and go paperless! 

My goal for this year is to:

Research books we want to read and create a TBR list

Biweekly student lead book chats during lunch

Recording a book when they are done, not every day

Setting their own goals for books read

Celebrate accomplishments after reading books

Blogging about our reading

Using our creativity and design a project once a quarter

Every student will have a Book Chart to place a sticker on every time they finish a book!

At the end of every month we will count how many books we have read as a class and display it. 

I have these in a PDF and an editable PowerPoint. 

On the PDF, I have a link to my Google Slideshow!

In this slidesshow, students will:

Design their cover page to reflect them as a reader

Reading interest survey

Set goals for themselves about how many books they want to read

Record their reading after every book and give it a rating

Learn about different genres of reading

Create a TBF (to be read) list

End of the quarter reflections

I also have links on the slideshow for teachers. These links will show you how I use Padlet in the classroom to build a community of readers, how students use their Weebly portfolios to blog about their reading, and how I use my classroom website to set up biweekly book chats! 

Would you like to try this in your classroom? Click HERE and you can download it for free:)

If you download, please read carefully and follow my terms of use!

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, or suggestions on using the 40 Book challenge! 

Thanks for stopping by!