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!
