Spark Student Motivation, Mother’s Day Writing, and Daily Deal!

Linking up with Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching to share another way I keep my kiddos motivated! On Wednesday, I shared how I use clipboards during writing time to let my students write around the room on the floor… well, I use a similar trick during Reader’s Workshop, too!

These are my book nooks for independent reading time! Every kiddo has a clip. The clips move once a week. Each “nook” comes up every third time- they have to sit at their desk one week (because there just aren’t enough nooks!!) and the floor one week, but then they get a special nook! They get SO excited on these weeks. The options that come up are green chair (under an umbrella because of my beach theme), a couple students have yellow pillow (just a cheap Walmart pillow with a yellow pillow case on it), a couple have blue folding chair (some cheap folding camping chairs I found at Walmart one year, too), pink pig (an oversized, soft, stuffed pig that one of my kids gave me one year… I used to have a pig theme in my room!), teacher’s chair, and their favorite: purple float. Because of my beach theme, I brought in an inner-tube and they seriously love it. I think I need to get a couple more for next year! Here are some pictures of some of the book nooks in my room:

Some of the nooks are empty in these pictures because they were at the library, or maybe taking an AR test… because trust me… desks aren’t chosen over nooks if they have the choice. I began using book nooks a few years ago, and I can honestly say that I have seen an increase of on-task ACTUAL independent reading. They know that if they “abuse” their book nook, they lose it, so they are always reading!!

I also wanted to share the activity we did for Mother’s Day in my room. Pin it for next year, because it’s a great one!! I got the idea from Joanne, who got the idea from AMC at Looking from Third to Fourth! We read the book, The Best Part of Me.

It’s a book written by children- each page is a different child and each child has chosen their “best” body part and describes what makes it the best. We read the book together, and then I had them think of what is the best part of Mom instead. These kiddos made me cry. Seriously. I am so proud of how mature they have become, and how sweet they were in these writing pieces to their moms! Here are some examples:

One last thing before I go today… 🙂 I wanted to offer one last “deal” for Teacher Appreciation Week, so I am offering my Mentor Sentence Unit over at Teacher’s Notebook as Today’s Daily Deal!!

If you haven’t checked these out, there are some really awesome products every day that are 40% off!!! Shut the front door!! 😛 I have gotten some great things over the last few weeks and decided to participate, too. So if you didn’t pick up the Mentor Sentence Unit in the TPT sale this week, make sure to head over and snatch it up now- this huge deal will be today ONLY!!!! 🙂

Enjoy your Saturday!

Spark Student Motivation, Mother’s Day Writing, and Daily Deal!

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