Merry and Bright: Fill Their “Stockings!”

Hey, my tired, worn-out, ready-for-Winter-Break teacher friends!

Several of my bloggy buddies have teamed up to bring you some relief! We know you’re ready for the break, so we are bringing you some merry tips AND some presents to make the last few days bright and help you get to the end! 🙂

My Merry Tip is a fun way to help manage behavior. We all know the natives tend to get restless this time of year… the excitement of the holidays, the breaks in routines with programs, and FINALS (blech!) tend to make some students go, well… crazy!

This is a cheap and easy way to reward students for their good behavior. You could do this the entire month of December, a couple of weeks, or just the last week- it’s up to you! Give each student a paper lunch bag to decorate. This becomes their “stocking.” Set these up on a table or shelf where they can see them (and be reminded of what they want to earn). Then, each day that students show appropriate behavior, add a treat to their stocking!

Where do these treats come from? Depending on how many days you are doing it, you might just run to the dollar tree and stock up on a few things, or you can send home a letter to the parents to ask for donations! Here is a letter that you can use:

Students will be so excited to take home their stocking full of goodies on the last day before break! And let me tell you, these bags saved my sanity the last few weeks before Christmas… if students started getting wild…

…all I had to do was remind the class of their “treat bags” or “stockings” and their behavior would turn right around!

Is it too late for the idea this year? Pin this post for next year:

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Go check out some more Merry Tips from these other fabulous bloggers!