Safe Pocket System

Hello everyone! This will likely be a short post because Mr. Kietzman and I are closing on our new house today :) I have a lot of things packed up already, but I wanted to show the new classroom management system I'm thinking I will end up starting the year with.

First off, I should say that I am VERY excited to be teaching primary for many reasons, but one reason is certainly because I get to make my classroom 10 times cuter! I am going with a zoo animal theme this year-- for name plates, calendar, birthdays, notes, etc. So it seemed appropriate that I would have a classroom management system to match that.

In addition to using the BIST program (which I love! And I'm going to a 5-day conference next week about), I needed to adopt a classroom management program that worked as positive reinforcement as well.
The original idea for this is from Fairy Dust Teaching, but I've adapted it to work for me.


It's called the Safe Pocket System.  And like the name might suggest.. it involves kangaroos!  The first day of school I am going to explain to the students that their families are trusting me to help keep them safe, just like a kangaroo keeps her joey safe in her pouch.

I will then show the kids that they each have their own kangaroo stick (names will be added once I have a roster) that will start each school day in their own pouch (which they will decorate).  If they can end the day with their kangaroo in their own pouch, then they will get a raffle ticket to be in the lunch bunch (have lunch with me and other lunch bunch classmates on that Friday).

Here's how it works:  I will have the words: Helpful, careful, responsible, respectful, and patient written on the board where all of our pouches are.  If students are not acting helpful, responsible, etc, then they have to move their kangaroo to my pouch so I can help them be safe (in addition to moving to the safe seat which is  a part of BIST). When/if I catch the student being careful, patient, etc., then they will get to move their kangaroo back into their pouch.  I really like the idea because it lets students have the chance to redeem themselves AND rewards students who show good character traits.

I can't go into school to set up my bulletin board right now, but I think it's going to be great--let me know what you think of the idea and let me know if you have any suggestions to helping the system run more smoothly.

New Directions

I am back from Ireland and I'm working on packing up for our move, but as always I am trying hard to work on my teaching! My resources and planning are taking a new direction because I've been told that I will be teaching 2nd grade next year! With that in mind, I've mainly been looking for easy printables to get started and I've found some really great blogs that have helped like: Mrs. Heeren's Happenings and Serenade to Second Grade. Here are some of the things that I found from their sites that I have printed out to use in my primary classroom!

I thought that this was a great way to have a class reward system--I'm sure that it could work at any grade level, but I thought that it would work especially well for primary grades (2nd grade!).  This resource was from Mrs. Heeren's Happenings.

She included the printable which you can get here.  She also includes an alternative called cookie compliments AND has mystery rewards included in the printable too!  I think I will be starting with this at the beginning year for my whole class reward system.

This was a great resource from Rowdy in Room 300. Since I'll be doing primary grades, I also thought that I should have a better way to track individual progress throughout the day. I love that these kind of charts also allow students to move up rather than just being a consequence. I also really like that this chart is compact! I will most likely change systems as the year goes on (as one system starts to lose effectiveness, sometimes a little mix up is good!).

The printable for all of the cards is here.

I also found this other resource on Mrs. Heeren's Happenings to go along with any students who end the day on red--which means a parent contact. The link for this form to be filled out for parents is here.

I hope you've enjoyed the links! I am very excited to get things rolling for my primary classroom!

Planning for next year

As my bucket list (on the last post stated), part of my summer bucket list is to do summer planning so here I am! I will say that Mr. Kietzman and I will be moving this summer, but I will try to keep up with posts while I am packing and planning :)

Behavior Plans


I found this on pinterest, of course, and it really got me to thinking that maybe I'll try using this form as an alternative think sheet or more than likely, I may use this sheet to fill out with the student when we conference about a certain behavior. Hopefully it will help them and me understand their behavior. I really like that it starts with reasons for behavior, goes to a description of the behavior and then has the students reflect on the consequences (how they feel, how their actions affected others) and then a plan for improvement.

Here is a link to sheet if you'd like to use it: Cause/Effect of Behavior Sheet
I'd certainly like to credit Laura Candler for this freebie! Lots of good stuff!

Center Plans


I'm posting this so I can hold myself to this goal, but I found these ideas online too for reading/math centers that I want to make this week.

The reading one should be pretty simple. I'll need to do some laminating and creating through word, but once I make it I'll be able to use it again and again! I may even end up turning it into an interactive bulletin board, but I am certainly going to get started creating it this week.

This idea can be adapted for a lot of different subjects, but I think I will at least start with the number bottles. The way it works is that students turn the bottles around and add up the numbers as they see them. I would probably either use bigger numbers or change it to multiplication for 4th graders.

There are also a lot of science ideas for discovery bottle centers-- like a magnetic bottle, sink/float, tornado, etc. I would certainly check out the link below. It gave me a ton of ideas that I am going to start on this week!

She also created a recording sheet to go along with the science discovery bottles that you can access here.

There are more ideas and pictures at the Discovery Bottles website.

More later!