Back to School Stress

What a week it has been! The kids, of course, acted like they haven't been in my class the whole year when they got back on Monday. After school, I had a two-hour-long committee meeting (omg) and a rough night personally. The rest of the week was a little bit of a roller coaster, with my kids finally getting back into the routine, lots of testing, and an unsuccessful doctor's visit. I also found out that I will be missing school on Tuesday (and four other days in the next few months) for some reading training. But, I've got some sub plans lined up and a pretty good sub coming in so hopefully it will be a pretty good review day for the kids!

Anyway, as our second nine weeks is wrapping up, I am noticing that very few of my students are going to make their AR goals. Not as many as I would have liked made it last nine weeks, but even fewer are making it this time around. I have been thinking and thinking of a way that I could possibly motivate the kids to do better and I realized that part of the problem is that the students have no true way of keeping track of their own progress. And then I had an epiphany this morning (when I work up at 6:30—what in the world, right?) and I think I found the solution to our problem! I have created a little chart to attach to each student's desk that will keep track of their progress. Each time a student passes an AR test, they will get a sticker to put in one of their boxes. When the chart is filled up, they may turn it in for a treat... and then they get a new chart to fill up! For my students that are taking tests on books with more points, they will get more stickers per passed test (0.5 points= one sticker). If you're familiar with AR, then you know what I'm talking about. If you would like to use or see the chart, here it is... I'm not sure why the top two charts look the way they do but that's how they came out in Google Docs!

AR Chart


This week, I am hoping to start on the Clutter Free Classroom Project! My room is driving me so crazy that I asked my principal if she would let a few of us come in to school tomorrow to work and she agreed! I will be taking my before pictures while I'm there and hopefully will have a chance to organize a few things. If I get some time tomorrow, I'll try to post those pics.