May Your Students Be Merry and Bright! {Mrs. Grooms' Room}

Hello sweet friends!  

It's Shana Grooms from Mrs. Grooms' Room!!!   How are you these days?  I hope your days at school have been merry and bright!  I know mine have been CUH-RAZY lately!!  

It's always the second week of our holidays at school that seem like ping pong balls my kids are bouncing everywhere.  I try really hard to plan fun activities where students are up and about and learning!!  We play lots of write around the room activities and scoot games, and LOTS of GoNoodle activities.  Did I mention brain breaks?  Oh boy, it keeps the holiday wiggles at bay!! 

One thing that I like to do is keep the incentives gifts coming!  My students are very active in the classroom and they are reward-driven!  I give them about three goals to work on throughout the day.  When I see them achieving these goals,  I give the class a snowman part.  

The number of goals could be more for your students or less. You could also build to a higher number of goals which I will do later as well with possibly a different theme.   

Of course, I like to start with three goals because guess who has three parts?  A SNOWMAN!!  

(You can even add hats, scarves, or gloves to your snowman to give your students more goals.)

Every time my students show me how well they can behave as a class such as walking in line or not talking during work time, I reward them all with a snowman part.  I make an uber-big deal out of it because we all respond to positive reinforcement especially when it is our teacher bragging on us!  

(I am blogging nicely?? Hmmm...why...I am blogging nicely?!!!)   

Once we finally get the third part of the snowman, students get to choose a snowball and on the back of the snowball is a reward!  The reward is not candy (that will not be good...eesh!)  but things they can do like a dance party, drawing, games, centers, GoNoodle time, or crafts.  These rewards can be things you plan on doing anyway for the week or activities that are implemented into your activities and lessons.  That next snowball just might be the activity you planned for your lesson!   

Click here for your own classroom snowman!  

Try it!!  It's a fun way to get through the holidays!!!  And it keeps your students merry and bright!  Ummmm....and less ping-pongy!  :)

Have you wrote Santa yet?  You can try this letter-writing unit called "Dear Santa."  You will love it and the kids will, too!  Just another way to direct that energy!  

Happy Holidays, sweet friends!!