Monday Made It with Head over Heels for Teaching!

Happy Monday Friends! I'm Joanne from Head Over Heels For Teaching and I'm thrilled to be guest blogging for my sweet friend Tara. :)

 I think for so many of us, Monday Made Its are great inspiration and help hold us accountable to get things done! LOL!

I can't wait to share these goodies with you, so let's get started!

Let me start by saying, I just invested (I like to think of it as an investment) in a Cricut and I'm in TOTAL LOVE! There are so many possibilities, and for teachers, the possibilities are ENDLESS! 

I’ve been thinking about making this AMAZING incentive for a few years, but to have them made by a printing company wasn’t very cheap. Well, now that I have my new friend, Cricut, I can make my own! I can customize them to fit the rewards and happenings of my class.

I can't even tell you how excited I am about this sign!! I have a huge multiplication incentive in our classroom and this goodie is just going to add to it! I have to make learning and memorizing those facts super fun!

 Don't have a Cricut? No worries, you can write on your signs with permanent markers! I purchased this blank sign with stand for less than $6 at Lowe's.

  

I cut out all my words and lined them up on my board (not so easy the first time, I got faster and better at lining them up the second time).

I just KNOW my kids are going to go crazy over these signs! If I have a student who rides a bus or bike, I will plop it in their yard myself! :) Think about the bragging rights amongst the neighbors! You know they'd be so proud to have this sitting in their front yard! I can't wait to introduce this to my parents and students.

(Signs will need to be returned after they have bragged on their street!)

My second goodie is also created by my newest BFF, the Cricut. (I'm telling you, every person should own one!). I found these drawstring totes at Michael's for $2!! I didn't have an idea of how I would use them when I bought them, but I knew for $2, I had to snag a bunch! Then this came to me....

As a reading incentive, I will reward readers earning a certain numbers of points with one of these snazzy book bags! The point club will be attainable by all readers, some may just take a little longer to reach. I think all of my students will love sporting these accessories!

(And, of course filling them with more books to read!)

I looped with my class last year and we started a huge kindness campaign at our school. Fox 35 News even came out to our class! With my new group I want to start spreading kindness right away, so I created these Kindness Sticks (Random Acts of Kindness). The black set will be for individual acts of kindness and the white ones are for my whole class to complete.

We will probably pull a class kindness stick about once a week and individual kindness sticks several times a week. Almost all sticks can be used over and over again throughout the year, so I'll put them back in the bucket to complete again! We want to spread kindness like confetti! It's a great way to build community, shape good citizens, and make the world a better place!

Thank you Tara for letting me share some of my ideas. I hope they are useful and motivate you and your students. Be sure to check out all the other amazing link ups! So many ideas to start the year out right!