Techie Tuesday: Shoparoo

Today I want to share with you all Shoparoo!  I know some of you have heard of it and are avid users, but I never had until yesterday.

I can tell you that within the last 24 hours, my mind was blown over the possibilities this opens for my school.

Student Motivation: Point Reward System

Linking up with Head Over Heels for Teaching to show of a student motivation technique :)

This year, my middle school team came up with an idea for positive motivation to go along with our behavior logs.  We are using a point system to allow students to earn a reward of their choice.  We started by allowing each class to choose a reward that they want to work for.  My class chose a Takis party.  The other 6th grade wants to have a chips party.  Each class is different in what they wanted.

Each class has the opportunity to earn 5 points per day in each subject.  If they are getting loud, or off task, etc they lose a point as a class.  When their class reaches the goal that we teacher set, they get to celebrate by having their reward.

It is really simple, but the students love it.  They chose the reward, so they own it.  They are working as a class to earn the reward, so they stay more on top of those 'challenge' students.

Technology for Teachers: instaGrok

Linking up with Tales from Outside the Classroom for Wednesday Website!

Made It Monday: Book Reports Revisted

It's that time again!  I'm incredibly dense and forgot to take pictures of my pride and joy project of the week :(  

 On my one year wedding anniversary my friend's mom sent my husband and I anniversary card.  I didn't think much of it until I read it.  She had scrapbook-made a card that had bits and pieces saved from our wedding stuff IE: announcement, save the date, program, etc.

Made it Monday: My first TpT!

My first Made it Monday post!  Thanks to Tara for hosting.  Since it's a first, I thought I'd celebrate with another first: my first Teachers Pay Teachers item!

Motivating Students to Monitor Behavior

It's that time again!  I love figuring out all of the ways that people motivate their students!  It's  something that I think all teachers need continual education on because no two students are motivated by the same thing and it's our job to make sure we get to them all somehow!  So thanks Joanne!

Five for Friday

Yes, I know it's Saturday, my darn photos took forever to get to me before I gave up and went to bed.  :-P

This week was quite sad for me.  I had to say good bye to the school I have been a part of for five years.  I know that doesn't sound like a very long time in the world of education, but it was my first job.  I've earned my stripes with these kids, and I've known my seventh graders since they were in third grade.

So my Five For Friday:

Tricks of the Trade - Homework

Linking up with Jessica over at Joy in the Journey to share a little 'Trick of the Trade' about homework!  I know homework can be a touchy subject for a lot of people, so it's nice to see what everyone does and maybe pick up a few new ideas of my own.

School DJ - The short straw hath been pulled

This week for Techie Tuesday, I'll be re-showing my DJ find!

When I was first asked to play the roll of DJ at our school dances, I thought it would be kind of cool.  It was kind of an ego boost as I pride myself on my music collection and ability to keep it 'fresh'.  Then, as I started combing through my music, I realized just how much of a pain it is to be a school DJ!

Currently Me

Joining up with Farley for June Currently!  I have to say, I'm rather boring so it kind of entertained me a bit!

My June Goals

A big thanks to Jess for hosting this linky!  I thought it'd be fun to sit down and actually figure out what I want to do with myself this month.

Summer Bucket List 2013

I'm pretty excited to join this linky!  A big thank you to April for hosting!  I love my summers, and better yet, I love dreaming about how productive and awesome my summers are going to be.  Things usually doesn't happen quite as planned, but this year they have to as I'll be getting ready to move to a new school.

Minimizing Chaos in My Classroom: Quick Tip

A big thanks to Angela and Jean for hosting this Linky!  I'm a first time contributor to Quick Tips, and I hope some people find it useful!

MUST HAVE-for next year :)

Sorry guys, I'm on a roll with Linkys this morning!  I thought this was a fun idea to get my mind thinking about what I'm going to require my students to have next year.  I'll admit right away that I got a smidge carried away, but I LOVE back-to-school supplies so I went with it.  I'm a nerd, I know.

I also know I'm a bit late to this Linky Party, but I saw someone else join in last night and figured, why not?!

New things for next year....

Thank you JOY in 6th Grade for hosting a linky party!  I've actually really enjoyed getting in on these.  Who knew blogging could be so much fun? ;-)

Next year is actually going to be a whole new adventure for me.  I'll be back to teaching math and it'll be at a new school!  I've taught math for the past four years, this is the first not teaching math, so I'm okay with that [though I've LOVED teaching LA].  The scary part will be that this is going to be my first time ever in a different school!  I've only been teaching for five years, but all five of them have been here.  I'll get into that, and my soppy farewell, later.

Three things popped into my head though that I am DEFINITELY going to do....

Student Motivation....Index Cards!

When I was in high school my geometry teacher had this rule set up that if you earned an 'A' on one of her tests, you got an index card to decorate however you wanted.  Then you got to hang it up on the wall for the world to see!

I never forgot how much pride I felt when I earned one of those cards and got to show off how my hard work paid off.

Supplies I love for Math

This is just a brief list of some of the tools I love to use during math.  I also have a plethora of books that I use often, but I didn't want this post to go on for days!

Just so you know, I tried to take pictures of the actual items themselves, but only one came out correctly.  Due to the shortage of patience I have when technology doesn't work, I ended up just grabbing what I use from Amazon.  #SorryNotSorry  (Yes I just used a hash tag, don't judge me)