Character Traits Posters

 I firmly believe that teaching character education is as important as teaching reading, writing, and math. Character education should be a daily part of everyone's classroom. Learning how to be a good citizen, and to be responsible, and trustworthy, is just as important as learning how to read and write.

In my classroom, we honor one student a month in a school assembly. First, I introduce each monthly trait, we read books about it, discuss it, and write about it. My students write about what each trait means to them and how they feel they best demonstrate the trait. This is an image of the writing template.

Then, the voting begins!

My students privately fill out the ballot and put them in our classroom mailbox for me to tally. The student who gets the most votes, is the one honored at the school assembly. Then, we have runner ups. Could be one, two, or three runner ups, depending on the number of votes. We honor these students in our classroom.

I have these cute character trait posters hanging in  my classroom. 

They make a beautiful display and the children refer to them often. They really come in handy when we are talking about character traits in the characters we read about. They like to compare themselves to the characters in our stories.

Along with the posters hanging in my classroom, I have a bulletin board display in the hallway to honor the winners each month. The winners fill out this writing template...

I hang their finished writing activity and a sign that says the name of the trait and their name. For example, if I won for caring, the sign would look like this...

These signs are editable so you can easily type in the names of the winner(s) each month.

I always discuss with my students that not everyone is going to win a character award, and that does not mean that they don't exude good character. I don't want anyone to feel sad or excluded if they don't win. 

If you would like to hang these posters in your classroom, you can find them here or click on the image below.

I hope you and your students enjoy them as much as we do!

Character Education

 In my opinion, teaching character education is as important as teaching reading, writing, and math. Character education should be a daily part of everyone's classroom. Learning how to be a good citizen, and to be responsible, and trustworthy, is just as important as learning how to read and write.

In my classroom, we honor one student a month in a school assembly. First, I introduce each monthly trait, we read books about it, discuss it, and write about it. My students write about what each trait means to them and how they feel they best demonstrate the trait. This is an image of the writing template.

Then, the voting begins!

My students privately fill out the ballot and put them in our classroom mailbox for me to tally. The student who gets the most votes, is the one honored at the school assembly. Then, we have runner ups. Could be one, two, or three runner ups, depending on the number of votes. We honor these students in our classroom.

I have these cute character trait posters hanging in  my classroom. 

They make a beautiful display and the children refer to them often. They really come in handy when we are talking about character traits in the characters we read about. They like to compare themselves to the characters in our stories.

Along with the posters hanging in my classroom, I have a bulletin board display in the hallway to honor the winners each month. The winners fill out this writing template...

I hang their finished writing activity and a sign that says the name of the trait and their name. For example, if I won for caring, the sign would look like this...

These signs are editable so you can easily type in the names of the winner(s) each month.

I always discuss with my students that not everyone is going to win a character award, and that does not mean that they don't exude good character. I don't want anyone to feel sad or excluded if they don't win. This is a good opportunity to talk about how they will not win everything in life. I don't want my students to grow up thinking that they will always come in first place and win every trophy and get everything they want. We have many open discussions about this fact of life. It's important to try and it's important to accept if you do not win or come in first place.

If you would like to hang these posters in your classroom, you can find them here or click on the image below.

I hope you and your students enjoy them as much as we do!

Character Education

I love teaching character education. Learning how to be a good citizen, and to be responsible, and trustworthy, is just as important as learning how to read and write. Every month, I nominate a student in my class to be the Kid of Character winner. He or she is honored with a certificate at a monthly assembly.

The character trait for May is citizenship and this is the last month for me to pick a winner for this school year. The other day, I looked at all my students who haven't won a certificate this year and decided that I cannot possibly choose just one of them to win. They are ALL great citizens! The good news is, each month, my students nominate someone who they think best exemplifies that character trait, and the three children with the most votes, get their name written on the board, under the person who I chose. Although they don't get honored at the assembly, they are still honored and recognized in the classroom by their peers and by me.

Well, this month, I decided that I am NOT choosing the student who will be honored at the assembly. I just can't make that decision! I told my students that they are all going to fill out a ballot and nominate someone who THEY think should be the BIG winner. Not only will they tell me who should win, but they'll also tell me why they should win. Then, we'll count the ballots and the person with the most votes will be the BIG winner. In the event of a tie, we will put all the ballots in a hat and choose one.

This is the nomination ballot...

This is my ticket out of making a very tough decision! I am offering it to you just in case you want to do the same thing in your classroom. As a matter of fact, I made one for every character trait in my Character Trait Posters and Monthly Writing Activities pack. This way, next year, I don't have to make these tough decisions if I don't want to.

You can read my blog post on character education here. If you already purchased my pack, you can download it again and get all the nomination ballots. If not, you can still get the citizenship ballot by clicking here and clicking on download preview.

Classroom Photos...lots of them!

I have been loving all the pictures everyone has posted of their finished classrooms. Since my room is finally done, I have some pictures, too. Sadly, the flash in my camera is not working properly, so some of the pictures are a bit dark. I'll be buying a new camera tomorrow because I cannot live without a digital camera. 

I am a writing teacher, so you'll see lots and lots 

of writing visual aids. You can right click on each picture and open  them in a new window. Then, click on the picture again and it will enlarge to show details.

This is a picture from my doorway.

Please note that these posters have all been updated!

This picture shows my writing process posters , 6 traits of good writing posters, and COPS poster. The ones I have in my store have the same content, but with different clip art and fonts.

I teach kindergarten, first grade, and second grade writing, so I have color coordinated everything. Red is kindergarten, yellow is first grade, and green is second grade. My students hand in their station work here and their writing notebooks are stored here, as well. Once school begins, they will decorate the covers of their notebooks.

My kindergartners keep their poetry and homework notebooks here, and my first and second graders have their writing folders here. First and second grade uses writing notebooks, but they keep their resources in a folder. I tried 3-ring binders and, although I liked that everything was in one place, I couldn't stand the ripped holes and having to put everyone's papers back in when they accidentally fell out.

I constantly remind my students to write the best sentences they can and this display is very helpful. I will be giving out star pencils, stickers, and erasers, every now and then, when I catch my students writing 5 star sentences.

Please note that these cards have all been updated!

My writing topics cards are a huge hit in my classroom. My students love to pick and choose the cards they want to write about and the display really stands out. The clip art is adorable and my students like to copy the images onto their own paper.

Please note that these cards have all been updated!

These pictures show my transition words display and where I'll be hanging my writer's workshop vocabulary words.  I hang the vocabulary words as I introduce them to my students.

This is my parts of speech display. As the children come up with strong verbs and adjectives, as well as, common and proper nouns that they need help spelling, I'll write the words on cards and place them in the chart. I always start the year off with the names of their teachers and the name of the school already in the chart.

Please note that this poster has been updated!

This is my meeting area. Showing right now is the poster I use for introducing Jack Hartman's song "Learning Letter Sounds." One child points to the letters as the rest of us sing the song. This song and the various activities that go with the above poster, are extremely helpful in teaching my students the letter sounds.

My agenda goes in the blue chart and I write my objective and essential question right below it. The red, yellow, and green pocket charts are for the grade level sight words. 

Please note that these posters have all been updated!

I have 5 computers in my classroom. This picture also shows my character education posters. Character education is very important to me and I integrate it throughout my curriculum.

This is part of my writing station. My students love writing with a writing buddy and using the large dry erase board. During free choice, they often play teacher-students and it's such a joy to watch them. The table above has all kinds of resources for the children to use while they are writing. Task cards, monthly and seasonal word cards, picture prompts, writing utensils, message books, and much, much more.

Please note that these posters have all been updated!

This display shows my types of leads posters, first grade writing scale, and story questions posters. I refer to these displays every single day.

Please note that these posters have all been updated!

This display has always been an integral part of my writing classroom and when DJ Inkers started offering commercial licences, I jumped on the bandwagon, bought the license, and re-created my writing menu. (Sorry about the bright light covering the poster that says Book. As I stated above, my camera is not working properly.) My students love to choose an item from the menu to work on during station time or when they are done with a different station. There's always something fun to create!

These are my students' mailboxes. I typed out their names, laminated them, and taped them to the 2-inch binder clips. The bottom of my mailbox unit holds some fun activities the children can do when they have completed their station work. My kindergarten and first grade writing forms are in there, as well as, word search templates, mystery word activities, etc.

This is my mailbox system with color coded baskets.

And my rainbow colored drawers that hold all my office supplies. I must remember to label that blue drawer!

This picture is of my clip chart and 5 star behavior board. Everyone who ends the day on green or above gets a star. Anyone who ends up off the chart (past outstanding) gets 2 stars. Once they have earned 5 stars, they can choose a treasure from the treasure box.

Well, that's it, folks! My classroom is all ready for my 58 students to arrive on Monday. Many of whom are named Isabella! LOL! And, no, I don't teach all 58 at once! Yikes!

I hope you enjoyed my pictures and I look forward to seeing all of your classrooms, too.

Character Education and can you say awwwwwww...?

Promoting good character in my students is so important to me. My school teaches character education and all the teachers choose one student each month to be the Kid of Character winner. They are honored with a certificate at a monthly assembly. My students in grades K-2 complete a monthly writing assignment, telling me what each trait means to them and how they demonstrate the character trait for that month. Then, the winner each month completes another writing activity, telling everyone why they think they were chosen. I hang those in the hallway, along with their pictures. Now that the school year is almost over, my bulletin board is complete. 

The children love looking at this board every time we walk by it. I actually see them smile at their picture every time! It's so cute! I made posters for inside my classroom to remind the children of the character traits and what they mean. 

If you want a display like this in your classroom, you can click here or on the image below to see these posters in my store.

Now, on to some non-school business...

Look what came in the mail today?

I ordered this canvas from Easy Canvas Prints and couldn't be happier with the final product. If you would like to order one, too, click on the image below:

Originally, I ordered it to give as a gift, but, I changed my mind. It's too cute and I love it too much to give away! The website is so user friendly and the service is excellent. If you're looking to give someone a unique gift, I highly recommend checking it out. Or, if you're like me, just get one for yourself! You won't be sorry!

Teacher Appreciation Jackpot and Sale!

Sunday, May 6, officially kicks off Teacher Appreciation Week! Prepare yourself to be appreciated in many, many ways!

First, there's the Teacher Appreciation Jackpot, an amazing "blog hop" event involving over 130 bloggers! You can score over $600.00 in freebies! Click the image below to see a list of all the PreK-Second Grade blogs involved in this amazing event.

I'll be offering the following item for free:

Next, I am having a Teacher Appreciation sale starting on Sunday, May 6. Everything in my store will be discounted 20%! Teachers Pay Teachers will add another 10% on top of that! To get the additional 10% off, you will need to add the following promo code at checkout: TAD12. The sale will last through May 8. What a wonderful opportunity for all of us to purchase so many fantastic activities. Click the image below to start adding items to your wishlist for tomorrow.

Here are some of my top selling activities:

If you need something for Mother's Day, please check out my Mother's Day Activity Pack:

Maybe you need some ocean activities or end of the year ideas? If so, check these out:

The last item I would like to showoff, is my latest creation! It's all about Character Education. Promoting positive character and building a classroom community is just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic! Character education should be a daily part of everyone's classroom. With these posters hanging in your classroom and the monthly writing activities included in this packet, your students will exude positive character! For more information about this product, please click the image.

Thanks so much for following my blog and teaching store. I absolutely LOVE creating activities and I hope that my sale will show you just how much I appreciate all my faithful followers! I hope that you all have a super special week! Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!