Need to use the bathroom? It'll cost ya!

So here is the inevitable- students will need to use the restroom. If you manage your bathroom usage poorly, your students will walk all over you and completely abuse it. Now, if you don't allow them to use the restroom at all- then you will have some tremendous messes to clean up. You must meet half way in the middle. So here is what I do and it really makes me a happy teacher..

1. We discuss how we need to be responsible and use the restroom before school, at recess, at lunch, and after school. 

2. I allow my students ONE free bathroom pass a day. I have a list of their names in a sheet protector hanging by the classroom door, with a dry erase marker velcro'd to the wall next to the list.

3. If they need to use the restroom after that point, then they lose 2 DOJO points....now, I use my own discretion. If they seem like they are bursting at the seams, then of course they go and we kind of don't mention anything from there on...but if they are clearly trying to get out of class, then ahsta la vista (sp?) 2 DOJO points. Now...have any of my students gone to the restroom for a second time and purposely lost 2 DOJO points? No...those points are like treasure to them, so they will not let them go.

Now, I said earlier that I give them ONE free bathroom pass a day...well, I lied. It's not necessarily free... in order to use the restroom, they must pull an index card from my "Bathroom Tickets" basket, and complete the question on the card as a "ticket" to use the restroom. Not only are they reinforcing concepts I have taught them, but I can also use those bathroom tickets as informal assessments. I had no idea that a student I had struggled with rhyming, until I saw her bathroom ticket which asked her to write a word that rhymed with "shark." She wrote "cake." So at that point, I had a mini meeting with her the next morning and we talked about rhyming words. She struggled with simple rhyming words and was oblivious when it came to word families. UMMM...what?! So, I have now set a targeted goal to meet with her once a week to quickly review word families and rhyming words. Now that we have learned addition with regrouping, A LOT of my bathroom tickets are reinforcing that skill. I absolutely LOVE checking the bathroom tickets at the end of the day and seeing correct answers to concepts that were just taught, Love, love, LOVE it! And I thought about hopping on the computer and making some super cute bathroom tickets, but honestly- index cards and a Sharpie worked just fine...I could make the tickets day to day to review concepts that were brand new or from the first week...hope this helps!

Classroom Reveal!

Hi There! With the holidays in full effect and getting back to it after the new year, time has been limited! I have set some personal new years resolutions and one of them is to make time for myself and to make time for something I love- Crossfit. I am trying to Crossfit 3x a week, and run with Frank at least once a week. I am trying to walk Frank everyday, create a TPT product at least 3 times a week, and try to blog once a week. Ummm....this has been a lot harder than I thought.

One thing I WAS able to do, was get a new camera for Christmas and take some photos of my classroom! So the ONE thing I CAN do today, is show you my second home...

And then my Classroom DOJO in full effect...

You can find my Editable Classroom DOJO Starter Kit in my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE

So now that I have utilized my new camera to post pictures of my super fab classroom, here is something else I have been working hard on...my second love of CF! I felt like such a nerd and "that guy" asking my friend to film me doing double unders but honestly, it was actually kind of nice being able to check out my form!

Glad I could post for a hot minute...if you have any questions about my classroom set up or where I found or created my resources, please feel free to ask!