Awesome Upper Elementary Teacher Connection Facebook Group!

If you're an upper elementary teacher who loves what you do, I invite you to join the Upper Elementary Teacher Connection, a private Facebook group. It's a virtual meeting room where educators can connect and collaborate to share their passion for teaching. Our members discuss active engagement teaching strategies and innovative instructional approaches, and they collaborate on classroom projects like pen pals or postcard exchanges. Click here to find out how to join this group!

Favorite Read Alouds for November

November is a great month for reading aloud! Here are a few of my favorite books for Thanksgiving and Veteran's Day. These short picture books are perfect for upper elementary students and work well with many fall-related activities. At the end of the book list, you'll find a link to my November Activities pack which includes activities for many of these titles.

If you aren't familiar with these titles and would like to read more reviews, detailed descriptions, or purchase the book, you can click on the title or cover image, and you'll go right to it on Amazon where you can get more information! I also recommend that you locate your books several weeks in advance of the lesson so you can read them and make sure they are right for your class.

Thank You, Sarah: the Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving 
By Laurie Halse Anderson and Matt Faulkner

Thank You, Sarah is a wonderful book about the history of Thanksgiving in the United States and how Sarah Hale helped make it a national holiday. It's great for teaching students about the "power of the pen" and how one person can make a difference.

If You Were At the First Thanksgiving 
By Anne Kamma

If You Were at the First Thanksgiving is a great nonfiction book organized in a question and answer format. It provides information about the first Thanksgiving as well as information about how the Pilgrims lived when they first came to America.

Oh, What a Thanksgiving!
By Steven Kroll and S. D. Schindler

Oh, What a Thanksgiving! is perfect for comparing and contrasting Thanksgiving today with the traditions observed by the Pilgrims. Children today will find that Thanksgiving long ago was much different!

'Twas the Night before Thanksgiving
By Dav Pilkey 

This hilarious book takes the form of a long, illustrated poem with a single stanza on each page. While the stanzas are similar to the traditional Christmas poem, the story is anything but traditional! Your students will love the surprise ending!

The Wall
By Eve Bunting and Ronald Himler

The Wall is an excellent book to read to students when discussing Veteran's Day. It's a touching story about a boy who travels to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial with his father to seek out his grandfather's name.

I hope you enjoy sharing these with your students as much as I do. They are a great way to foster a warm holiday spirit in the classroom. You can also find activities for many of these books in my November Activities from Teaching Resources Mini Pack.

If you have a favorite book for November, please share your suggestions in a comment on this post. Happy reading!

Question Connection

When I first started teaching I was full of questions, and I've been asking questions ever since. My mentors and colleagues at school were always gracious and offered plenty of advice, but my teaching style is a bit unique and sometimes their answers weren't what I needed. Luckily, times have changed, and with the internet, its easy to ask hundreds or even thousands of teachers for help or advice! Better yet, I'll often get responses from teachers all over the world!

Facebook has been a key player in the game of collaboration. Lately teachers have been posting questions on my Facebook Wall, and I've been trying to repost them to all 50,000+ fans and open the Wall for discussion. I'm always amazed at the spirit of collaboration when others jump in to help.

The Question Connection
To make it even easier to ask your questions, I'm starting a regular feature called the Question Connection. You can post your questions at any time, but from time to time I'll sharing the logo above and issue a call for questions on Facebook. Just post your question as a comment on my Facebook post or directly on my Facebook Wall. I'll send your questions out, one at a time, over the next few days to get feedback and ideas. Follow me on Facebook and be sure to watch for your question to be shared!

Feel free to ask about anything related to teaching or the education profession. Here are a few ideas to get  you started:

• Share an upcoming lesson topic and ask for links to great resources and teaching ideas
• Ask for advice about classroom management, parent communication, dealing with difficult situations at school, etc.
• Ask how other teachers are using technology or specific websites

Questions are only one half of the Question Connection! We also need educators who are willing to answer questions and share ideas. Don't be shy about responding! Even if you have only been teaching a few weeks, you have learned valuable information that can benefit others. Share your successful teaching strategies, links to free resources on the internet, book recommendations, helpful advice, or best classroom practices. The only thing I ask is to refrain from self-promotion or providing links to your own teaching products.

If you ever feel hesitant to ask a question or respond with a suggestion, remember that your collaborative efforts benefit many, many other educators. Your question may spark a great discussion that leads to someone else learning a new strategy or discovering an amazing resource!

Great Questions + Advice from the Heart = The Question Connection! Enjoy!

Try This When Kids Are Absent!

Doesn't it drive you crazy when kids are absent for several days and you have to gather up a list of assignments they need to complete? Even though I know it's usually not their fault for being absent, it's one more management task to add to my already full load. Let's not even mention the times I've had to do this for students whose families take trips to Disney World in the middle of the school year!

I developed this assignment make up form to make my job a little easier when kids are absent. You can download it from the Classroom Management page on Teaching Resources. Here's how I used it:

1. Each day that a student was absent, I placed this form on his or her desk. 
2. I assigned a student in the same team to write down any classwork or homework assignments on the chart at the bottom. 
3. If I handed out a graphic organizer or worksheet to complete, I asked the student helper to paperclip it to the back of this form and write the title of the assignment on the front. 
4. When the absent student returned, he or she was given the packet of make-up work which included due dates. 
5. As each assignment was turned in, I checked it off and initialed that it was completed. I kept the final form for my own records.
6. If a student was particularly forgetful or irresponsible, I made a copy of this form before giving it to the child. In the event that the make-up work was not turned in on time, this form was my proof to the parent that I did provide the child with a list of assignments to complete.
7. If students were absent more than one day, I completed prepared a separate form for each day. In fact, I just kept a stack of these forms in my paper organizer because someone was absent almost every day. 

This system worked great for me because it was an easy way to make sure that I didn't accidentally overlook an assignment. It also helps to keep the student organized and parents love it. If a student does not complete the make-up work, they can't claim that I never told them about it because the proof is right on the form! 

What is your favorite system for making sure students complete work after they are absent?

Classroom Book Publishing Webinar

Your students can become published authors, and it won't cost you a penny! Studentreasures Publishing has a free program where your class can create a hardcover book with up to 66 pages - 33 stories and 33 color illustrations. You can choose from several book formats that include portrait or landscape pages and lined or unlined paper for the story pages.

I loved using this program in my class, so I'm excited to be able to present a webinar next week about the project called Simple Steps to Classroom Book Publishing. The webinar will take place on March 6th at 8 p.m. EST, but if you miss it, you can watch the recording from the Studentreasures page I've set up on my website. I'm a visual person, so I created the Classbook Storyboard shown below to help teachers plan and organize their projects. I'll be explaining how to use the Storyboard during the webinar. You can download a copy now by clicking on the image.

One reason that I'm so excited about the webinar is that I'll be joined by three other teachers who are just as passionate as I am about the project as I am:

• Juana Saborido, 6th grade
• Candy Carl, 1st grade
• Robin Kramer, 1st grade

The book shown above, An Imaginary World, was created by Juana Saborido's 6th grade class. Juana, Candy, Robin, and I will be available at the end of the session to answer your questions about the Classbook publishing project. The webinar is being hosted by Studentreasures, so a few members of their staff will available to answer questions, too.

You can register for the webinar by clicking on the image on the left to be taken to the Simple Steps to Classroom Book Publishing registration page. You can sign up even if you can't attend the live session and you'll be sent the recording link later.

I know this is a busy time of year, but I hope you'll take time to attend this webinar. Publishing student work for free is an opportunity you don't want to pass up, but the project can be a little tricky the first time you do it. Yes, you can watch the recording later, but you won't be able to have YOUR questions personally answered! Also, at the end of the webinar, 3 participants will be randomly selected to win a $50 gift card to Scholastic, and you do have to be present to win. Please use the social sharing buttons on this blog post to share it with anyone you know who might be interested. I hope you'll join us on Tuesday, March 6th!

Bio Poems for President's Day

Integrating Social Studies and Literacy  

Presidents Day is celebrated in February, so it's the perfect time to have your students write President Bio Poems! This lesson is also a great way to sneak a little research and creative writing into your social studies curriculum!

Bio Poems Made Easy is a free teaching resource that I created several years ago to teach students how to write bio poems about themselves, and it can easily be adapted and used in many different content areas. This freebie includes complete directions for the basic poetry writing assignment, as well as two graphic organizers for brainstorming and planning. For this activity, I created a special President Bio Poem graphic organizer with the specific categories needed for this assignment.

Tip: It's best to have your students write bio poems about themselves prior to the President Bio Poems lesson so they will be familiar with the bio poem format.

President Bio Poems
Before this lesson, download and print one copy of the free President Bio Poem graphic organizer for each student, and write the names of well-known presidents on slips of paper.

To start the lesson, ask each student to draw out the name of a president and write that name on the line at the top of the graphic organizer. Follow the suggested lesson plan described in Bio Poems Made Easy, but tell your students they will be writing bio poems about their presidents instead of about themselves. They will start by filling out the boxes on the graphic organizer using information they learn through research. This task involves quite a bit of higher level thinking, because students not only have to gather information, they have to analyze what they've learned to decide where to write their facts. Specifically, they will be searching for information in these categories:

• Adjectives that Describe the President
• Who lived... (where? when? details about childhood)
• Who said.... (famous quote)
• Who cared about....
• Who was determined to....
• Who refused to....
• Who made a difference by . . . 
• Who is remembered for....

President Bio Poems - Lesson Variations
Completing the graphic organizer might be a bit of a challenge for some kids, so you may want to let your students work in partners. They can each conduct their own research and then collaborate to complete the form and write the poem. After students complete their poems, they can also create "word clouds" to display with their poetry. Be sure to allow time for students to share with the class!

Presidents Day Spelling Trivia
By the way, did you know that Presidents Day is not the official name of the holiday? It's actually George Washington's Birthday! Over time, the public began to refer to the holiday as one that honored all the presidents which has caused confusion about its correct spelling. Many refer to it as Presidents Day (without an apostrophe), but others insist that the plural possessive form, Presidents' Day, is the correct way to spell it because it refers to more than one president. But does it? If the holiday officially honors George Washington, maybe it should be the singular possessive form, President's Day! How do YOU spell this holiday? The good news is that whatever spelling you use, no one can say that you're wrong!

Your Students Can Be Published Authors!

Did you know your students can create a book together that can be published for FREE? Take a look at this book that my 4th grade class created a few years ago. As a part of my life science unit, my students invented wacky animals with specific adaptations. Each student drew a picture of his or her animal in its habitat and wrote a one page description that included how the animal was adapted for that particular environment. Take a look at the Sniger example. Snake + Tiger = Sniger  You knew that, right?

So, how did we get the book published for free? As it turns out, there's a book publishing program called Studentreasures that's specifically designed for publishing student work. Studentreasures has several different programs available, but the one we signed up for was the Classbook project. I want to tell you about it because they still offer this free program, and I hope you'll consider signing up. My students were so excited to see their work published in an actual print book!

 
How the Classbook Program Works
Studentreasures sends the teacher a packet of numbered pages and a form letter to be sent home to all parents explaining the project and giving them the opportunity to order books. The teacher then selects a theme for the classbook and guides his or her students through the process of writing stories, poems, or essays and illustrating them. Everything is sent off to Studentreasures where the student pages are used to create hardcover, bound books. The actual pages are also bound into a classbook and sent back to the teacher as a free book to keep! There's no minimum number of books that the parents must purchase; the only requirement for the teacher is to send home the letters and collect the payments from those who do place orders.

How You Can Get Involved
I did this project two years in a row, and it was an amazing success both times! I've been sharing about it at teacher workshops and on my website for years, and now I'm excited to be able to spread the news about this publishing project in an even bigger way. I'm working with Studentreasures to develop a free webinar where you can learn exactly how to create your own class books! When I participated in the program, there were many times when I would have liked to ask someone a question or get some advice from a pro. So I was excited when Studentreasures approached me about presenting a webinar on their Classbook program. We've set the date for the event; the webinar will be held on March 6th at 8 p.m. EST. Sign up for my Candler's Classroom Connections newsletter to receive more information when registration opens.

But there's no reason to wait for the webinar if you're interested in signing up for the project; just go to the Studentreasure site now and order your free publishing kit. You can choose between portrait and landscape formats as well as lined or unlined pages. They'll even send a sample book to show your class!

Thousands of  teachers have had class books and student books printed with Studentreasures over the last 15 years, and if you're one of them, I invite you to leave a comment! Creating a class book does take time and commitment on the part of the teacher, but the end result is a book that your students will treasure forever!

The Power of Praise

Why We Shouldn't Praise Kids for Being Smart ... and How to Use Praise Effectively

Caring teachers are lavish in their praise; they know that praise has the power to motivate reluctant learners and to build self-esteem. So who would have thought that praise could actually be harmful? Believe it or not, research has shown that one type of praise in particular can have unintended but highly damaging consequences. Before you reject this conclusion, let me tell you about about the research and share my own personal experiences with praise.

A few years ago, Dr. Carol Dweck published an article in Educational Leadership called The Perils and Promises of Praise in which she described several studies she and a colleague conducted that had astounding results. This research was also referenced in a terrific article in the New York Magazine called How Not to Talk to Your Child: The Inverse Power of Praise. I urge you to read both articles; I guarantee that you'll be fascinated by this information.

Praising Intelligence Versus Effort
In a nutshell, Dr. Dweck and her colleague divided groups of students into two subgroups and gave them a task to complete. Then they pulled the students out one by one to give them their results and also offered a single specific line of praise to each student. Kids in the first group were praised for being smart. Students in the second group were praised for working hard and putting forth effort. Then they gave the students another task, but this time the students were allowed to choose between a challenging task and one that was obviously much easier. Guess what? A full 90% of the kids who were praised for effort chose the challenging task while most of the others chose the easy task! Then later when the students were retested on the original material, the ones who were praised for effort improved their scores and the "smart" kids did worse!

When I first read about this study several years ago, I immediately thought of my two daughters who are both extremely bright. Through the years they were praised repeatedly for being smart. What else is a teacher supposed to say when a kid easily masters every concept? Yet problems arise when children spend the first 10 years of their lives being told they are smart, and they hit middle school where things become a little more challenging. You can see how a child's self-esteem might take a hit when they've always been told they are smart - yet now they have to struggle to make good grades.

Interestingly, my older daughter Wendy discovered the New York Magazine article herself the other day and forwarded it to me. She could really relate to the study results and felt that repeated praise for being smart may have had a negative impact on her willingness to take risks and tackle new challenges. She understood on a personal level how when your identity is wrapped up in feeling "smart," the idea of struggling and perhaps failing is difficult to face. Wendy is now a successful engineering student at NCSU, but she's learned that being smart doesn't mean you are perfect. In fact, one sign of true intelligence might be the willingness to take risks, occasionally fail, and learn from your mistakes.

Classroom Implications

As teachers, how can we use this information? In my opinion, this study has tremendous implications for education. Remember that it's not praise itself that's the problem - it's praising intelligence alone that leads to negative consequences.

So what if instead of telling kids they are smart, we praise them for putting forth effort? What if we teach them that we aren't just born smart - we become smarter through hard work and persistence?

This might seem to be an effective solution, but it only addresses part of the problem. When gifted kids master every academic task with ease, praising for effort becomes meaningless. Perhaps when that happens, it's time to take a look at our own teaching practices and ask ourselves why everything is so easy for these students. What can we do to make sure every child faces new challenges every day?

Discovering the Power of Pride
Instead of offering a steady diet of whole-group instruction, it's up to us to offer other options like learning centers, small group instruction, and reading workshop - strategies that provide sufficient challenges for all students. Ironically, as students experience personal challenge, they will also experience the satisfaction of overcoming those challenges. As a result, their sense of pride will boost their self esteem more than external praise ever could - the power of pride will trump the power of praise!

Teaching Resources ~ http://www.lauracandler.com

Christmas Paper Chain Connections Craftivity

I love dreaming up new seasonal activities, but I always try to make them educational. A few days ago I remembered how I used to love to make paper chains to decorate our Christmas tree, and I realized that this craftivity could easily be adapted to the classroom by having students write on the slips of paper first. In fact, this idea would fit perfectly into a lesson on making connections while reading!

Making connections helps the reader make sense of what he or she is reading, and we often teach our students about three different types of connections: text to text, text to self, and text to world. Children are often taught to recognize and distinguish between these three, so I created a printable to make it super easy for students to record and classify their connections. (For some great mini lessons on teaching connections, read Stephanie Harvey's book, Strategies That Work.)

You can use this activity just before the holidays and have students create paper chains to decorate their Christmas trees, or you can do the activity at another time during the year and make paper chains for fun. The Paper Chain Connections activity can also be used with a "reading marathon" right before the holidays. Everything is fully explained in my free holiday lesson packet called Christmas Decoration Connections. You can download it from my Seasonal page on Teaching Resources during December, or my TeachersPayTeachers store any time of the year. If you download it from TpT, please take a moment to rate it. I hope you and your students enjoy this activity!

Teaching Resources ~ http://www.lauracandler.com

No Names on Papers? Problem Solved!

Are you frustrated with students who forget to turn in papers or who forget to put their names on their work? I used to get so annoyed when I took a stack of papers home to grade, only to discover that three students had not turned in their work and three more turned in a paper with no name!

But then I got smart and got organized! I devised a system where students turned in their papers by placing them into "paper drops," laminated brown envelopes with student checklists attached. At the end of the class period, I quickly pulled out the papers and checked off who had turned theirs in so I could solve the mystery of the missing papers before they went home for the day. Then the papers went right back into the envelope so I could keep them together for grading later.

The entire Paper Drop System system is described in this packet and includes the printables you need to make it work for you. You can also download a customizable checklist from the Classroom Management page on Teaching Resources. Paper problem solved!

Visit Teaching Resources ~ http://www.lauracandler.com

Free Fall Math Word Problem Puzzlers

If you haven't implemented a math word problem solving program this year, I have just the thing for you!  Download these two Fall Math Puzzler printables to try out an easy and effective program that helped my students soar to success in math. With this method, your students solve just one problem a day, Monday through Thursday, with Friday being reserved for in-depth problem-solving lessons or additional practice with challenging puzzlers. It takes just 10 or 15 minutes a day, and you will be amazed at the results!

The Fall Math Puzzlers freebie includes two versions of the same activity page. To decide which version is right for your class, click here to download both pages and print them out. Then try solving the problems as if you were one of your students. Adults would solve these problems using equations or number sentences because we easily grasp what to do. But your students would be more likely to solve them by drawing pictures or illustrating them in some way.Thinking about how they might solve each problem will help you choose the right level for your class.

If you want to differentiate instruction, you can use both activity pages in your class, assigning the first page to some students and the second page to those who need a challenge. However, don't give both pages to the same student because they have similar wording with different numbers.

The Daily Math Puzzler Program

There are four levels in the complete Daily Math Puzzlers program, and each ebook includes enough printables and lessons for a year's worth of instruction. The easiest Level is A which is about right for 2nd or 3rd grade, depending on your students. The most challenging level is D which may be appropriate for 5th or 6th grade.

To see examples of all of the levels and test them with your class, download my free Problem Solving Assessment pack. Administer the pretests to your class as described in the directions. Answer keys are included. If you decide to implement the full program, you can use the post tests to assess student progress at the end of the year.

For more problem-solving strategies and additional Daily Math Puzzler activity pages, visit my Math Problem Solving page on Teaching Resources. Problem solving can be fun when students solve just one problem a day!

8 Strategies to Motivate Kids to Love Problem Solving

Students often fear math, and are especially intimidated by problem solving. These feelings prevent them from being able to relax, think clearly, and apply what they've learned to problems they're trying to solve. The resulting brain freeze serves to reinforce the idea that mathematics is scary and difficult. Math standards keep getting tougher, and students are expected to be proficient at solving complex problems far beyond what we were expected to solve at their age. How are we to help our students become confident problem solvers when math continues to get more challenging?

Strategies to Thaw Math Brain Freeze
Fortunately, there are many tools and  strategies you can use to show your kids that math isn't all that scary after all. Here are 8 strategies that helped my students feel more comfortable with problem solving. These techniques thawed their attitudes towards math and motivated them to actually enjoy problem solving!

1. Implement a problem-solving program in which students solve just one word problem a day, and start with easy problems they can ALL solve without difficulty 
2. Mix up the types of problems and present challenges that require different problem solving skills and strategies. This will require your students to tap into different types of math content and skills to solve them. 
3. Keep problem solving sessions short at first - no more than 10 to 15 minutes a day - but as students start to look forward to these sessions, you can include longer problems that require more persistence
4. Refer to word problems as "puzzlers," "brain teasers," or "stumpers," and present them as fun challenges rather than dreaded math problems
5. Alternate cooperative learning strategies with independent work to add an element of fun while ensuring individual accountability
6. Allow students to use calculators during problem-solving sessions
7. Require students to show their work with pictures, symbols, or words, but don't require them to write complete sentence explanations for every problem they solve.
8. After giving students time to solve a problem, reveal the correct answer up front and then spend the remaining time asking students to share strategies. Ask, "How many different ways can we discover to solve this problem?" Call on several student volunteers to come to the front of the class, one at a time, to demonstrate how they solved the problem. This will highlight the variety of different ways a problem can be solved. 

Daily Math Problem Solving and Growth Mindset
I've had great success with these strategies, and when I've shared them with teachers, they have experienced similar results. They've told me that their students now look forward to their daily problem solving sessions! In the same way that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, it seems that a problem a day keeps the brain freeze away!

August 2017 Update - I'm in the process of updating the Daily Math Puzzler program to align it with best practices for fostering a growth mindset. On August 31st, I'm presenting a webinar called Math Problem Solving: Mindsets Matter, and I'll dive into recent research on this topic and bust some math myths about problem solving. If you miss it, you can purchase the professional development version of this webinar from my TpT store here.

Problem Solving Assessment Freebie
One of the free files I share during the webinar is my Problem Solving Assessment pack which can help you evaluate your students' problem-solving abilities. It includes both a pretest and a posttest on 4 different levels. Believe me, you'll learn a lot about how your students solve problems when you score their tests! If you don't have time to watch the webinar now, sign up HERE if you'd like a copy of this freebie sent to you by email.

What are some of your favorite strategies and tips for helping kids to thaw out math brain freeze and enjoy solving problems?

Hands-on Water Cycle Fun!

Now that I'm retired, I often miss working with children; children are my inspiration and the classroom is my laboratory! Recently I accepted a position at a local school to work with kids during their year round intersession program, and I had the pleasure of teaching science to 5th graders for 3 days. I had a wonderful time teaching them about the water cycle and weather, especially since I was able to incorporate a hands-on activity and an exciting demonstration into our lessons.

One activity was adapted from a terrific idea shared with me by Pat Calfee, a former elementary teacher who is now an educational consultant. When Pat was teaching 2nd grade, she used plastic rotisserie chicken containers to have her students create mini water cycles.

Because 5th graders need to know the full water cycle including transpiration and run-off,  we modified our mini water cycles slightly. Each team set up their own mini water cycle by adding a rock to represent a mountain, grass for the vegetation, and a small pond made from aluminum foil and filled with water.

On a sunny day, the best way to power up the mini water cycle is to close the container and put it in the sun for several hours. As the water warms up, it evaporates and then condenses on the inside of the plastic lid. The water then "rains" on the environment inside the container and runs off to form little ponds. Unfortunately, the weather called for rain on the day we were doing this (Murphy's law!). So I brought a large lamp from home that gave off a lot of heat, and we put the containers under the lamp. Soon we were observing evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and run-off!

Those containers were a super way to give students hands-on experience creating a water cycle. It was wonderful to be able to have something concrete to observe when discussing these concepts.

Another way to observe a water cycle in action is to create a Cloud in a Jar. This is a teacher demo since it involves boiling water and a lit match, but it's a fun way for students to observe how clouds form. You can find the directions for this activity in my Science File Cabinet on Teaching Resources. The directions include a set of follow-up questions to help students grasp the essential concepts.

A great way to help kids identify examples of condensation, evaporation, and precipitation in everyday life is with my Parts of the Water Cycle Task Cards shown below. I've even added images of all 32 task cards that you can upload to Plickers and use for assessment questions!

What are your favorite activities to teach the water cycle? Please share!

Daily Report Homework Solution

Do you have a few students who can't seem to complete assignments and turn them in on time? Yet when you talk to their parents, you hear the story, "But he said he finished all his homework!" Sadly, these students may feel they are telling the truth because they forgot they even HAD homework. The problem with this scenario is that the problem can't be solved without the parents and teacher working together closely for a few weeks to find out where the system is breaking down. Parents can't make sure kids are doing homework if they don't know about assignments until the end of each week or, worse, when mid-term reports come out.

I created this Daily Report to help me stay in touch with parents and to make sure that problems are caught right away. Each day the student writes his or her homework down in a notebook or planner and brings it to show me along with this Daily Report form. I complete the boxes by writing an S, N, or U to show how the student's day has gone, and the student takes it home his or her parents to sign. If parents will set up simple incentives, like allowing the child to stay up late on Friday for a certain number of Satisfactory ratings, this report works very well to stop problems in their tracks.

You can download this Daily Report by clicking on the image above or by going to my Odds N Ends page on Teaching Resources. It's not something you want to use all year, but it is quite effective for getting students back on track. I hope you find it to be useful!