The Big Kids' Hall: July 2016

I am not a treasure box teacher. Even as a mom, I've resorted to bribery only a handful of desperate times. I'm not a giant fan of junk food - garbage in is garbage out - and, frankly, I don't have time or money to fill a box. Besides, should we really get food and prizes for doing what we're supposed to do? If that's the case, then I want a margarita machine next to the afternoon sign-out book. Just sayin'.

Still, it's nice to have something small, inexpensive, maybe even subtle for a pat on the back. I already have a stamp for the kids' agendas to use when they meet a goal. Enter brag tags. They've been all over Pinterest and TpT. Cute, little tags that the kids can collect to document wins of all sorts... only they're mostly geared toward primary kids.

I've seen posts on some Facebook groups, with people asking if brag tags would work with upper elementary. Umm... yeah! My kids will love them. My disorganized kids will lose them, but that's only a very few kids and that doesn't mean that they didn't appreciate them. (Really.)

Since my kids travel between me and their homeroom teachers, rather than get the silver ball necklaces to keep their tags, I'm going to get the bracelet-sized ones. ($12 shipped for a hundred from Amazon .) and they can be clipped into the three-ring binder or run through the zipper of their pencil cases. I've seen some way cute tags with colored backgrounds, but I've got about 50 kids, so I'm thinking that, in general, I'll keep the backgrounds clean to save ink. I'll print these at home, since we don't get color copies at my school, on white cardstock, laminate, and hole punch them. Easy-peasy! I'll pick up a couple of plastic sorting containers at Hobby Lobby or Michael's to keep them neat and organized. I'll probably pop the lids off of them to make it all fit better.

So, I've set to work creating some tags for big kids. Kahoots are a big deal in my room full of fiercely competitive gifted kids. Closest thing some of them come to a contact sport. Here's one to commemorate a win. Just click the image to get a full size, printable copy!