Five for Friday with Pins and Freebies

I looked at the calendar today... sigh! Just a little more than three weeks from today I will be sitting in a faculty meeting. WOW! Where did the summer break go? The time has passed quickly, and speaking of time---

It's that time! Time to join Doodlebugs for...

Do I need to say more? It's been like this since early Thursday morning. I'm waiting with fingers crossed.

We had a wonderful family celebration this week! The youngest in our family, my grand niece Kamryn, celebrated her 13th birthday.

I spent a great deal of time this past week doing some initial planning for the upcoming school year, particularly in the area of Interactive Notebooks. I found many wonderful ideas on Pinterest... of course... and started pinning and pinning and pinning. I found so many INB pins that I had enough to start a new board just for INB's. This has quickly become my favorite set of pins so I am sharing them with Teaching (Powered by Caffeine)'s weekly linky.

Have fun looking through all the pins. I dare you to NOT pin any of them!

Follow Angela's board Interactive Notebooks on Pinterest.

This week wasn't just all fun stuff! I did get some work accomplished. I use a behavior incentive program in my classroom for both my fifth and sixth grade students that involves brag tags, small little badges/awards that students earn by doing their work, performing well on tests, or exhibiting notable behaviors.

I had used brag tags YEARS ago but I tired of them. Back then it was laborious making the tags!!! Not now, though with computers, printers, and laminators at home! This will be the second year that I am using this system, and because I have my students for multiple years I needed a new set of tags. I suppose I could use the same ones from last year, but my kiddos will notice. They love getting new designs and often spend a great deal of time choosing a tag when confronted with a choice of tag. So, I was busy this past week creating four new sets of tags. To read more about each or to download a set, simply click on the pics below. To see all of the brag tag sets that I have created click HERE.

First up is this set of editable Back to School Tags. Included in this packet are five sheets of 18 count brag tags for a total of 5 different designs plus one blank page which can be customized to include school, teacher, and student names as well as grade and academic year. This is a GREAT starter set!

The second set of tags that I put together are for general classroom behaviors. Included in this packet are twelve different designs. Combine this pack with the one above and you've got your reward system in place.

Because I teach in a Catholic school, many of the tags that my students can earn reflect our faith. My kiddos learn special prayers and religious concepts for which they can earn a brag tag. This packet contains nine different tag designs for this purpose.

The final set that I completed this week is a homework management system that will motivate students to complete their homework assignments on time. It's a combination of punch cards, brag tags, and no homework coupons. I had a group of sixers last year who were notorious for not doing their homework. Once I instituted this system, there were few instances of late or missing work!

Here's how the system works.

Students are given a homework punch card. They earn punches by turning in their homework on time.

The punches earn them brag tags...

... and no homework coupons! YEA!!!!

Would you like a copy of this homework management system to try in your classroom? Then hop on over to my Facebook page. I am holding a giveaway for this product through noon EST on July 19th. That's tomorrow so you should hurry!

Still not too sure about brag tags?!?!? Here's a fall brag tag freebie for you to try. You can download it HERE or by clicking on the pic.

I'm linking this freebie with my friend Lynda from Teaching Science with Lynda. She has a great fall freebie linky going on right now. I'm also linking it with Freebie Friday. Be sure to stop by these blogs for more AWESOME freebies!!!