Easy Foldable Animal Puppets ~ Our Gators!

We made easy, foldable Gator puppets now that the FCAT is over! Our school is the Gators {it just kills the 'Nole in me!} and they ♥loved, ♥loved, ♥loved doing this activity. I usually do it at the beginning of the year and make a different animal each month, it is great for listening skills!

First take a piece of 12 x 18 construction paper, as you can see in the picture, I let them pick green, or girl pink or boy blue...some one picked purple, so we rolled with that idea too! Then fold it into thirds lengthwise {hot dog bun style} then flip it over so the solid side is on the outside. Next fold it in half. Then only take one side and fold that backwards so it will be 1/4th of the length. Pancake flip it completely over and fold the remaining side backward into the 1/4th shape. The students can now put their hands into the top and bottom fold and with no glue, staples or tape, it will hold their hands and become a quick and easy puppet.

Step By Step Directions

Place the 3D eyes on top by cutting a "house shape" with a rounded roof, fold the bottom a little bit and glue it down, easy-cheesy 3D eyes! Then you are good to go with any decorations, teeth with scrapbooking scissors, tongues, hair bows, bow ties, anything they want! I love how they all turn out differently! :)

Later, pink makes a great pig, yellow makes a great duck bill, peach and brown great humans, you will love it & it takes 20 minutes at the most so it makes a great Daily Five activity!
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Easy to Make ~ "Flip Your Card" Behavior Chart

I have always done a "Flip Your Card" behavior program. I feel that it really works, it gives ownership to the student for the inappropriate behavior and the classroom behavior plan is not just the teacher yelling all the time, which NEVER works! Green is the best, at our school it is a "Gator Day" since we are the Gators! Then blue, yellow and red. I allow my students to "earn it back" when they have to flip their card, if they show improvement they may move back to green. This helps with individual behavior plans too. Some kids can work for an hour and then move back to green, other students may need more immediate rewards & consequences. If you have a child with impulse control, once he calms down you might want to move him back to green because he showed an improvement in self-control immediately...next time the melt down wouldn't last too long, hopefully to the point that there will be no more melt downs...you get the idea! :)
Everyday the behavior goes home to mom and dad, in my room green means $5 for the treasure box, which I'll make another post about, blue is $4, etc. It goes home daily for the parents to sign. Some teachers just send home a green magic marker dot on a calendar ~ as long as you let your parents know your plan at the start of they year, they will know what to look for in the daily folder or agenda. What I like about this system is if the parents are supporting you at home, usually the kids will work extra hard to earn back to green each day. If you have no parental support, it still helps with the student seeing immediate consequences & rewards....by September, I rarely have students flipping cards and my classroom is running so nicely!
I think I found this great idea to make a new type of "Flip Your Card" chart at Sunny Days in Second Grade's blog. My daughter and I ran right over to Home Depot to get the paint sample cards, this brand not only had nice colors, but had a little hole already punched in the corner and plastic rings available. The idea is to match up the different colors in your house, but it works PERFECT for a flip your card chart. They are hard, colorful and durable. I DID ASK the paint people if I could have 20 of each color for school and they were even kind enough to suggest I take 22 of the rings! But you could also get the Walt Disney paint samples that look like Mickey Mouse ears, use a hole punch and buy some cheap plastic rings if you store doesn't have them. I hope you can use this idea, enjoy!

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TPT's Web Site's Home Page

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Fern-Smiths-Classroom-IdeasIt really, really, really made my night last night when I opened up an email from one of my little blog friends in South Florida...she saw me on the MEET section ON THE HOME PAGE!!! and sent the picture! You have to visit her site, I've been doing this over 22 years and I learn something new from her site weekly!!



Go follow her because right now she is part of a BIG CONTEST and she is also giving away an item to everyone before May 20th {$5 and under disclaimer!} Follow her ~ you will be so glad that you did! :)
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Is End of the School Year Behavior Getting You Down?

Here's my trick for great behavior during the Spring when it seems like every kid in every grade has Senioritis! I don't give candy as a reward ALL YEAR! I give a "salary" that they can spend in the treasure box and I will post about that in a later post. Then, when things get really, really, really crazy at the end of the year, I start walking around with one M&M or one Skittle....you would think I had given them GOLD! It's all in the presentation, I will walk around during Daily Five/Centers and say, "Look how this group is living up to their expectations." Plunk, one teeny, tiny M&M...cheap for me, but THEY LOVE IT! So far my Spring is going well! :) Then closer to the end it might be 2 M&Ms or even if they stop saying Thank You, the first person who says Thank You might "Hit the Jackpot" and get 10!! Yes 10 Skittles!! 10 whole, cheap as dirt Skittles ~ their behavior will be amazing! :) What's wonderful now is that by using coupons, I have been able to get a lot of M&Ms and Skittles for next to nothing during the after Easter sales! :)
This did not work for my 2 1/2 years in Texas because we couldn't give food, so I just used glitter stickers....just find something your students like and then save it for the end of the year only!
At the end of the school day, your children should go home exhausted because they've worked so hard, you should not be exhausted! I hope this helps!
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