Teacher Appreciation Extravaganza

Welcome to stop #7 in the Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop. I hope you are enjoying all of the freebies. It's just our little way of saying thank you for all that you do for your students everyday.  I also hope you have found the rafflecoptors and entered to win the amazing prize packs.  Here's what you can win:

Aren't these amazing prize packs?!  I am so excited.  I wish I could win these amazing prizes!!

I have a great freebie for you. My class has turned into a bunch of non-stopped talkers.  I can barely get a word in edgewise so I came up with the "Yakker Tracker"  It is super easy to use and has greatly reduced the amount of talking in my classroom.  

The day starts with everyone with 3 plain sticks in their pocket.  When a student talks out, he loses a stick.  If the student loses all 3 sticks, he earns a dreaded red stick.  Each red stick costs the student 5 minutes of their recess.  (Of course, you can adapt this to any number of sticks/consequences that are appropriate for your class.)

The first day, about half of the class lost all 3 of their sticks.  By the second day only about a fourth of the class had lost all of their sticks.  By the end of the week, only a few kids had lost a stick.  No one had earned a red stick.  The best part, I'm not fussing or complaining.  The kids are catching themselves talking out and stopping themselves.  It is changing the end of my school year!

The Yakker Tracker is super easy to make and you probably have all of the materials already in your classroom.  Print the pockets onto card stock or other heavy paper.  Fold and glue together.  I found it worked best to glue the flaps on the back like this.

After I had folded and glued all of the pockets, I glued them onto a poster board.  I laminated the whole thing.  Next, I used a craft knife to cut open the slits for each pocket.  And that's it.  Super easy.  You can pick up your copy of the Yakker Tracker HERE.

Make sure you visit Wendy at Teacher's Toolkit for the next freebie!