Here's What I Believe (about teaching)

I know that each child learns differently, reacts differently in different situations, comes from a different background, has experiences different than others, prefers attention more or less than some, listens - regardless of what their body language may show, is motivated differently, and has been taught first and foremost by you, for his or her whole life.

So because of this, I really try my best to watch each child, see what he or she reacts to, what will be smiled at, what is upsetting, and what gets them learning.

My discipline plan is simple for me because it is fun for me to me to reward students! I have each represented by a clothespin, which starts out on a green (good) star each day. The idea is to stay there. I also have a yellow star (warning) and a pink star (note home). But the best part is the blue star, where they have a chance to move up, above and beyond the green star, for exceptional behavior!

Your child will bring home a little note each day, corresponding to the color he or she earned that day. Look for green or blue stars, and praise praise praise them!! If they get a yellow star, I will always write what it was for. Yellow tickets do not need to be returned (and the children eventually learn this, so they try to hide them from you!) To be honest, I don't really care, because I hate sending them home. I usually try to catch them doing something well to get them back up to green before the end of the day, but sometimes I forget, or just run out of time. When your child brings a pink note home though, I'd like to see it signed and returned the next day. If a pink note is not returned, I will call you, usually with your child right beside me, at recess, just so they learn that these cannot escape, as the yellow warning tickets sometimes can.

The best part is that the green tickets are worth one point, and the blue is worth two! As soon as they have 20 points, they can bring them back on the following Friday, and choose a prize from the Prize Box. Yellow and Pink are worth nothing. If they have 19 points on a Friday, the ticket they earn that day does not count, as it is always given out at the end of the day, in line, ready to go home, and tickets are counted during the day. I always wish them "Good luck!" on earning one next week!

I love to "clip up" things like:

• honesty (Jacob found a quarter and turned it in, rather than putting it in his pocket.)
• walking or standing quietly in line (especially when the rest of the class is not)
• showing kindness to a friend (when they don't know I'm watching)

I never give them clip up if they ask for it, or if they tell me what they did right ("I just gave Sarah my crayons!") because I want them to do it because it is the right thing to do. I will praise them and thank them, but not give them "clip up" to blue.

So that's it. I love it because you will know how your child's behavior was each and every day. Some parents keep track of the tickets so they can see the new one each day (I don't date them, so you can imagine seeing the same wrinkled green paper 4 days in a row if your child just grabs the one from yesterday in his backpack.) Some parents let the child deal with it on their own. You know your child best.

Here We Go!!

Hooray! We're off! I don't think I've been more excited to start a school year than this year! Here's a bit of contact information for you:

e-mail: beth.makaafi@boiseschools.org (best way to hear back from me ASAP)

phone number at school: 854-4220

home number: 209-5753

cell: 409-7148

Social Security Number: (just kidding)

This is the story I read at orientation by Audrey Penn.