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You are here: Home / Archives for clipchart

Why I’ll NEVER Get Rid of My Clip Chart

August 2, 2015 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 18 Comments

I will NEVER get rid of my clip chart. EVER.

I will never get rid of my clip chart. Ever.

I’ve read so many thought-out, well-meaning posts on clip charts — on both sides of the spectrum. I don’t know what’s right for you or your classroom… no one knows that but you. This post isn’t about what YOU should do. It’s about what I’ve done and will continue to do until I pack-up my classroom for the final time. Should you get inspired, invigorated, and motivated to do the same? Well, that’s just a bonus.

My clip chart helps to shape my classroom — and my beautiful students — into a caring community of productive citizens. Without it, I have no doubt that counselor and office referrals would rise, I’d spend a greater portion of my time on the phone telling parents negative things about their children, and the teacher-student relationship would suffer miserably.

I teach in a school of children in transition. Children that come from low socio-economic status households, many with both limited English language skills and limited educational attainment. Children that may change phone numbers, homes, and/or caregivers multiple times during the school year. We are a PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) school, which means we spend a lot of time front-loading expectations and use a tiered system of interventions. For many of my students, the only constant is me and my classroom.

I’m sure many of you reading this can relate.

It can be hard. Emotionally draining. Mentally exhausting.

It has been for me. It was almost too much.

Until my clip chart saved me.

Saved my classroom. Saved my kids.

Last year I spent the first month of school tying my clip chart into each and every language arts lesson. Every read aloud. Every writing assignment. We spent hours discussing our clip chart.

Caring, Fairness, Respect, Responsibility, Trustworthiness, and Citizenship are big words for children. For any children, but especially children whose primary concern is where their next meal is coming from, whom they are going home to, and where they’ll sleep that night.

They’re big, important, tough words.

But my kids? My kids lived them.

I have to tell you that as a teacher, no moment will ever be as important to me as the moment last Fall when one of my kiddos was having a hard time. He felt inadequate. Nervous. He felt stupid because he wasn’t sure he could finish an assignment.

One of my sweet little girls leaned over to him and said, “Remember that learning is a great responsibility, like Mrs. Plum says. Part of being responsible is trying. Just try. Put your heart into it and try. You’re going to do it — just believe in yourself. I believe in you and so does Mrs. Plum.“

Cue. the. tears.

As I (tried to) cry quietly in the darkness of the back of the room, I watched my sweet little boy try his hardest. And though he didn’t get it all right, he did his best. He was proud of himself. And I was too.

He came up to me later and said, “She really made me feel good about myself. She made me feel cared about. Can I put her clip on the chart and give her a tag for her necklace?“

Yes. Of course you can.

That was just one of dozens upon dozens of moments last year when my kids recognized each other’s character on our clip chart. There were many more moments when I did too. Small moments — helping someone up when they fell, sharing a piece of technology when their friend missed out the day before, turning their full attention to the speaker — and bigger moments, too.

Moments like the one when we had a few rough days. When we just weren’t in sync. When we sat down on the carpet, talked about what we wanted to do with our lives and then figured out a plan to get there. A plan that involved six little traits hanging on our wall, put into action.

Moments like that, that seemed almost too big for an eight year old to grasp… and yet, they did.

This isn’t your average clip chart, by any means. Students don’t start on the chart each day — they earn their way on. Each day is a new day, and not every day will end with a student’s clip on the chart. There were, of course, moments where we used our clip chart as a reference to talk about something they did that didn’t meet their expectations, their classmate’s expectations, or mine.

But it wasn’t about clipping up or down — there wasn’t any of that. 

In particular, there was a time last year when one of my girls lied to me — as kids are sometimes prone to do. Instead of clipping down, or calling home, or sending her to talk to the counselor, we talked privately during recess.

She and I had a conversation — not a lecture — about why we value trustworthiness. She understood what it meant and we it’s so important to our classroom family. She was sorry. She apologized to me. She apologized to herself. We hugged. She ran off to play with her friends who gave her hugs too.

And that was that.

She didn’t take her clip off the chart (she had earned her way on earlier that day for demonstrating caring with our part-time inclusion students).

Taking her clip off the chart would send a message to her I didn’t want to send: you’re only as good as your last mistake.

Her breach of trust in lying to me did not erase her actions earlier in the day. It just showed us both that it’s an area we need to work on… together.

Mistake Quote - Facebook & Featured Image

The culture that our clip chart developed in our classroom is one that I will always look back to for the rest of my teaching career. We are a family because we have a core set of values that we think about as we interact with each other day after day. I can hold myself to those same values and reflect on whether or not I’ve met my obligation too.

I am immeasurably blessed to get to spend another year with my kids, this time in third grade. I’d spend the rest of their days in school with them if I could — we’re that bonded.

I know I owe so much of it to our clip chart.

I’ll never get rid of it.

{You can read more about the components of my clip chart alternative here and purchase it here. If you have any questions about it, please leave a comment and I will answer it.}

Filed Under: Blog, Character Education, Running a Classroom, Teaching Philosophy Tagged With: behavior management, clipchart, home-school connection, PBIS

Another Monday Made It?!

August 11, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 4 Comments

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m on a roll! I am so excited about today’s Monday Made It because I’ve got THREE!
Last week I shared with you my new take on the clip-chart — Clippin’ for Character.
I made a basket this week to store student clips for the chart, reward bracelets {that are new and freshly added to this pack!}, and hold my beloved Toto. I did my best to make my own take on Dorothy’s basket from Oz!

Students will keep their clips on the basket until they are recognized for exhibiting one of our six character traits. They will then remove their clip, place it on the chart, and take a bracelet of the trait they exhibited. This is a SUPER quick, specific way to praise kids without any cost involved! While I made the bracelets in color and blackline, I’m going to use the blackline and let my kiddos color their bracelets before wearing them.

Aren’t these clips the cutest? They’re sturdier than normal clips, and best of all, I didn’t have to decorate them myself! I bought them at Michaels for $3.99, less a 25% coupon!

All of the bracelets use the same wording and graphics as the clip-chart, which keeps everything cohesive and memorable for students.

A few examples of the bracelets outside of the basket.

My second Monday Made It is new storage for my brag tags! Most of these are from my Oz pack, though the bottom row is from the Clippin’ for Character pack. {Again, using the same graphics to keep it consistent!}
My last Monday Made It was on a total whim; I saw this faux-leather “P” and had to have it for my desk! Then I was hot-gluing ribbon to the basket above and thought, you know, this would look cool on that letter! Then I attempted to mimic my favorite KG font — can you guess which one?

Filed Under: Other Tagged With: behavior management, Brag Tags, clipchart, Clippin' Up for Character, Monday Made It, motivation, organization, The Wizard of Oz

Clippin’ for Character

August 6, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 32 Comments

When I was a student teacher, I remember being asked what my classroom management would be. Having little to no experience at the helm, I looked around the room, fixed my eyes on the famous stoplight and uttered the word “clipchart.” It just seemed like the natural (popular) go-to. It’s concrete. It’s an easy way to communicate an overall snapshot of a day.
But it didn’t sit right with me. The tears when a child made it to red were upsetting (deserved or undeserved) and distracting. The stagnation of the child that sat on green all day even though he or she was an exemplary student was frustrating. The public nature of it all felt like shaming rather than shaping.
So I added colors up top. And then I started moving clips “off the chart.” That made some kids happy — their consistent good behavior was finally recognized by a purple smiley in their agenda. But still… there were my kiddos on yellow. Or red. Always.
I asked myself what I was doing wrong, because it was me, not them. I felt that there had to be a better way.
There is.

I believe that my goal for behavior management should not be to manage student behavior; it should be to shape it. I cannot shape it if I am not providing students with effective examples, opportunities to reflect, and praise.
 
There is no better way to praise a child than to say, “I saw your character just then. You displayed respect when you worked out your disagreement with your friend. You are a respectful kid.”

“Clip up to purple for your awesome behavior!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This isn’t to say your clipchart doesn’t work for you, or for your students. It may. It just doesn’t work for me, or my kids. But I needed something. Some visual — some concrete experience, some way to track, to communicate… all while praising effectively and shaping character.
When I return in a few short weeks, I’ll have a clipchart at the front of my room. But it won’t be about behavior. It’ll be about character.
 
We’ll read books, model each character trait, and reflect.
We’ll celebrate the small acts of character  —
… and the bigger ones.
I’ll track — privately — to see where I need to shape.

The kids will celebrate themselves and each other. They will recognize one another’s character. They will write about how their neighbor showed compassion, or grace, or was honest, or a team player.


They will run home to share that today — today red means they cared.
That they made a difference.
They showed their character.

I hope that you’ll consider going with praise, and shaping character this year. If you are interested in seeing all that “Clippin’ Up for Character” includes and represents, you can do so here. It is 50% off until this evening.

Filed Under: Other Tagged With: classroom management, clipchart, Clippin' Up for Character

About the Author

Sarah Plum(itallo) is a teacher of emerging multilinguals and 21st Century Grant coordinator in Virginia. She writes curriculum for inclusive classrooms and presents professional development on a variety of topics.

Read more about Sarah and her background in education here.

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