Bud, Not Buddy projects

One of our writing assignments for the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis was this: How is the suitcase a symbol in the story? What does it stand for? What does he keep in it?I cut paper bags to make "suitcases" for the writing/project. The students decorated the outside. On the inside of the suitcase the students had to put pictures,items or drawings that actually represented the things that were most important to Bud.

You can see his rocks and the blue flyers here. We also had fun typing the writing assignment and creating a wordle of Bud's character traits.

Class Dojo

My teaching partner started using Class Dojo with the 4th and fifth graders this year. It is an online behavior management program that teachers can use for free! http://www.classdojo.com/Students earn and get dojo points taken away for a variety of reasons. The teacher can choose what they want the class to work on: On task behaviors, persistence, working together and so on. I partnered this program with another one calledfitnessfinders.net This company had awards or charms in increments of 25. Once one of our students earns 25 dojo points they get a necklace, a dog tag, and a 25 "dojo" charm.

Our Dojo necklaces!

This company gives out lots of free samples of many different charms. The possibilities are endless! Christine