Brag Tags

Happy November everyone! It's Jessi from Wild West by Jessi and I'm here with my first blog post on The Primary Punchbowl. I'm excited to be part of this amazing group of talented ladies!!!

I teach second grade in South Eastern Arizona. This year in my classroom I ditched my old behavior plan and started to use brag tags along with a system of tickets that the students hold onto. They get five tickets to start the day off with and can earn more tickets or lose tickets based on behavior! At the end of the day they earn a stamp if they have at least five tickets. At the end of the week if they have four stamps (I allow them to have one bad day a week...) they earn a behavior brag tag.

Brag tags have changed the way of thinking in my classroom management. The students are excited to earn the brag tags and beads. They may earn brag tags not only based on behavior but also for academic and for holidays. The students all start the school year out with a "Welcome Back" tag and a "Second Grade" tag from there they have earned different ones. The days when they earn a brag tag they get to wear their necklace for the rest of the day. Necklaces do NOT go home during the school year. They stay put within the classroom, I don't allow my students to wear them to lunch, specials, recess or even to assemblies as my students can't handle having them outside of the classroom. I'm hoping in January we can venture out to have them wear the necklaces out to computers and even to assemblies.

Before the school year started I had not started my bulletin board as we don't have a complete class list until the first day of school. We hold Open House the Friday before school starts (the following Monday) and even during Open House our class lists change. We may have additional students as well as students that switch teachers last minute. It's frustrating to try and get student names on things before the first day of school! This is how my Brag Tag board looked for Open House and for the first two days of school. We started our necklaces on the second day of school after we went over procedures of the classroom, school and of course brag tags!

I have a simple way to display them within my classroom. They hang on pushpins that hold a star with their names on them. At the end of the year I will bring in fancier beads and the students will get to complete their necklaces to take home and keep for good.

I store my brag tags, beads and supplies for necklaces (extra necklaces, hole punch, extra stars and pushpins) in this container.

In my classroom I use pony beads (an assortment of colors) for students to have a visual reminder of how many Accelerated Reader points they have earned. Each bead represents one point for most of my students. If they are way below grade level in reading, have an IEP or are an ELL student they have a half point equals one point. I have adjusted their bead earnings for the first semester and will reevaluate if they can handle getting a bead per point over Christmas break in December. I pass out beads once a week on Monday mornings for the previous weeks worth of reading. I find this is easier to handle than to pass them out after the students earn them every few days. 

I print the brag tags on card stock in color if they have colored clipart on them, if not I print the black and white images on colored card stock. This makes them a little sturdier and I do laminate them. I laminate a ton at a time, cut them and then hole punch them before I put them into my storage bins. Instead of using a hand held single hole punch to punch holes into them, I found it easier to use my three hole punch to punch up to 9 at a time. Given that my brag tags end up being so thick between the card stock and laminate I can fit three tags under each hole punch peg and get more bang for my time! It's been a real game changer using my three hole puncher to punch all the brag tags!!! 

Below are a few of my brag tags necklaces I took to a school meeting this past Friday. I was asked to present on my use of them within the classroom. Our school is looking at using brag tags throughout the whole school as an incentive program! I couldn't be more thrilled. I have a lot of Angie from Lucky Little Learners' brag tags. I have now started to create my own to tailor them for my classroom!!!

Here is a small freebie for you to download and enjoy! We are currently working on mastering our addition and subtraction facts within 20. 

If you like the freebie, you can find the whole pack of mastering facts within 20 in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here

Thanks for stopping by!