Whooooo wants an OWL FRIEND?

What a week -- regular schedule on Monday, closed for inclement weather Tuesday, 2-hour delay Wednesday, regular schedule on Thursday, closed again for inclement weather today. Welcome back from break, am I right?! 

Anyway. For Christmas, David's mom (you can check out her healthy living blog HERE) made some adorable new friends for the classroom.  Since I am sewing challenged and often pin wonderfully cute owls on my pinterest boards that I'll never be able to create myself, clearly I was overjoyed when I opened these.

They are much more adorable than the quiet critters we used to use! More importantly, they allow each student to work individually instead of as an entire table.  I know that sounds a bit counter intuitive to working together .... but sometimes two kids at a table will be sitting, working so quietly while the other three at the table are bebopping all over the place! Then I just feel bad that the two quiet workers miss out on their quiet critters.  

SO, quiet critters have been completely replaced.  Now, any student that I spy working nicely will be allowed to go to my desk and pick out an Owl Friend.  (The importance of getting to pick their own is huge.  I tried to pass them out the first day we used them and I heard "I thought we got to pick our own." Haha, that was a simple fix.)  As long as the student continues to work nicely, he will get to keep the Owl Friend on top of his desk.  If I see him talking or misbehaving, he'll have to take the Owl Friend back home to the basket on top of my desk.  

Since it was a brand-new incentive, students who earned an Owl Friend and kept it on their desk all day on Monday got to trade it for a silly band when they returned them.  On Wednesday, students who kept their Owl Friends all day got a blue stamp in their folder.  Yesterday and in the future, students will just get the satisfaction of knowing they have their Owl Friend with them as a reminder of what a great job they're doing.

Now everyone wants to earn an Owl Friend to proudly display on his/her desk! Even the kids who acted like it wasn't a big deal got the biggest smile on their face when I caught them working nicely and asked them to pick an Owl Friend.

Thanks, Mrs. R! From myself and the kiddos. We love our Owl Friends!  And they're certainly helping keep order in our classroom.