What to Do When A Child Won't Go To Time Out

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What should you do when you tell a child to go to time out, but the child refuses to go?  There are few things that are harder to deal with as far as discipline problems are concerned, in my opinion.  This question was recently asked of me on my HeidiSongs Facebook page, and because it is such a difficult issue to deal with, I thought that I would post my response and of some of the other responses here.  It was also the topic of part of my classroom management presentation at the SDE Missouri Kindergarten Conference that I was at last Tuesday, and the Alabama Kindergarten Association Conference last week on Saturday!  So the topic is on my mind at the moment.  I would love to hear from more of you if you have other ideas to contribute!  As far as I am concerned, the more ideas and experiences that we all have to draw from, the better!  By the way, if there are any other questions you would like me to tackle, please feel free to leave a comment below or post it on my Facebook page!

I also would like to mention that there is now a great new blog that is written by a teacher that has been working with emotionally disturbed special education children for 20 years!  It's called Teaching Through Turbulence, and the author, Heather, tackles some very difficult situations and tells how she has dealt with them through the years.  She also takes questions from teachers that are struggling and are looking for help.  I highly recommend it!

I also keep getting asked when the Classroom Management DVD will be done, and we are still working on it!  We are hoping to have it done by the middle (or end!) of August.  It is a matter of waiting for the video editors to finish their magic and get it back to us.  We are just as anxious as many of you are, and we will let you know as soon as possible!  The Classroom Management CD version has already become quite popular, and I am really excited about how well received it has been!  I shared a few songs at the conference in Missouri and it was lots of fun.

What Do You Do When A Child Will Not Go To Time Out?
Here is the basic gist of what I do when children refuse to go to time out when they are told, and there is no doubt that they really MUST go (such as if the child is openly defiant or disrespectful to the teacher, another adult, or hurts another child.) Please keep in mind that this is for major problems; I do not do this for "every little thing." 

1.  I first keep insisting that he or she go, like a broken record.

2.  Give the child a choice to go now or later.
After I ask the child a few times to go, I make it clear that the child has two choices:  to go now for five minutes, (and tell them that's not much time), or to go later for a long time, usually giving up ALL of playtime or recess.

 
3.  Ask the other children to help the child decide which he or she should choose. 
Usually they will all start saying, "Just go NOW!"  Ask the other children what they would like to play during playtime with the offending child.  Ask them to invite that child to play with them later.  Then tell the child that he won't be able to do it unless he goes to time out now.

4.  Let the child know it's okay if they choose to take a long time out later.
 If he or she still won't go, let them know that you will not forget, and that it's okay with you that they chose to give up all of their playtime later instead of a little time now.

Don't let the child see that you are upset!

 
5.  Try not to show that you are mad, or you will have let the child "win."
Sometimes, kids are looking for that big reaction, and if you reinforce that, this is more likely to happen a second time.

6.  Make sure you don't forget to follow through later.
Make sure that you do not forget later to put the child in time out if you said that it could wait.  Put your biggest tattletale in charge of helping you remember, and write yourself a note or set a timer.  The follow through is very important if you don't want to go through this every day!

 7.  Let the child take the time-out later right where they are.
Later, if the child will also not go, then tell the child that right where he or she is sitting is now their time out spot.  Pull up a chair and sit by them.  Make sure that they don't touch any toys and tell the children that no one can play right there nearby.

8.  If a child will not stay there, and gets up to walk around or move away, then call the office and ask for help.
Luckily for us, at our school we have an elementary school counselor that will come get children and sit and talk to them about behavior issues.  She has actual lessons worked out that are grade level appropriate for many situations, so she will sit and try to TEACH the child about what went wrong and about making better choices.  She is a fabulous resource but is there only four days a week rather than daily.  So on some days, she is not on campus, and then of course, she is often quite busy with students from other classes!

9.  Consider calling the child's parents for back-up.
Another thing I have done is call the parents for help right then and there, on the spot.  Tell them about what has happened and ask them for advice on how to handle their child.  Usually, they ask to speak to the child.  Once the child knows that mom or dad is on the phone, they immediately become compliant and start crying, and come to the phone.  The parent tells them what to do, and that is the end of that.  There have been other extreme situations in which the child still did not comply, but usually, this works for me.

An Example From My Experience
One year, I had a little boy who would become very agitated whenever I told him he had to go to time out; it almost became like his "mantra:"  "If I refuse to GO to time out, then I didn't actually go, and therefore, I had no time-outs today."  There was almost no reasoning with him; he simply didn't get the logic- or so it seemed.  He just kept insisting that his mom didn't want him to go to time out, and neither did his dad, and so he wasn't going. 
About halfway through the year, I decided to try to desensitize him to hearing the words "Go to time out," "or go to a chair" so that  he could go quietly for five minutes without freaking out and stop turning gigantic mountains out of molehills.  Because really, we had gotten his behavior under control to the point that he was doing only very small things wrong; just occasionally he would make a choice bad enough that I felt forced to send him to a chair.  (Believe me, I tried to avoid sending him as much as I possibly could!) So one day when he had turned a small five minute time out during a lesson into a 20 minute loss of playtime while sitting in a chair.  At that point, I decided to spend his time out training him to go to time out when I said so!  So we spent that time, having him hear me say, "Go to time out.  (Then I waited until he went.)  Then he sat in the chair for about thirty to sixty seconds, and then I asked him, "Who is in charge"  Then he would answer, "You are."  Then I praised him for "doing it all right," and then I said, "Okay, go sit on the carpet."  (Then I waited while he sat down in his regular spot on the carpet and I had him stay there for a minute.)  Then we started again from the beginning, having him follow my directions to go to time out, tell me who was in charge, and then go back to the floor.  Each time he did it, I praised him quite a bit for doing it, and then we did it again.  I probably had him practice this five times or so, as I recall.  After this, things were much better, and there was only one more instance of this type for the rest of the school year.

There were quite a bit of other great responses on my Facebook page, and I thought it would be useful to post them below.  If you have other suggestions, ideas, or experiences that you would like to share, or questions to ask, please feel free to leave a comment below.  Thanks!

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Lisa Garber Flanagan  
I'm interested in hearing the answers. I teach 3s. Generally if they won't sit in time out, or the thinking chair, I just have to threaten a call to mom or dad. They don't want to get "told on."

Donna Wadzeck:
I use a power chair....I ask them to sit in the chair and get their power back so they can rejoin us....  It's worked really well!!! After a time or two, all it takes is asking "Do you need to get your power back?" The other day my most difficult 3 year old was able to regain his power while sitting at the table with us after I asked him that question...so it does work....  There have been times that I have had to sit in a small chair next to one in order to help them remember they must stay in the power chair until their power returns.

 

Kim Houston Kirkpatrick
I do two different things. One is calling time out the thinking chair or think about it chair.  Many of them come with homes where battles have been faught for year over time out.  I just change the wording to reduce battles.  Also, I ususally give two choices: you can sit in time out (thinking chair) now or at recess; you can sit in time out (thinking chair) here or in Mrs. Perkins room; you can sit in time out (thinking chair) now or during lunch, etc.  By taking the battle out of the situation and letting them choose when/where it works for me 90% of the time.
I usually only give choices when they are fighting me over it. Otherwise, I say, "You need to go think about your choices and then we can talk."
 

Adrienne Choma Sodemann
You have to find out what is making them do the poor behavior... Are they trying to get attention? Is the work too hard?, etc... Then change things up. Give them positive attention when they are doing the right thing or simplify their work and reward them for doing it and slowly increase it to what they can handle. In kindergarten sometimes we have students that are unidentified with disorders, like emotionally disturbed, behavior disorder, even autism. This approach to behavior is called ABA...applied behavior analysis. It works!

Gretchen Witkowski
I do what Jo the Supernanny does: sit them in the spot and say, "You are in time out because..." then walk away. If they get up, silently walk them back and sit them back down again and walk away. Repeat 63 times if necessary until he/she sits for their 3 minutes (or however old they are). It usually only takes about 2-3 times of doing this for a time out before they realize, holy crap, she's not going to give up! I'd better just sit here and do my time. I've taught 3-5's for 6 years and have a 5 year old of my own. Well practiced in this technique! 

Donna Wadzeck  
Agreed!  They have to realize that you mean business.  Too often (I taught for 36 yrs) these days children hear adults say "do this," "do that," "I mean it," and "I'm not going to tell you again," but never follow through so they learn at a very early age that the bigger the fit they throw the quicker they get what they want or get out of doing what they want.

Bethany Charlebois Arsenault 
Love and Logic, and if they are out of control after 3 reminders, they are sent to see the school counselor or principal to call home.  We have a school rubric we all follow.

Wendy True Watson  
Heidi I do pretty much the same thing, but I do love the power chair idea and will be implementing that ASAP.

Deborah Hoffmeyer  
I do not use time out. I invite the child to do an activity away from the others. I also have special activities; books, puzzles, etc, that I save just for a child who needs to unwind or relax.

Tracie Alexander Maurer
I have used the thinking chair with success. I have mixed success bringing he class in on the child's "good choice vs bad choice" decision. I allow the children to give their friends "reminders" as to good behavior but you in the risk of growing little tattlers or bosses. It's a fine line. I sometimes prefer to talk to a child in private about their behavior if it's a child with low self-esteem.

Elizabeth Lysa Vaughn
I've gotten good ideas from Heather's Heart (blog) which has a focus on the "Conscious Discipline" program. She suggested giving two positive choices and I tried it last year with some success. For example (picture child under table having a fit and refusing to come out)...  "J. your choice is to sit in your chair or sit in the calm down area."  My student usually wouldn't respond the first time, but I would wait a few seconds and calmly repeat it and he would finally comply.  I just ordered the book. It was a bit expensive, but I'm hoping it will be helpful. 

The comments below are from my Google+  page.  
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Andrea Hardman

I had this situation last year and used the same strategy - the principal would then want the student to come to the office, and the student refused to go  So the principal would have to come and get her.  What a challenge!

Leea (luvzenkms)

Give them 3 counts (1, 2, 3) then call the principal or a designated person for intervention. Bigger schools have teams to call, as it is taking time away from your classroom and the other students.

Michelle Divkey

Friday Fun Day has probably been the best strategy I've found with discipline problems.  Here's a link to my post:  Friday Fun Day

Carol Cobb

 Depends, why are they behaving poorly? What are they wanting? Once you figure that out, you can address that need and really help fix it. A lot of times the kid is better if I just duck out the door and have a quick, calm, not mean talk. Other times they are being whiny thinking that's special and will get everyone to pity party with them, so I cue the whole class to baby whine even worse... That fixes that, LOL! 

Lori Rosenberg

I believe whole heatedly in 1-2-3 Magic and, if followed correctly, this will work almost 100% of the time.  Here is a post I did on this system: Clip Chart Behavior Management Plan

Kim Amanda

I think it depends on the age and the individual student.  There are kids that I have taught that would resist a "time-out" but would walk an 8 (brain gym) in the back of the room or sift their hands in a container of rice.  Each kids is so unique and it is important to have a team of people who care about the child to come up with solutions; parents, BRT, counselers, and the primary teacher should all be involved. There are a lot of preventitive ideas that may help prevent the need for removal.  I rarely ever used a time-out in kindergarten with 26 children. Amanda

I Teach K! Treasure Hunt Pictures

Do you like to hunt for teacher treasure at conferences??  I do!

One of my favorite things to do at educational conferences is to go into the rooms where different people are presenting, and look at all of the goodies and gadgets that they have displayed there.  Then I search for the very best ones, and take pictures of them!  I like to call this process my "Treasure Hunt," because it is often like looking for buried treasure amongst all of the things that they have set up.  And, just like Pinterest, a picture is often worth a thousand words!  So it is often possible to just look at what they have on display for all of their sessions and instantly just "know" what they are going to say about it!  It is the quickest way to get new ideas that I know of.  Sometimes, there are just as many great ideas in the exhibit hall as well.  Here are a few pictures of the treasures that I found at I Teach K last week!  I hope you enjoy them!

Gumball Machine from Helps4Teachers.com

I found this plastic gumball machine in the exhibit hall at the Helps 4 Teachers booth for $6.99!  The exhibitor is a teacher who created a bunch of neat things and then wound up selling them, much like myself.  She took sight words and printed them out very small, and used Mod Podge to stick them onto little rock-like jewels.  The children are supposed to push the button to get a few jewels out and then write the words on their papers.  However, I noticed that you don't just get one jewel at a time with this gumball machine; you get several, depending on how long you hold down the handle.  So I was thinking of perhaps using this one as a math center and having the children count the number of jewels that came out.  Otherwise, they might only get to push it once and then have to write five words!  I love the idea, though, and I will be on the lookout for a "real" gumball machine that takes pennies and dispenses the jewels one at a time.  You can purchase this gumball machine here.

I Have, Who Has game from Julie Brinkley.

I saw these "I Have, Who Has" cards in Julie Brinkley's room after her session on math workstations.  (It was great, by the way!)  I really like the idea of using pictures and names to introduce this type of game to the children.  I had never thought of this before!

Vanessa Levin's New Book, and My Alphabet Action Book!

Vanessa Levin was displaying her brand new book, called A Fabulous First Year and Beyond.  She even gave me a free copy of it and it looks like a wonderful resource!  If you are familiar with her blog and website, Pre-K Pages, then you already know that she is an absolute WEALTH of information.  Since Vanessa is a Pre-K expert, she is my "go-to" person when I am out of ideas for remedial students.

Electronic Dice from Helps4Teachers.com

I fell in love with these electronic dice from the Helps4Teachers.com booth!  The only thing is that you have to take the dice and kind of slam them down on the table to activate them, rather than just roll them, for some reason.   I had some electronic dice like these for a few years back and the kids just loved them!  I was sad when the batteries ran out; that's why I bought another pair.

Vanessa Levin's Car and Letter Idea

This is another one of Vanessa Levin's ideas that I saw on her display table.  She did not mention it in the session that I sat in on, but my assumption is that you would have the children roll the car in the direction that they should write the letter.  Love that!

Vanessa also had some of these cards on display.

It reminds me of a similar idea that Vanessa had on display from MakingLearningFun.com, in which you print out the letters and roll cars along them in the same way.  The letters are printed with roads down the middle of them.  They are really cute- and it's a FREE download! (But watch out- it takes a lot of ink, and the ink is NOT free!)  The way I first heard about it, though, was that the children were supposed to make the letter sound as they rolled the car along the letter.
---- Newsflash!!!  Vanessa just left a comment below regarding these letter cards that I thought would be helpful for you to know:  "On the MakingLearningFun.com race car alphabet letters I added sticker dots, green for where they should start and red for when they should stop their car. This helps with proper letter formation and imprints in their muscle memory as they "drive" their cars across the letters."----

Oh, look!  What interesting looking DVD's and CD's from HeidiSongs!!!

Of course, it is always fun to go take a peek at my own CD's and DVD's in the exhibit hall and see how it looks all on display!  I remember the first time I saw my name on the display... what a thrill!

Alfie the Alligator, also from Helps4Teachers.com

This is a neat little manipulative to use when teaching the more and less symbol!  There is a book that goes with it, too.  You can flip it either direction; it is printed on both sides.

The Alfie Alligator book is in the middle of the display.

As I am looking at their website, it looks like the little manipulative above is sold with it, and you get 22 of them along with the book!  Looking at the picture now, I think I should have taken a better look at her Fact Family book.  (I deliberately try NOT to look at picture books any more because I have more of them in my classroom than I have time to read in a given school year- or maybe TWO school years!!!)  Do you think that there is such a thing as an addiction to picture books?

Clear hair gel plus food coloring: irresistible!

 
Okay, I know what you're thinking:  this hair gel in a baggie idea is nothing new.  But I have never actually FELT it before, and I have to tell you, it's irresistible!  This baggie was on Vanessa Levin's display table, and I couldn't stop touching it and drawing things on it.  What fun!  I am inspired; I'm going to have to implement this idea next year!!!  I understand that they sell hair gel at the Dollar Store, too, so it shouldn't cost much.  My only concern is that I think it might be hard to keep the kids from opening up the bags....  The idea, of course, is that they should be writing letters, numbers, and shapes on the baggies.  Sounds good to me!
---NEWSFLASH!  Vanessa just left a comment below about how she avoids children opening up the bags:  she seals the tops of them with packing tape.  Thanks for the tip, Vanessa!--- 

This is a jeep and army men counting workmat from Julie Brinkley's session on math workstations!  I think that the boys would go crazy for this!

Here is another one of her workstations that I thought was very clever!!!  I like the idea of using recycled materials for children to count with, too.

Here is a barn and farm animal workstation.

Julie Brinkley also had this cute little barn and farm animal workstation set out as well.  And by now, you are probably wondering if this wonderful person has a website or blog!  And the answer is.... I don't know!!!!  If anyone knows, please leave a comment and I will add her link to my blog here!

----Newsflash!  Stacy just left a comment below with Julie Brinkley's blog, and here it is:  MrsBrinkleysKindergarten.blogspot.com.  Thanks so much, Stacy!----

I will share more ideas with you next week.  For now, I'm off to Alabama for the Alabama Kindergarten Association Conference!  I am so honored that they invited me to come speak!  I have been wanting to come to their conference for many years, so I am looking forward to it.  After that, I am flying directly to Missouri for SDE's Kindergarten Conference in Osage Beach!  I will actually have an extra day there to enjoy the Ozarks and look around a little bit!  AND I'll have a rental car!  So I am excited to have a wee bit of time for fun as well.  If you are going to be at either of these places, then I'll see you soon!

Back from I Teach K! And...Some Quick Organizational Picture Tips

Heidi at the I Teach K! Conference in Las Vegas

This week, I thought I would share a few quick tips that have helped me keep organized in the classroom over the years!  And sometimes, pictures are the best, quickest way to communicate!  I hope that they are useful to you!
But first.....  I'm baaaaacccckkkk!  I had such a wonderful time at I Teach K!  I can't even believe how many amazing teachers that I met from absolutely EVERY WHERE!  From Hawaii (hi, Cher!) to New York (hi, Debbie!), Virginia (Hi, Kelly!), and even right here in California (Hi, Kim!) I feel like I have many new, in the flesh, real friends now from one side of the country to the other!  I'll fill you in more on that conference a bit below, and also in future posts.

And now, here are a few quick pictures of some things I do in my room to stay organized.

Clip paper masters that you always need to the inside of the cover of teacher's manuals in a page protector.

One thing that helps me keep organized is any clipping paper masters that I often need for lessons inside the teacher's manuals that we use, and keeping those masters in page protectors.

I mark the correct page to begin on for each group with a colored post-it note.

I mark the correct page to begin on for each group with a colored post-it note.  Those same sticky notes often last me a whole year! 

These clips work well too, of course!

  I recently found some colored clips that serve the same purpose.  They work just as well, of course!

Save zipper bags that comforters come in to store picnic blankets!

I try to always save the large zippered bags that new bedspreads and other blankets come in so that I can store picnic blankets in them in my classroom!  I like to take the kids outside and read a book on the grass when it's a nice day outside!  Plus, it's nice to have something to sit on if there is an outside school event.

Keep extra copies of homework and some extra "First Day" packets for new students handy.

I love having plastic drawers that are labeled with the things that I use a lot.  I have a box for our "All About Me" person of the week, another for birthday crowns, special birthday pencils and notes that go home on that special day, and another for the Scholastic Book Club (so that there is somewhere to put all of those catalogs that arrive continuously!)  I have another bin for first aid supplies, and another for calendar supplies.

I have another drawer for notes for new students that may come in the middle of the year, so if there is ever a note that would be important for a parent to know all year from that point forward, then I put it there.  I place extra copies of everything that goes home on the first day of school here as well, so that if we get a new student, I have extra copies of everything that child will need.  

I keep about two extra copies of the weekly homework in one of these bins as well.  If a parent comes in at any time and asks for a copy of the homework from any given week, I can almost always provide an instant copy.  In the calendar bin, each month has its own manilla envelope for supplies, so that when it is time to change the calendar, it is quick and easy to find everything that I need.
At the end of the school year, I clear out the drawers and send home the extra worksheets that have collected in the bins so that kids can practice on them over the summer.

I take roll and the lunch count with a dry erase sleeve.

Another thing that I do is take roll and the lunch count at the same time, and I write it on a dry erase sleeve.  Then I take it to the computer and enter the attendance into it while the kids sing along with a DVD or play the Quiet Game. 

This is an open drawer of my file cabinet!  I keep my worksheets in binders in page protectors.

Several years ago I started keeping the files and worksheets that I use the most for homework in binders in page protectors, and I would NEVER go back to shoving everything into a file folder again!  Sure, it was a pain in the neck getting them into binders, but now I can ALWAYS find exactly what I want.  Things don't get lost.  And I am slowly but surely converting everything to digital copies as much as possible, and storing them on my computer instead.  That way, all I have to do is find the item that I want to do and print it.

Whenever I use a worksheet, I stick a post-it note on it with the date.  That way, I don't use the same one twice in a year.

I also find it extremely simple to keep a small stack of post-it notes in the pocket of the binder, and each time I take out a worksheet to copy, I mark it with the date before I put it away.  I can also tell which things I am storing and NEVER using, too!  Those are good things to get rid of!

This is my printer/copier/scanner, along with the Red Group's water bottle basket.

I LOVE keeping an old printer/copier/scanner in my room!  It's not even connected to my computer because it is so old that the software is incompatible, but I don't care!  I just use it as a xerox machine when I need a quick copy of something.  It is SO handy- you wouldn't believe how many teacher visitors I have during the day when they find they have to have a copy of something QUICK!  I also love being able to give a kid an instant new copy when they "accidentally" mess something up that they have been trying to avoid doing.  It's also handy for making copies of contracts that I sometimes need to send home with children.

Each group has a colored basket with their own water bottles inside of it.

Another great thing to do is to have everyone in the class bring a sports top water bottle to school to keep there.  With the help of volunteers, I keep them filled up.  Each color group has a colored basket where their bottles are kept, and these baskets are spread around the room.  So when the children all need a drink of water, we don't have to wait for five or ten minutes for them all to stand in line at the water fountain; I just send them to their water bottles and let them all get a drink at the same time!  As long as the baskets are in four different corners of the room, and then the children can all spread out to get their drinks, and each take a nice long drink for a minute or two.  Then they put it back in the basket and come on back.  If it is empty, it goes into a special white tub that has been designated for that purpose.

We would have been more successful if the Blue Group's bottles had NOT been next the puzzles, but we were running out of space!

 When it is time to come back from getting a drink, I either play a song or start counting backwards from 10.  When I get to zero, or when the song ends, then everyone has to be back with me in the large group.  As long as I am consistent with my consequences, then they all come right back when I tell them to.  If I start making exceptions, then nobody listens and nobody cares if I said that the time is up.  That's just the way it is!

The Yellow Group's basket had very few distractions next to it, so they lucked out!  

Pin me to Pinterest!

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And now... here are a few pictures from the I Teach K! Conference!  I wish I had more pictures to share, but it seems like I was always in front of the camera rather than behind it, LOL!  (That's okay, I love it!)  So if you have any pictures of the conference to send me, that would be great!!  I would love to see them.
I'll write more on what I learned later!!!

Rachelle from What the Teacher Wants!!! at the Blogger Meet-Up

Heidi and Beth from CA

Heidi and Cher from HI

Heidi and Kelly from VA

See you next year!

Sight Word Sticker Books!

One of my Sight Word Sticker Books Examples

This year, I had the usual amount of "reluctant writers" that really didn't want to risk trying to write anything new for fear of making a mistake.  So I tried to come up with some new ways to motivate them to write sentences with the sight words that they needed to work on, and also include some words that they would have to sound out and spell phonetically. 

Another one of my Sight Word Sticker Book Examples

One of these motivational techniques that I came up with was to have the children make books using stickers as the pictures!  Most kids just LOVE stickers, so I assumed that this would be a good activity for my kids.  We did this last February or March, as I recall.

Last year, a teacher retired and left a big box of stickers in the teacher lounge up for grabs.  Guess who took it???? 

 This was the activity:

1.  I made an example of what a Sight Word Sticker Book might look like.
2.  I gave the children blank books that I prepared ahead of time, all stapled together and ready to go.
3.  I spread a bunch of stickers out on the table, and gave everyone a pencil.
4.  I read my example book to the children.
5.  I gave the children the directions, which were:
        a.  They must stick to the sentence pattern that I had set, such as
        "This is a ______."

This little guy got "a little" carried away with the stickers, LOL!

        b.  They could not choose to write the same thing over and over, such as "This is a cat," on every single page, so they should not choose the same type of sticker every time.

One student tried to write, "This is a flower."

        c.  They would not get a new sticker until they finished writing about the previous sticker.  So, in order to get a second sticker, then the first sentence must be complete.

This all worked great, except that our schedule got a little bit off, and my substitute wound up beginning this activity for me, and then I picked up where she left off and finished it with my class the next day.  She was either unable to get some of the kids to follow the directions, or didn't understand them herself, because when I got back the next day, many of the children simply filled the book with stickers and barely wrote a thing!  :(  And of course, I had to try to get them to finish, ANYWAY, and they went right back to their same old routine of dragging their feet!

Sooooo, I decided to give it a go and try it again, and this time do it myself.  And it worked- just like I thought it would!  The kids caught on right away, and they were totally motivated to write about the new words that they found in the stickers.  They also were using the sight words that I asked them to use, and as usual there was a lot of singing of the sight word songs while they were writing!  That always makes me smile!  I had given them a six page book to work on, and some of them finished the whole thing in one day and asked to do another!  Other children only finished a few pages and needed to finish the next day.
BUT... next time I do it, I am going to really limit the types of stickers that I put out, and try to get them to stick to certain themes that we are studying, such as sea animals or zoo animals, etc.  AND, I am going to keep all of the stickers in my lap so that they have to ask ME for the stickers each time they think that they are ready for them!  Once they were in the habit of helping themselves to the stickers, it was mighty hard to break them of that habit, LOL!  So with some of the groups, I had to remove the stickers from the middle of the table and make them show me their finished page and ask me for another.  In addition, some of the children probably would have been happier with a four page book than a six page book, so I probably would differentiate instruction a bit by changing the amount of pages that I give each child, or simply let each child do as many pages as time permits and then staple them together when the time is up.

One really fun element of this activity was that when the children finished a book, I tried to find the time to grab my iPad and video tape them reading it to me!  Then the children would get to watch themselves reading it.  I zoomed in on the book so that we would be able to see the text well in the video, and asked the children to point at the words as they read them.  Some of the children really worked hard to get their reading just right for their videos, asking to re-read their books two or three times!  So we would delete the previous video and we would try again.  When we ran out of time to videotape someone's book, I let them do it at playtime.

It looked a bit like a sticker bomb exploded in my classroom!

I tried to teach one of my high students to videotape the others, and he pretty much got it- but they really wanted to read it just for ME!!!  Plus, he wasn't able to hold the iPad very steady and kept cutting off half of the page!  So that didn't work so well.  I think that if I set up the iPad ahead of time and mounted it on something so that it was positioned just right, though, it would have worked better for those that were willing to read the book without me present.  (Is there such a thing as a tripod for an iPad???)  Overall, watching themselves read the book was a GREAT exercise in fluency for them and highly motivational, and I highly recommend it!

If you know of any other activities to motivate reluctant writers, I would love to hear them!  Please let me a comment below.

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AND.... (drumroll, please!!!!)  Next week is the wonderful, terrific, fantastic, national I Teach K! Conference in Las Vegas!!!!  I can't wait to meet you all there!  Leave me a comment if you are going to be there, okay???  I am sooooo looking forward to it!!!!  Can't wait!
Heidi