Saturday, November 2, 2013

Spark Student Motivation: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words!

It's Saturday and time to get MOTIVATED!
 
 
I love to send my pictures/texts to my parents and students that will make them SMILE!
Imagine sitting at work and getting one of these sent to you about your child:
(Each picture is a separate student/text)
It not only brightens your students' day, it brightens their parents' day!
Sometimes I text them from home while I'm grading and other times I text them at the very moment I captured their child's awesomeness!
How funny is the left one above? It was only September and he is worried about the school year ending! LOL! So cute!
 
The one on the above right is a student I've been working very hard to motivate to complete work this year, so this was such an exciting moment!!!!!


If I send it in front of my students they beg me to turn my phone on so we'll hear it when their parent responds! :O) They get so excited!

I also like to recognize students who are showing improvement and are growing! This motivates them to try even harder! This mom was super proud!
 This motivational tool is so quick and is really appreciated!
I know not everyone likes to give out their personal cell number, but I have found it to be very beneficial for many reasons: instant feedback and communication, shout outs, and reminders. I don't use texting for concerns about behavior or academic progress, those are done in person or by phone. Many of my parents don't check or use email, but ALL of my parents text, so it's the perfect communication tool for me!
**This is my 6th year using texting with my parents and I've never had a parent or student abuse it, but you know your parents and what's comfortable for you.
 
 
I hope you had a wonderful week! Please link up any lessons, ideas, tips, tricks, incentives, ANYTHING you do get your students motivated or excited!
Don't forget to grab my button and link back to this post!
Check out all the wonderful ideas from my friends who link up and don't forget to leave some love by commenting....we LOVE comments!

15 comments:

  1. I love that you text your parents! I know they must appreciate getting GOOD news via phone/text. :) Thanks for hosting, BBB!
    Jivey

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is such a neat idea! I've never thought to do this with my kiddos.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this idea for a quick and easy way to keep students motivated. I am sure that the parents love it too!

    Mary
    Fit to be Fourth
    Follow me on Bloglovin

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love this idea! I know I'd LOVE it as a parent! My son's daycare posts about 30-ish pictures each week on their Facebook page and it makes my day every time!

    I've never wanted to give out my personal cell phone number, but I am definitely re-considering it now! LOVE this post.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am sure your students love this and it is a quick and easy way to keep parents informed, involved and motivated (to work with their kiddos at home). I am thinking about it.....

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow! Words cannot express how cool I think this is. I'm not a parent, but I can imagine how much it would make my day {and how much I'd LOVE the teacher} if my child's teacher texted positive things to me. I hesitate to do this myself, as I have VERY NEEDY {but nice} parents at my school. Think: hovercraft parents. Yet, I KNOW they'd love love love this.

    I use an app on my iPod touch to text my friends, as I'm too cheap to spend 20 cents a text on my cell phone. Maybe I'll use this texting app to do this, cuz it's not a phone number....just a texting number. Thank you once again for another brilliant idea!!!

    Ali
    Teaching Powered by Caffeine

    ReplyDelete
  7. Another fantastic idea! Keep 'em coming!! I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while and this has given me the go-ahead! One of this days I'm going to get my act together and link up to the awesome linky!
    A Tall Drink of Water

    ReplyDelete
  8. Use app remind 101 and secure your privacy! Free teaching app!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love sending pictures and texts to my parents too! Have you looked into the free app Remind 101. You can send texts from the app and parents won't see your cell number. It's super easy to sign up and you don't have to put everyone's numbers in. You send the code to your parents and they text the code to the number you give them and they are magically signed up, no work on you! Sorry I missed the linky yesterday, it's been a crazy week! I'll see you next week though!
    Jennifer
    The Blessed Teacher

    ReplyDelete
  10. LOVE this! How do you have the parents' numbers put into your phone? By student first/last name? Do you keep track of who you text so you can eventually rotate through everyone? I have 50 students, so I am just afraid of being consistent!
    Thanks BBB!
    Theresa
    Pinkadots Elementary

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love this! I have no issue giving out my cell number either and have been BBB's with some parents via text over the past couple years. What a great idea it is to send random pictures though to brighten their day! I am a little worried like Theresa though that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the 50 students I have for ELA. You have me thinking...
    I am bummed that I didn't link up with you this weekend. I finally just got home but will be back next week! :)
    ~Holly
    Fourth Grade Flipper

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is just awesome. The power of parent-teacher relationships is so important, and I'm pretty sure you've covered all those based.

    matt
    Digital: Divide & Conquer

    ReplyDelete
  13. I text too, but sometimes there is one in the bunch that will take advantage of having my number...unfortunate, but true.
    There are tons of positivies though...two years ago, I had a student whose father passed away. I had her in my class for three years, so we were very close with one another. Nights were very hard for her. Each night we had a reading contest via text messaging and would keep track of how many pages we each read. Her mom was so appreciative that I would take that time out for her daughter in her time of need.
    I missed the linky too. I ended up going to the Miami/FSU game. This weekend was entirely too short.
    Alison
    Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin'

    ReplyDelete
  14. In this advanced world, everyone use social medias and spend more time getting connected with other people. In this way social media has become big source of information and education. Now you can write my college paper helpful resources and can get excellent writing services anytime and anywhere in the world.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...