Tips for Ending the school year and TPT Giftcard Giveaway!

Welcome back my friends!

Today I am joining some other great bloggers to bring you some tips of things we do to end our school year :) 

In my opinion, awards are a big deal! I have worked in two different schools where awards were handled differently. At one school, teachers were a 100% responsible for the awards. This would take place in each classroom on the last week of school. At another school, awards in a classroom was just optional because the school did an award ceremony for everyone.

Regardless of the case, I believe that awards can be the best way to reward your students to show them how much they mean to you and how important they were in the classroom. I personally don't see awards as "I have to have one for each" type of thing. There is honestly something good and positive we all can find in our students. On a particular year, this is a true story, I had to create a "elepehants never forget" award for one of my students. You might think it is funny, but I kid you NOT when I tell you she was the ONLY ONE in class who would remember all the extra activities or the crazy day schedules. She would always tell me "Mrs. Nicolau aren't we supposed to go??" There were times that she really saved me from being too late or even missing something! We all know we tend to get carried away with other things! Don't you agree??
You might think she was a low student and probably she was paying more attention to leave the classroom. She was not! She was an excelent student, too! However, even if she was struggling academically, she saved me many times by reminding me of the time. Wouldn't you like to reward this student or let her know how grateful you are for being the way she was? ABSOLUTELY!!


I would like to share with you how I used the awards in my class.  I didn't have a specific theme in my classroom, so I created The Rock Star Student Award. I gave this type of award to ALL of my students along with a goody bag. Oh boy! I'm telling y'all, they all loved their award and goody bag so much! Some of them even showed me the next school year they still had some of the goodies from there (I moved up with them to third grade). 

These are pictures of my goody bags :) Each bag had a card (click HERE if you would like to download it from my Google Docs. They come in color and B/W with a boy and girl version), two erasers (a guitar and a pick) from Geddes (they are not available anymore there, but you can find them on amazon), a pair of glasses that are called "shutted shades" (purchased at a craft store - Hobby Lobby), and a glowing in the dark bracelet (purchased at Dollar Tree).

This is a picture of the award that everyone got in my class, along with the goody bag. I had a girl and boy version, so I also made bags for boys and girls (same goodies, just different colors and cards).

Hope you like these as much as I did when I made them for my kids :) 
I have created a Free Sample of some awards, these are general awards and have no theme. The Free Sample comes with three awards, in both color and B/W versions. These only come in English, so I'm sorry, but I never had the time to create the whole thing in Spanish.My classroom theme was just animal prints so I didn't really want anything specific.
This sample is found on the preview of the product, so you will see the cost of the product and won't see the free sample by itself. 
All you have to do it's download the preview and you will find the 3 free awards: Smile (boy version, the girl version is in the paid product), hard worker, and perfect attendance. Would you like to download this sample? Just click HERE  
The rock star award is part of my paid product. If you would like the paid product, please click HERE.

I also have a second set of awards! On this set, the theme was all about Jungle stuff!! These awards are different from the first, not only because it has an actual theme, but also because it is editable; all you need is Power Point. I have included instructions when you click on the editable section. Editable means you can type your name and the student's name. Please be aware that "editable" means typing names only, I can't make the titles or the clipart editable due to the illustrators' copyright. Just in case you forget, I have included that information on the product :) Like I said, it is based on a jungle theme, so most of all (if not all) has jungle illustrations :) I have this free sample available in both ENGLISH and SPANISH

Thank you for stopping by today!! I hope you have found this post helpful and it motivates you to do a huge celebration in your classroom with some awards! :)

Before I say goodbye, remember we are having an AWESOME GIVEAWAY! Please enter on the Rafflecopter for a chance to win a $50 TPT giftcard! All you need to do is visit the rest of my friends' blog posts and figure out the secret code! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

These are my other friends' blog posts! Please visit each of them! They have awesome ideas on how to finish the shcool year as well! :)

An InLinkz Link-up