Editable & Integrated: Star Student - Student of the Week

If you’ve taught for any length of time, you’ve probably done some version of student of the week.  After doing a few years, it is very easy to get to the point where you lose your enthusiasm for doing it.  There were years that I thought I would not do it anymore, and those were the years that I could guarantee to have at least one parent ask me about it at our Back to School Night. 

After some reflection, I decided that this was one of those things that was going to be a part of my teaching life every year.  If it was going to be part of my week, I needed to make it have value to me.  Up until this point, it was more of a show ‘n tell type of activity.  Granted it did a great job of building positive relationships with students and their parents, but when you have a hectic schedule, it is hard to give up valuable instructional time for something that you don’t see has academic merit. 

With a little tweaking, I was able to add some academic components to the lessons, while still keeping some of the activities that make the student feel special and build relationships. 

Hot off the presses is my new EDITABLE in Powerpoint and INTEGRATED Star Student packet.  If you purchase this packet, please do not get overwhelmed.  I included a variety of activities so you can choose the ones that fit your class best.  Some activities may fit your class one year and other activities may work with your class another year.  There is a menu of choices of fun activities and academic activities.

If you happen to have a challenging class this year, I would suggest doing a few of the same activities for all of your stars such as the class book and bulletin board.  But, change the academic activities so you won't lose the interest of your students.  This way the students who are the stars at the end of the year have just as an enthusiastic of an audience when its their turn as their classmates did who did at the beginning of the year.

Here is a sneak peek of some of the activities:

There are two different parent notes included.  

• Option #1: Send home a questionaire that the parent fills out and sends back with pictures of the topics.  For this note, you will set up a writing center like the one in the picture above.  Your star will use the information from the questionaire to fill out printables shown above which will decorate the bulletin board.  There is also 2 different pages that your star can use to attach the picture and write captions.  This is a great non-fiction features lesson!

Click HERE to download a free copy of the caption pages.

• Option #2:  Sent home a parent note and copy of the star pages shown in the picture above that the parent and star will use to decorate a post.  Hang this poster on your star student bulletin board.

In the questionaire, stars tell what they want to be when they grow up.  Set up a career center based on the star's future career.  Students can read books about the job and then complete the interactive journal printable.

In the parent note, stars are asked to bring their favorite book to share with the class.  Set up an author study center based on the author of the star's favorite book.  After reading one of the books, students will fill out the printable in the picture.

There are a variety of fun activities included, too.  There are signs included that you can use in a variety of ways.  Have you visited the Target Dollar Spot lately?  Set up a Star Student schedule and add these to it for a reminder.

Some of your students may be familiar with Hollywood's Walk of Fame.   Create your own Walk of Fame in your class.  The stars are included in the editable files so you can add your students' names with your favorite font.  This could also be set up as a center so your star could decorate his or her star. 

Start your week by crowning your Star with one of these crowns.  There is a colorful version and black and white version included.

My students have always loved it when I set up a special box of supplies.  For this one week I let them use gel pens, glitter crayons, colored pencils, and other fun school supplies.  I like to use a container that has a drawer like this better than the kind with a lid because it is different than centers.  Different tub seems more special to them.  The sign in the picture is included.

Click HERE to see more about this packet.

Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE. Click HERE to read my blog's disclosure statement.