Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Brag Tags Work


It's What Works Wednesday, the last one for 2013. For this week's post, I decided to concentrate on "Brag Tags." 
I first started using brag tags last spring. I volunteered to be part of a linky featuring "Reading Olympians" called "Pass the Torch". The sweet ladies from "Reading Olympians" spent a tremendous about of time putting together their Greek and Latin Root Word units. Then, they contacted one of my favorite artists, Michelle, from The 3 AM Teacher, to get adorable clip art to go with their program. To showcase their newly revised units, they invited teachers across the country to participate in their linky. They provided the materials (for free!) and all we had to do was give them a try. 

As students became successful on mastering roots, I decided to make my own set of brag tags, for the kids. I purchased the clip art from Michelle, and invested in the chain, beads, ink, and laminating pouches. As the year wound down, the students were still proudly wearing their brag tag necklaces everywhere. This summer I decided to get creative and made tags for lots of occasions. 

When the year started, my second reading class soon became jealous that my students were earning tags for behavior, participation, and finally completing Reading Olympian units. When the principal provided chains with a "Rock the Test" tag as motivation for our standardized testing in the fall, I decided to include the second class. They have gone tag crazy. Every week they come up with a new tag I need to make for them. 

Some students leave the tags hanging on our "Bragging Rights" board, but others wear theirs everyday, all day (except phys. ed.). The one draw back for me is I am going through ink like crazy! Their parents will probably want me to pay the chiropractor's bill when they get sore necks from showing off their expanding tag collections. As I get ready to print a collection of holiday tags that were included in a bundle of freebies, I would have to say, Brag Tags definitely work to motivate my students. Have you tried them?


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