Star of the Week

I have been doing STAR of the week. All I do is take a polaroid of the student and place it on a star on my door so everyone can see it. Then they get to do all the jobs required around the room..Like take the attendance down, pass papers, any errands, etc... I then have all the students write Star of the Week letters to that person and decorate them. Then they get stapled/spiraled into a book and their picture is glued to the front and given to them. I have had students come back to me and tell me that is one thing they remembered about 3rd and 4th grade. It is also the one item not thrown out, but read over and over again.

I teach 5th grade and it will now be going on four years. Each year I have a student of the week. It doesn't sound so babyish. I have a form that lets them know they will be the line leader the next week, they get a certificate, a pencil, the get to each lunch with the teacher, and bring in a favorite CD to play on Friday. Of course I look at the CD first to make sure it doesn't have inappropriate lyrics in the songs. Most of the time it is the same music I listen to so I already know what the album has on it. I think this year I am going to do the same as the others and have each child write something nice about the student of the week and draw a scene of them playing or something with that student. Then I will put all the papers together into a book for the student. I like this idea a lot. My fifth graders love being the student of the week.

Each week I send a sharing backpack home with one student on Monday. They have the week to decide which special items to fill it with at home and bring it back on Friday. After they share the contents each student writes a "Today is your day page" for the student of the week that includes what they like about them, what they found interesting in the packpack and draw a picture of themselves with the student of the week on the top half of the page. Then I send the book home with the student of the week. The students love it!

I teach first grade and we do the "STAR STUDENT" (my theme is Bee a Star). At the end of the week we brainstorm things we like about the star student. Then we actually make a class book for them. The students complete the sentence "_____________ is a star because_________. And then draw a picture of the two of them together. The star student fills out a page that says "I am a star because_____________________. I put a cover on the books and staple them. They LOVE taking these home and reading everyone's page.

I do Star of the Week with my students as well. In my room, we randomly choose a star student on Friday afternoon. The following Monday, that student will come to school with a handful of photographs, a favorite book, and any other items they'd like to hang on the "Star of the Week" board. They will have also filled out the following mini questionaire (#1 is the letter to parents, #2 is the question sheet).

At the end of language arts on Monday, our star will seat in a special seat at the front of the class and be interviewed by the rest of the students. After everyone has taken notes on this interview, each student will draft a letter to the Star of the Week. The star has the pleasure of writing a letter to the principal (who will write back)! He/she will tell the principal what's been going on in our classroom lately, what they enjoy, etc. And, while the student is star, they also get to be line leader and sit on the sofa with me during reading time.

I love it! And at the end, they get a folder full of letters to take home!

I have my fourth graders choose the student of the week. On Thursdays, I give the students a half sheet of paper on which they write 3-6 sentences explaining why the person they chose should be student of the week. I rotate each week having a boy/girl. Next, I take all of the votes and select the one with the most votes. Then I write a paragraph using all of the sentences the students wrote about the student. I record these sentences on our weekly newsletter. I also have a small poster that I have printed on 11x17 copy paper that the student of the week completes and decorates. The student of the week receives the poster on Friday and spends the weekend decorating it. It comes back on Monday and I laminate it before hanging it in the hall. After a few weeks, I take the poster down and return it to the student.

I like this method for several reasons. First, students are very thoughtful about who they vote for student of the week. Because they have to write several sentences about that person, they do not pick their best friend who is sometimes rude, or the most popular child. It also encourages students to be more considerate of each other because they want to be student of the week. The student of the week has several privileges...first pick of a job, show & tell opportunity, etc.

I hope this helps. There is a copy of the poster and nomination form on my website at http://www.missmorrowsclass.com/Teachers.htm

I too have Star of the Week. We have a lot of weekly and monthly school wide celebrations. (For Example: Star Search Student, Student of the Month, Principal's Academic Student Luncheon) With these celebrations the parents are notified but the student doesn't know they've been selected until that day. So with that said, I wait until after the first 9 weeks of school and then I send home a letter to the parents letting them know what Student of the Week is and the date their child will be the Star! (The students also know this date) I let them know that their child will bring home poster board from school or they may use their own poster board, that they should do the poster as a family project. Decorate it the way they want. Pictures should be labeled. I send home a reminder note the week before. This student is Line Leader all week. They have a Plastic 3 dimensional Star Placed on their desk for the week. On Monday when they bring in their poster we put it up on the bulletin board. The Star sits in a special chair while the other students sit on the carpet around the Star Student. The Star talks about what is on the poster. After the Star is done - the other students may ask questions only - or give compliments about the Star. The Star student is then given a Star Certificate and has their picture taken in front of their poster. The Picture is placed in our Classroom photo album and a copy is sent home. The students love love being Star of the Week. "SMILE"

I don't know if you'd call it "cute", but it's one I'm planning to use this year. I have a jungle theme, so mine is "king/queen of the jungle".

We interview the star. They can't ask yes/no questions. Early in the year I get a lot of "what is your favorite..." questions, but as the year goes on the questions change (what do you wnat to be when you grow up...). I write these up on our star student board then type them in and print out each child's question on a page: (Nick's favorite animal is a leopard. By
Anna). Then each kid illustrates their own page and the star student colors in the bubble letters for the cover. The books are put in our class library and they are always the most popular!

I usually have a STAR student each week. I have that star pocket chart you see in teacher catalogs. I ask them for favorite color, food, book, movie, if they have any pets. Then I put the info on the star chart along with a picture, work sample and a paragraph written by their parent. Why is my child a STAR?

Usually my student of the week is also the line leader for the week. I don't try to coordinate with birthday's. I go down my roll in ABC order.
I also invite parents to eat lunch with their child on that Friday.

Get star treatment the whole week. We created a list for the whole year of when the kids are presenting. Every Monday, they come to class with a poster that has pictures, awards, special items. They share their poster. Then, all the stars from the whole month are invited to a star student lunch at the end of the month. Their parents can come and they can bring in fast food to eat. It is just in our classroom, but the kids live for it. This week, a student created a 10 minute video on herself, her family, her hobbies. It was so cute. The kids can really do anything they want to showcase themselves. I also allow the star student to be line leader and they have a special chair to sit in for the whole week. It has a big blue star on the seat, and of course frogs, since that is my room's theme Hope this helps...

laura

At the School I teach at we don't have a system where there is a student of the month for each class, but in my classroom we do something called student of the week.
Each Friday the former Student of the Week chooses a name from a bowl, shows the name to the class and throws it away. I HAVE A POINT SO KEEP READING!!! I have a small cork board with black construction paper on it with yellow fabric curtains on the side and yellow letters that say student of the week. I take a flash card thing or I cut in half a sentence strip and write the childs name on it. I have cut out yellow stars and each kid in the class takes a star and writes something possitive about the student of the week on the star and signs their name. The student gets to take the stars home at the end of the week.
This way everyone can see who the person is and make him/her feel good about themselves because they have so many nice comments about themselves up on the cork board!! I hope this helps a lot!!!!!