Do you know about brag tags?

Once again, I'm so excited to be using brag tags as a motivational tool in my classroom. You can read all about them and why I love them so much in a blog post from last year here. 

I set up our bulletin board on Tuesday night and the kids were so excited to hang up their lanyards on their personalized hook.  

We had our first "official" brag tag meeting this afternoon and it went really well. Prior to handing out the brag tags that were earned today, we talked specifically about the following: 

• We must remember to applaud our classmates when they earn a tag.
• How will we cope when we don't receive a tag? After all, not everyone receives a tag every day? 
• They're called "Brag Tags", but we know we should not actually boast about how many we have or which ones we've earned. We'll need to stay humble and gracious about our tags.  

So right now, we're really working on these three points. We talked a lot today about what a good and supportive audience member looks and sounds like.  We even practiced cheering for classmates when they earned a tag. Being able to cope with "not winning" is also a secondary benefit of Brag Tags. It's really and essential skill that helps children learn to develop emotional resilience and builds collaboration.  

At this stage, everyone wants to earn, earn, earn,  but soon, my students will be able to look through their collection of tags and begin to tell a story: a story of hard work, special memories and many achievements.