Caterpillar Point Tracker

     Towards the beginning of the school year, I came up with a way for teachers to keep track of their student's Accelerated Reading points.  When I taught kindergarten and first grade, I had a caterpillar behavior management plan.  The caterpillar was a way for students to keep track of their behavior on a daily basis.  I used that same caterpillar to keep track of the students points from week to week.

     The teachers decide the student's goals every six weeks.  Most students have a goal of 6 points for the 6 weeks.  If their goal is 6 points, then each week, they should get 1 point and an average of 85 percent by Friday.  In theory, each student should have 6 points by the end of the 6 weeks.  I overheard the teachers complaining that the kids forget how many points they have, so I decided to come up with the caterpillar.  I have two versions of the caterpillar.  One that's for the magnetic board and one that a teacher can hang or tape to the wall.  I also have a big version and a smaller version. 

     For the first version, you can use clothes pins to write the students' names on them.  When a student receives a point, you or the student may move their clothes pin to the correct point circle on the caterpillar.  When a student gets more than their goal, I move their clothes pin to the face of the caterpillar, so everyone in the class knows they have more than their goal.

     For the magnetic version of the caterpillar,  I have a cute clip art graphic on the board with each students name on it.  Directly under the caterpillar circles, I place some colored magnets to match the colored circles.  When a student earns 3 points I will place a green colored magnet under their clip art name.  When a student receives more than their goal, they get a superstar magnet.  The superstar magnets go under the head of the caterpillar.

     I gave each teacher in the school the caterpillar.  I use the squiggle eyes for the eyes, the red puff balls for the mouth, and pipe cleaners for the antennae.  I also made the points for each teacher.  I made the points from 0.5 to 15 points, so the point range covers K through 5th.  The teachers had to buy the magnets or clothes pins.  I've received many compliments on the caterpillar for when the student comes and tries to make excuses for not making their goal, they have no excuse for it's been posted the entire 6 weeks.  

Here are some more pictures of the caterpillar.

     After I gave out the caterpillars to the entire school, my principal had the idea to make a caterpillar for each grade level and place it in a common area in the school.  Each teacher has their own clothes pin.  When each teacher's entire class all got one point, they then move their clothes pin to that circle.  It would continue throughout the 6 weeks until their whole class got their A.R. goal.  No one is in charge of moving the pin until the new 6 weeks or until the new class goal is set.  It is a nice way for the other grade levels to see where the other students stand.

If you would like to use this in your classroom, check out my product on Teachers Pay Teachers.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Caterpillar-Student-Point-Tracker-1543805

Here is a picture of Caterpillars for the entire school.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the caterpillar.  Thanks for reading!