If you give a kid a pencil....

He's going to chew and eat it!  WHAT?  Yep, I have several kiddos that I lovingly refer to as my "woodchucks".  We have gone through more pencils this year than I have ever used.  The "To Be Sharpened" bucket is always full of half eaten, otherwise perfectly good pencils.  I can't help but say...."Hey, you woodchucks! Stop chucking that wood!!"  They don't get it but it cracks me up every time.

So I tried a new strategy this week.  On Monday, I gave each child a brand-new sharpened pencil with their name on it.  I told them that if they can show me this pencil on Friday and it has not been chewed or otherwise mauled, I will give them their very own mechanical lead pencil.  Ooooo, aaahhhh....insert Vanna White waving her hand over a beautiful new lead pencil.  I made it very clear that it was their responsibility to keep up with the pencil.  I would not be swayed by tears and excuses.  I was really surprised about how sweet they were about these pencils.  When they would find one, they would make sure it got back to its owner immediately.  This was amazing because other than that they have been grumpy with each other lately.  WE.NEED.SPRING.BREAK!!

Anyhoo...back to the pencils.  All but 5 were able to show me an intact pencil.  Some of my smarties had hidden it so they wouldn't take the chance of losing it.  I'm giving the other 5 another shot this week so hopefully they'll make it.

The Desk Fairy, Deskerella, also made an appearance this week.  Does the Desk Fairy visit your children?  I have an overall neat group this year so she was able to leave Pixie Stix (I know I'm crazy!) for 12 out of 20 kiddos.  The others immediately got those rat's nests cleaned out.  Hee, hee..

Our reading story this week is The Story of a Bluebird out of Harcourt Trophies.  I made a chart to go with our bird study.   I'm going to try to share it.  Hold on...

Find it HERE

Okay, gonna have to find out how you guys make the picture go to Goggle Docs.  The newbie couldn't get it to work.  :-)

Have a great Monday.  I cannot WAIT to see William Levy on Dancing with the Stars tomorrow night.  

Spring Break starts on Friday at 3:15.  I think I can, I think I can....

Scoot and scoot some more!

Oh my!  I have seen so many posts about this game Scoot so I thought I'd give it a try.  I wrote numbers on their desks with dry erase and left a coin next to the number (very simple because that's how I roll right now).  They had to scoot around and tell me the value of the coin.  We practiced and practiced and practiced how to move around the room, then SCOOT and SCOOT some more.  They absolutely loved it!  I think they would have done it through recess if I'd let them.  It was enlightening as to who is still confusing values.  A few surprised me.

***sigh***  Normally we would be on spring break right now but some genius decided it would be better in April.  Never mind the fact that our last day of school is May 21st.  I need a break now!  I'm about to check half my class in to TattleTale Anonymous!

Tomorrow is Friday eve!