1. Twenty-Six Pirates with a paper bag pirate puppet! Just try saying that 5 times! Which I did because one of my little guys lost his puppet while we walked around the school. The wonderful puppet was in a bag, but my guy is so BOUNCY, a lot like Tigger, that the pirate jumped right out! Soooo...we walked around asking various people "Have you seen a paper bag pirate puppet?" We never found it, I'm hoping it turns up. In the meantime, I gave him my demo model. I hadn't taken a picture, so my daughter colored another for me and put it together, it is much nicer then my first one!
2. Behavior Program adjustment! Things were just not going well with my current clip system, moving the clip made everyone more volatile! I took a long, hard look at my behavior system...the token cards were working (see my September 27 post), BUT they were bulky and I had to carry three (yes, yes, I tried having them carry their own...). The clip system wasn't going anywhere, they really like getting a sticker on a chart daily when they stayed green. When the chart is full, treasure box time! So I retired the green,yellow, red light poster. I explored Teacher Pay Teachers and found a replacement for the token cards...punch cards! I chose a FREE design from http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Kristi-Deroche . There are A LOT of punch cards to choose from on that site, however, Kristi's has paw prints which goes with our school mascot and there are 10 prints. Thank you Kristi! I kept the sticker charts, if they fill one punch card, they get a sticker and play time. Tally marks are used when I get a point, The points transform into "reflective minutes" or timeout, take your pick. I put the punch cards on a lanyard around my neck, carry a hole puncher and a dry erase marker.
3. A new rug!
4. I tweaked the math area a bit....
5. Preparing for Halloween! I hummed that Garfield Halloween Special tune..."what will I be, there's so many sides of me..."while I went through our boxes. My daughter and friend carved pumpkins, I'm not sure they will keep 10 more days..we shall see.
I am wearing down, working 9 weeks now without a lunch or prep time! I do eat with the first graders, so I'm not starving, but I get cranky before the day is over and I don't like to do that. My teacher assistants and I look at our schedules constantly, but there is just not an opening for me to hand kids to someone else and walk away for a little bit. This week, I'm going to talk to my supervisor about it, I hate to be a whiner and don't want that label. There is also a concern that no one will sub for me because they don't get a lunch!
Next week, I go to MANDT training!
Paula
