Friday Flashback - Pencils, 100 Days, and Wrapping Up Verbs AND Currently!

I can't believe that I'm blogging about pencils yet AGAIN! My pencil challenge worked for a while, but then I got tired of it. It was always the SAME KIDS. So I conceded defeat a month or so ago. This week, I unveiled my new strategy - personalized pencils. I ordered a gross (I HOPE that will be enough) from Atlas. If I could have gotten ones that would sound an alarm when they crossed the threshold of my classroom, I think that I would have. Anyway, I had them imprinted with what I believe to be VERY clear instructions. Basically, this is MY pencil, so use it then GIVE IT BACK. I ordered a very distinct color, and put students on a mission to narc on anyone that had one outside of my classroom. So far, so good. I put three out, and they've been used daily and returned.

And then we had a snow day on Wednesday. I have such mixed feelings about snow days. On one hand, I like the unexpected day off. On the other hand, I'd rather have a nice spring/summer day off instead of making up a snow day. Now, late starts... that's something that I fully endorse. I get to sleep in AND it counts as a full day of school. Unfortunately, my current superintendent is more of an all-or-nothing type of person. It only bothers me when we don't have a late start and the roads are bad. I travel twenty-five miles to school each day, so it really affects me when I'm white-knuckled on the Interstate. I always update my resume during this time of year in the hope's that maybe I can get a job in my resident district. But alas, I know that deep down I am too comfortable in my current position of fourteen years to ever make the change. It would sure make my life easier in the long-run, though. But that whole "change" thing is scary...

I have never celebrated the 100th day of school with my class, but I found this cool activity from one of the first blogs that I started reading. It's fairly simple. I posted some chart paper in the hallway, and taped up the topics - 100 Books We Love, 100 Things That Make Us Happy, 100 Things That Are Round, etc. Students added to the lists before school, between classes, and after school. Students seemed to enjoy it (even though I had to get rid of a few inappropriate items), and it wasn't too kiddish. Download your own signs {here}.

I created a verb foldable that went with a noun foldable I blogged about previously. The surprising news is that several students actually commented as we were folding, "Remember? We did this for nouns, too." Oh. My. Gosh. Hallelujah! I guess I know what we'll be doing to sum up our next unit of adjectives! And even better, they came up with great ideas on what to write underneath (or at least they did a good job of referring to my anchor chart). It was the most magical fifteen minutes...

Today we started to implement our new assignment policy. I'm not sure what I think about it, but we'll see. I'd be interested in any feedback that you have if you have done something similar or if you have done something that has been successful. *ASP is our after school program where students do their work, kind of like tutoring.

Fifth Grade Assignment Policy

(per quarter)

1st Late Assignment

Oops!

2nd Late Assignment

15-Minute Classroom Detention

Parents Contacted

 3rd Late Assignment

30-Minute Lunch Detention

Parents Contacted

4th Late Assignment

45-Minute Main Detention

Parents Contacted

5th Late Assignment

Parent Meeting

ASP 3x/Week

And I'll go ahead and throw in my Currently...