Feathers and a Dunk Tank

I'm sure you heard all about how crazy our day was compared to the last two. Things were a little out of whack with the schedule. First we had a fire drill, then music in the morning instead of after lunch, and a reading celebration in the afternoon. Our class took the changes in their (just adjusted to) schedule very well. I was pleasantly surprised! 
Over the summer the Easton Eagles were asked to keep track of all the books they read. Since we are new to Easton, we just counted the books read in class over the past couple of days. One of my students also went to the summer reading celebration and checked out a book from the library. Since we were able to count this as a book read over the summer, he had one extra book read than the rest of the class. He received a $10 gift card from Wal-Mart!! We were all so proud of him! Each student had their name on a feather for each book read, and we added our feathers to a "naked" eagle. The students thought it was hilarious that the eagle had no feathers! During our reading celebration, the Easton Eagle was revealed and had been completely covered in feathers from books read. It was great for us all to see the amount of books read just over a summer- and the first few days of school.
After the reading celebration, we got to stay and watch the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders dunk their teachers in a dunk tank for reaching their goals on the WesTest. The kids loved it! I was laughing just as hard as they were- probably because it wasn't me in the water!  We had a blast!

In the midst of the crazy schedule, we did have some time to talk about some things that will be starting for our class on Monday. Monday is going to be the first day that we have a "leader of the day", classroom jobs, and we will start our behavior plan. We will be moving clips in my class for the start of the year, and by the end of the year we will start using the school-wide behavior plan so that the students understand how it works in 1st-5th grade. Our chart looks like this-

Talk with your children about what each of the colors mean. We have a set list of rules in my classroom. The students have been learning them slowly over the last couple of days. We know that we are to keep our hands to ourselves, respect each other, use careful movement (no running),  raise our hand and wait to be called on if we have something to say, and we take care of our room and supplies. They know that, if they cannot follow these rules, they will have to move their clip down. If they are following all rules and going above and beyond, they get to move their clip up! Each Friday we will have something called S.O.A.R time. If the students have to move their clip past yellow two or more times, they will not be able to participate in our S.O.A.R time. Some of my S.O.A.R time ideas include: movie and popcorn, show and tell, bring a stuffed animals to sit with us for the day, and no shoes (only in the classroom) all day. We will come up with some things as a class as well.

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend and is ready for their first full week of kindergarten next week-parents included! If you have any questions about anything, do not hesitate to email me at lwebster@access.k12.wv.us, comment on a post (if it's not confidential),  or call me at school.

ALSO, thank you to everyone who as already signed up for read aloud! Give me some feedback on VolunteerSpot. Do you like it? Is it easy to use?