#RJLeagueChat

TEACHABLE MOMENT ALERT: As I went to pick up the students from lunch today, one of the girls mentioned that one of the boys was being mean to her at lunch.

When they came in, I had them all sit in a circle on the carpet. I asked the girl to tell her side of the story, then I had the boy explain his side of the story. It seemed to be part of a bigger issue, which was great because it was a good time to problem-solve!

Like most cafeterias, ours can be loud. There are two rows of 3 tables. Apparently the boys had been sitting on the table that was closest to the window (farthest away from the noisiest part of the room) and the girls had been sitting on the inside table closest to the other grades. One of the girls had attempted to commandeer that side and had put her water-bottle down to mark her spot before getting in line.  The boys had ignored it and got there first from the line since they had lined up to get their food first. Then they had some verbal exchanges.

After everyone had gotten a chance to speak. I asked them for some solutions: 

1. Boys and Girls could switch sides (either on a daily, weekly, or random through wheel of destiny or  whoever the helper of the day was)
2. They could both sit on the far table it the boys on one side and the girls on the other
3. They could have divide a line down the half of the table with the boys sitting on the far right and girls on far left
4. Someone also proposed that they share the table & sit boy/girl/boy/girl but that ideas was immediately vetoes. 

At first it seemed at an impasse, then the boys said they were ok with switching sides daily as long as they could go first. The girls agreed. 

I told them that if this didn't end up working out, we could talk about it again to find another solution. That's the great thing about working towards a solution, if it doesn't work, just try something else!

Testing Time...

As I mentioned before our school worried about attendance because of testing running the same week as spring carnival. So, all student who were here on time got to the gym at 8:30, pick out a fun prize (balloons, snakes, whoopee cushions...)

And 3-6 lined up for a "do-or-die" free-throw contest where they each took one shot. If you made it you went to the end of the line, if you didn't you sat down.... 

By the end of round 1, there were 5 students left. 3 were my 3rd graders (and the only girl!) One of the 6th graders ended up winning, but it was still fun for all. 

Afterwards, they got to play kickball for an hour. They say that exercising is great because it turns on the regions of your brain. They certainly got a workout and were ready to go. 

The 2nd graders had written sweet notes to wish them all well during the testing, so we stopped at their bulletin board to read them all. 

Bags of Lucky Charms for Good Luck :) 

Want to teach in the Arctic?

It is a truly one-of-a-kind teaching experience that really everyone should try at some point!

http://www.alaskateacher.org/jobs/detail.htm?choosedistrict=true&applitrackclient=1696&all=1

Besides a great salary and unique living situation, you get smaller class sizes & really great students.

Here are two other blogs about the great things you'll see and do:

Fort Yukon, Alaska. https://snowschuler11.wordpress.com/
Venetie, Alaska. https://floridatoalaska.wordpress.com/

This week it is State Testing & Carnival. We didn't have Fall/Winter since the State was getting a new vendor and for my 3rd Graders, this will be the first time they will have this State assessment. But they don't seem too worried about it. The school is having a basketball shooting contest at 8:30 in the morning to incentivize students to show up on time. We also have early release at 1:30pm all week. Today, some of my students will be participating in the dog mushing races.

Over $16,000 in prizes for this week-long Carnival! Amazing!

#Cupchallenge

There is something so incredibly joyful of building something that is taller than yourself. 

Amazing how much conversation & cooperation this fostered

And when it fell, they were so excited to build it up again. 

This time, they did it "rainbow" by sorting the cups by color. 

We measured it with the yard stick. 40 yards. 

Plus 40 yards plus 12 which was about 92 yards. They will try to make it even taller tomorrow. 

Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or duck-sized horse?

I had a student walk in and ask me this question yesterday. This morning I found it hilarious that Neil Gorsuch was asked this same question in his hearing.

http://time.com/4708665/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-jeff-flake-horse-duck-reddit/

What was my answer?

I said I'd rather fight a horse-sized duck because after the fight I'd be able to eat a lot of roast duck.

...though now that I think about it, a duck-sized horse would be adorable.


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Here in the Arctic, the days are getting longer. So nice to see sunlight. Its up when I wait for the bus in the morning, which has made a big difference.

 It really does feel like spring. We were able to go play outside for the first time last week, which has been SO great!

#MarchMadness

I started this week having the students fill out brackets with me. I haven't done this since college and it was fun to share this collegiate tradition with them.

A couple of my girls are really interested in WNBA and so I told them the story about college basketball & the UConn Woman's team who set a record of winning 107 consecutive games in a row. 

As review for our upcoming state assessment, I also made some brackets for the students to compete in. There is Math, PE, Art, and Language Arts. Each student gets to compete in 2 events in the 1st round. I know I paired them up right because I heard things like

"I'm so glad I'm in Math and PE, those are my favorite"
"I'm happy that I'm in Language Arts and Art because I'm not as good at PE and Math"

Some wanted to  be in more than 1 event, I had it set up that all could compete for fun and only those who were in the bracket would move along in that event.

Day 1 had the Mathletes competing in time trials for the 1 and 2 times tables. The Artists had a pictionary type face-off drawing the same items (submarine, spagheti, Ice fishing, and quacking).

 PE had an obstacle course consisting of running, jumping, and shooting a basket in a time trial. Language Arts had a trivia game consisting of questions from books that we have read this year.

LET THE MADNESS BEGIN!!!! :) 

#DrSeussDay & #StPatricksDay QR Code Scavenger Hunt

We celebrated Dr Seuss Day by having an Elementary School-wide activity day complete with a green eggs & ham snack.

In my classroom, my activity was based on "Wocket in my pocket" I printed out and hid little Seussical monsters all over the classroom. The students then competed in teams of 3 to find all 15 montsters the fastest.

For St. Patrick's Day, I decided to do a scavenger hunt using QR codes.

Clue 1 was an equation. The answer was 6, which took them to the 6th grade classroom door.
Clue 3 was the 13th letter of the alphabet and the first vowel of the alphabet in a place where there were lots of books.

#Ididacontest

One of my students placed 3rd ihttp://ididacontest.org/index.cfm/1,122,525,2,html/2017-IDidaContest-Winners-Movies for her claymation movie in the "Make me laugh" category.

I didn't tell her, I slowly showed the kids the different placed movies from the different categories. They were so excited for her. We also watched the 2nd and 1st place movies, they weren't impressed. LOL

Afterwards, they wanted to start making more movies. I told them the next ididacontest wouldn't be till next February. They didn't care. They have their eyes on 1st prize for next year :)

Fire Safety with Molly

https://education.microsoft.com/Story/VirtualFieldTrip?token=1P874

 We got to learn about Fire Safety from Molly the Fire Dog over Skype.

 We were Molly's 43/50 State and her trainer was excited that she got to hold the Alaska Flag for the first time!

Molly has a brother named Beau, who is learning how to be a fire safety dog too. They were sleepy because they had accidentally gotten up at 3am thinking that they had a 5am skype when it was a 5pm skype! They taught us to have a plan to get out, to have a meeting place with your family and to crawl when there is smoke. They were very smart dogs! 

Some cool trivia about dalmations. Firetrucks were originally horse-draw carriages, so they were used to keep other dogs away. Dalmations have a special scent that doesn't bother horses, which is why they were so popular as fire station dogs!