Spelling Lesson

I've had a couple glasses of wine, so I'm feeling a bit blue right now that no one reads my blog...I try to make it entertaining...

There is something I do in class for "all class" rewards. It's a pretty fun idea-I sort of made it up last year when I was desparately searching for somthing that might work on my mean class to make them behave. It didn't make a difference on my mean class. They stayed mean.

This year my class, for the most part, is nice. I'm using the same all class reward that I developed last year, and it is working like a charm. I was inspired by Hang Man and Vanna White. What I do is I decide ahead of time what the reward will be (free movie afternoon, for example), and on the board up front in the class I put blanks for letters, leaving spaces between words. When the whole class behaves (which is quite often with this group), they earn a letter. As I put up letters, the kids have fun trying to guess what the reward is. I have fun with it, too. Sometimes I put up a random letter, and this really throws them. Then later I say to the class, "What was I thinking? There is no Z in that word..." And I change it to the correct letter. I love it.

So today the kids earned their last letter for this reward. The reward was "Books and Brownies Afternoon." They were very excited. I milked it as long as I could. I was late picking them up from PE, but they had come out of the building and were lined up in a straight line, just waiting for me. And walking back? It was the straightest, quietest line they have done yet. I saw a guy that comes out to be our tech problem solver, and I joked with him that they were working hard to earn this reward. The cool thing is that the reward is really just an afternoon of reading, but they are as excited as if it was a field trip!

So we get back into the room from pe, and the kids have to finish their writing assessments. They have only one remaining letter to earn. It's quiet, and remained so, until about 3:15. I say to them in a serious voice, "I just realized I made a huge mistake. You can not tell the principal I did this; do not tell your parents."

They stare at me with huge eyes and open mouths as they ponder exactly what mistake I could have made...I continue to tell them that as their teacher, I am their role model. And I should be modeling the right way to act, to treat others, and how to live a healthy lifestyle. I said, "I didn't mean to write 'brownies' up on the board. I meant to write 'Books and BROCOLLI afternoon!" I played it up so well. I'm sure some of the kids believed that I really had made this grave error.