Tuesday, December 3, 2013

WORM WARS are on their way!!!



 Winter Break is coming. Aside from all the things I look forward to, thinking about this makes me cringe. A school break means most of my students will STOP READING. Not cut back or slow down, but STOP. Through the last few years I have promoted reading logs with almost every incentive imaginable.

Bluntly, if I hear one more time that "I didn't really have a lot of time to read this week...BUT I killed it in Minecraft" I think my head will explode.

This idea woke me up in the middle of the night and it is kind of a last ditch for me. Kids love gross and history shows me (clearly) they don't need or particularly want any more slushies, movie tickets, pizza parties or goodie bags.

So here's the deal: over the break, my Principal and I are splitting the school into two teams. If our school hits a reading goals of 5,000 minutes (20 minutes a day x 5 days a week x 250 students) we will have an assembly on the Friday following Break. At this assembly one of us will eat REAL WORMS.

The kids with the most reading minutes will actually up the gross by adding ketchup, relish, hot sauce, etc to our worm plate. 

Do I want to eat worms? NO NO NO. Aside from hoping it is not my team that comes in last, I REALLY want these kids to READ over break. Consistently. Enough to FINISH some books.

We are rolling out the sign on top this week and not telling the kids details. Those will come next week in some fun Rocky style competition. I have ordered large Engineering prints of the above sign for the Lobby and Library. Here is the simple log they will use over Break.


My husband is REALLY disgusted by this, he does not even discuss it. I will keep you updated on the progress and hopefully will have some super nasty pictures of my Principal eating worms in January!

 



Hour of Code - More Needed Than I Thought

Our Teachers are bringing the Hour of Code to life next week in the classroom. We have combined time in the MacLab as well. This week in the Library it is my job to do an introduction. I have been really surprised by how much of an introduction it has been. So far, I have learned we need the Hour of Code much more than I thought!!

This is a great video that I have been showing. The second video is from www.csedweek.org and our students will watch this in their classrooms This website has grade level activities for online and hands on, it is a fantastic resource!!