Waxy Wonders

Today was a crazy, busy, read-a-book, run-around, make a chart, calm-them-down kind of day.

I'm back with the first graders who I believe I've spent the most time with this year. They started off the morning not at their best. Super chatty, can't sit still, not always listening, ugh. After a while of this I resorted to bribery. I told them I was going to keep a record of who was following directions and listening all day by making a star by their name on list I made. Whoever had the most stars at the end of the day would get a treat (a.k.a. candy). This seemed to help. Most got better because they wanted to have the most stars! More on this later...

Today was also unique because we went to the "Wax Museum"! The fifth graders have been working on biography projects for a while. They've made time lines, Time magazines, I think reports, etc. Today they dressed up as their person and sat at their desks in the room while other classrooms came down to see them. Each kid had a "button" on their desk that the visitors could push and the students would give a speech or a few facts about themselves. We went down to one class in the morning and the other class in the afternoon. The first-graders loved going around and seeing all the "statutes". It was really fun! The fifth graders had obviously worked really hard and you could tell they were proud it! Also saw a lot of visitors in the building today making their way down to the museum with their bright yellow/green visitor stickers from the office. This is something their fifth graders do every year, but the first year I've gotten to see it - very fun stuff.

Anyway, after all the events of the day, it was time to go home and I had 6 students on my list who had 5 or more stars by their name. I announced their names and let them pick a candy. Well, lo and behold the very child who had the least amount of stars (none) was absolutely shocked to not be getting a candy! The kid looked at me with such a look of shock, I just couldn't believe it. Really? Really?! You honestly think you did a better job than most of the class? I do not know what world this kid was in but wasn't the same one as me!