Nacho Party

So a couple of weeks ago I created a prize package for my kids.  I wanted something motivational going on that would be kind of fun for the kids.  I told them I would place a colored marker star on the white board every time they did good in specials (art, music, P.E. Library), or if they won for best behaved class in the lunch room, or any other thing where they got recognized for good behavior within the school.  I told them that when they got 10 stars, they could have a nacho party.  Things were going kind of slow for a week or so.  They only picked up 5 stars in two weeks and I was beginning to worry that it was taking too long for them to win.  For young children having the reward out there too far for too long  sort of defeats the purpose.

But today they blew the top off the reward.  At the monthly schoolwide awards assembly they were recognized for two things, they had the highest percentage of attendance on the grade level, and the Specialists collectively recognized them as the overall best behaved class in the school.  Then at lunch they were selected as the best behaved class for the day.  They got a “5″ (best number of points) at Music and they had a sub for the day while I did Mid-Year Benchmark DIBELS testing.  I told them that if the sub gave them a “5″ I would give them a star.  They ended up with 5 stars for the day and got to 10,overall  so now I have to do the whole Nacho Party thing with them.  They were pretty stoked.

Three days back and counting……

Let’s see,  on Monday, one of the first things I heard after almost 5 weeks out, “Mr B.! You got new shoes!”  They don’t remember what an Aa or a Bb is or how they sound, but they DO remember what I wear.  My wife says that’s because they are down there by the shoes………

The next thing they asked was, “What’s that thing on your arm?”  I said that it was for when I go to the gym (without getting too specific,  it’s a BodyBugg, that monitors my caloric burn and activity).  They were divided between the ones that said, “My mom (or dad) does that.” and the ones that said, “What’s a gym?”  I said, “A gym is PE for grownups.”

Now, so far this week, Reading First in my room, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (she ended up coming into my room EVERY DAY this week, it’s like, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?  You may not really like the WAY I do things, but I have the highest scores in the school in kindergarten….so what ever I do, must work……..).  Staff meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, and two of my three 50 minute preparation times taken for meetings.    During one of the meetings during my preparation time, we went over trimester district testing results and the Reading First lady was there.  Later she was giving me a little grief over how I do some things.  I pointed out that of the 5 kindergarten classes at our school my class scored the highest on that skill…….   Oh yeah, and mClass math assessments on all kids this week and dibels progress monitoring on all kids this week.   Please, just let me TEACH…………

Monday and Tuesday next week I have a sub both days so that I can go to two different trainings.  One of them is supposed to be a two day training (I’ve already done a previous two days of it) and the other one is a one day training that they happened to schedule on Tuesday —AT THE SAME TIME.  Of course they BOTH think they are the most important one for me to go to.      Again, just let me teach…….

Dibels, using the Palm

I do like using the palm for recording and scoring Dibels.  I’ve done it for three years manually.  The Palm is much easier.  I did the Initial Sound Fluency and the Letter Naming Fluency with 25 students in one day.  I have three more students to do tomorrow and I will be finished.  They are newer students and have to be uploaded to the Palm still.  I was reasonably impressed with how well most of them did.  But until I upload the data, I don’t know for sure where we stand.  I’m pretty sure that they did better overall than my class did last year at the beginning of the year.  When I sync the Palm tomorrow it will download the new students to the Palm and upload the finished assessments at the same time.

Cool.

The Dibels Dilemma…..

I mentioned that the testing window at our school for the first benchmark test for Dibels is during my first week of school (I start on the 15th).  All of the other tracks have been in session for three weeks at that point.  I start and track 2 goes out on break.  The principal stopped me in the hall a couple of days ago and said, “So I hear you aren’t too happy about having to dibel your kids during the first week?”  I said, “No, I’m not!  We really need to focus on routines and procedures and how can I do that if I have to dibel the kids?”

Can I just say that I LIKE my principal!

She is getting a sub for me on Thursday of that week so that I can test the kids!  So I’ll have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with regular routines and procedures and then Thursday, the sub can hold down the fort, and I’ll test and I can still help the sub as needed.  Just having another adult in the room when working with small groups or individuals is a big help.  Then I can finish up any loose ends on Friday. Now I just need to learn how to use that handheld to score the dibels, I’ve only done it using pen and paper before.