Happy Turkey Day!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their time off from school. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and I wanted to say that I am so grateful for this year and for all my students. You bring so much happiness into my life! I am grateful to be your teacher.

Sad Day :(

When I got to school this morning, I went to feed the fish as usual. As I approached the fish bowl I noticed no fish were swimming. Too scared to look, I asked Mr. Evensen if he could check out the situation. Surely enough, they had passed on to a far better place. :(

Cubes

Our class has adopted a way to help us stay on task-cubes. Each day every student starts out with 4 cubes that they keep in their desk. When they are having a hard time staying on task-they lose a cube. Our goal is to have everyone have all their cubes at the end of the day. I love this new idea and I think it has really helped the students.

Some of the reasons why I love it

• It is personal-they keep the cubes in their desk, where only they know the status of how many they've lost.
  
• It is tangible-they literally can see how many cubes they have at any given time of the school day. Also, when they need to give me one they hand over the cube and physically make the connection of the consequence of their action.
• I can quickly and quietly remind any given student that they want to end the day with all four cubes. Then, that child is able to do a 'self-check' and get back on task.
  
• It's individual-You have four cubes and only your actions could change that. No one can make anyone else lose a cube.
  

Here are the consequences of losing one or more cubes

• One cube-lose one minute of recess
• Two cubes-lose 5 minutes of recess
• Three cubes-lose 5 minutes of recess and Miss Bingham sends mom and dad a note home letting them know you had a hard time staying on task.
  
• Four cubes-All of the above, and a visit with Mrs. Densley
  

SEP Conferences

We are having SEP conferences tomorrow and Friday after school. If you still need to sign up, please let me know. I would love to meet with all of you and talk about how your child is doing in school. You can always call me-951-252-3533. Don't forget that the students get out at 1pm tomorrow and Friday. Thanks! I really appreciate all you do for your son/daughter. :)

P.S. Thanks to everyone (especially the students) for your patience while I was sick. Things got a little crazy, but I think we were able to make the best of it.