No David!

My class loves the "No David" books by David Shannon. Most of my past classes were obsessed with them too. A new one came out this month and they've been begging me to get it; it finally came in at the library last night.

It was the first book grabbed for reading buddies. Thankfully they were willing to share it, so there weren't any fights. The 8th graders even had a chance to read it during their work time in my classroom today. It brought back so many memories they dug through my picture books until they found their favorites from when they were in my class... Be Brown, Chicken Cheeks, Black White Day Night, the other David books... They read them so many times they had them memorized. Today, they bet each other they still had the books memorized. I think one of the books they wanted is on 'vacation' in the closet. I have a bunch stashed there to pull out after Christmas so they don't get sick of the same old books.

At the end of the day the student council led us in making scarecrows. My group's had a pumpkin for a head and a sombrero. One 3rd grader named him Taco John. His legs look like he's doing the splits! Or maybe the Mexican hat dance?

After school Mrs. L and I brainstormed behavior problems in our classes. She and I attended a sectional about using classroom games (and virtual prizes) to improve student behavior. We decided to have a contest between our classes. Students can earn tokens to be turned in to 'buy' animals to put in our class zoo. If they buy the animal, they can find a picture of the animal, print it, name it, and choose where it goes in our zoo. Each animal costs a different amount of tokens, and they have to buy food for it too. They can buy trees, plants, landscaping, etc. to put in the enclosures. It's perfect because we're reading aloud a book that takes place in a zoo, so my class should have tons of ideas. We decided to start next quarter, which is in about a week (Nov. 6th).  Mrs. L is going to put up 'under construction' signs on one of her bulletin boards. I'm doing the same in my entryway. I wonder if my kids will notice it at all...