Patriotic Morning

This morning was particularly patriotic for me... The polls in Courtland opened at 7am, so I left my apartment early and swung by to vote before school. Then, on my way to school, I saw a bald eagle eating roadkill on the side of the road. It took flight when I drove past.

My kids all wanted to know who I voted for. My answer went something like this...
"Lots of people."
"Oh come on Miss H! I mean like who?"
"Well, I voted for governor and for a senator and for a representative..."
They gave up after that.

School was busy as usual. Since we didn't have school yesterday (end of the quarter teacher workshop day), I had to meet with spelling groups and individuals during Daily 5. The class won a prize for getting enough Challenge of the Week answers correct, so we discussed options. We were supposed to vote on the choice, but we ran out of time. Then I explained the Zoo Project Mrs. L and I have been working on.

Last night she and I got the 'catalog' of animals typed, printed, and stuck in a binder. My class got their tokens today and spent their free time flipping through the binder figuring out what they should buy first. They were all super excited to discover that they can earn more tokens by getting good grades on their assignments... 1 token for 95-100%, 2 tokens for 100%, and 3 tokens for over 100%! Plus they can earn tokens for saying memory work earlier in the week and for keeping their desk/crate clean. I can charge them tokens for getting a drink of water or going to the bathroom when it's not a break time. And if they forget to put their supplies away, I can hold it for ransom until they pay a token (or do a job). Genius! This is going to be great!

They already have ideas of what they want to do. One girl is going to buy all fences to make pens for the animals. There are mythical creatures available for sale for lots of tokens (typically 200-275 tokens each): unicorn, dinosaur, yeti, bigfoot, kraken, dragon, etc. Since my kiddos want to build a better zoo than the 1-2nd graders, they want to buy all the mythical animals so it will be really cool. That's a lot of tokens!

One of the prize options is for everyone to get another 20 tokens each. I wonder if they'll pick that one or if extra recess will win out.