Quiet

My class earned three extra marbles today for being quiet and focusing! This morning was probably the best morning we've had all year for productivity and focus. I think it helped that when I've conferred with students during Daily 5, we've been talking about whether the book is one that interests them/they actually want to read it, or if they're reading it just to have a book to read. Some hard-to-please students who want to spend the whole morning reading have connected with a bunch of books they're genuinely interested in reading, so they've been more on task!

They also got ready for lunch decently quickly again and packed up at the end of the day really fast. Hopefully this is a trend and not just a really good day.

I finally remembered to ask Pastor about whether he'd be willing to take a look at the bell that's been broken for a few weeks (the screw holding the handle to the clapper snapped and we couldn't get the broken half of the screw out). He just brought it back, and after a bit of finagling, we got the handle back on and the clapper facing the right direction! Yay! Now we don't have to send it off for repairs.

After school I spent a bunch of time in Mr. E's room searching for durable headphones for my class. The cheap $5 ones I bought at the end of last year are not lasting and I don't want to keep throwing money at the ones that are going to quit working after a few months. We also need a better system of storing them so it's not so easy to chuck them in a place/break them. My idea is to install a towel rack on one of the walls (if I can find the space), so we can hang the headphones on the rack. Maybe below the flags above the printer??? We'll see. We ordered some wireless mice for the laptops and a set of noise-cancelling ear protectors. I'm hoping it will help the students who complain it is just too loud to concentrate!