Penny for Your Thoughts, a Buck if You’ll Be Quiet!

checkbooksampleWelcome to a new year and decade in Room 15!  Despite the change on the calendar, I’m exceptionally happy to see the same kids back in class this week. What a great bunch!  We’ll jump right into a host of new activities this week. We’ll be starting our Checkbook Project, where kids get paid to perform (in class money, that is).  Students will earn dollars for everything imaginable: laps during fitness, passing grades on assignments, even sitting still and quietly when appropriate.  They’ll also pay out the cash: taxes, desk rent, traffic citations (e.g. behavior), and more. I’ve found this project to be exceptionally motivating and to a practical application of math skills.  Students will also be starting new play groups, all having to do with slavery and the Civil War.  They’ll be joining book clubs, selecting from three exceptional titles including Where the Red Fern Grows, the and the BFG. We’ll also be jumping back into history at around 1800 and the roots of Westward Expansion.  We’ll also be beginning a study of art in preparation for a pair of judged art competitions to which students may submit their work.  Finally, it’s Floor Hockey season, perhaps my favorite activity of the year.  Stay tuned for more on our classroom tourney. It promises to be a active, exciting, and fruitful January!

Here’s the homework for this week: Tues., Jan. 5; Wed., Jan 6; Thur., Jan. 7

4 thoughts on “Penny for Your Thoughts, a Buck if You’ll Be Quiet!

  1. Who’s check book is that? It looks like Kendra’s handwriting,even though it isn’t her’s.

  2. Naw, it belongs to a former student . . . Anna, I think, who saved up close to $4000 when I did this project a few years ago.

  3. That sounds like a fun project you guys are doing. I saw some guy that bought nail-polish an put it on at recess.

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