Testing and Falling Trees

Since this week was a short school week, enough exciting events had to occur in order to make it feel like five days. 

The grades that would have done their standardized testing in May last school year had to take their tests this last week. No big deal for me, because my students were Kindergarten last year and would not have been tested. On the other hand, all of the other grades were testing, so my kids had to be basically silent for the first half of the school day. Nine six-year-olds, sitting still, all day. We turned on "ninja mode" and they had to be quiet and quick about everything they did. It worked quite well, honestly. 

There was a very large storm here during the week. I came home from school with no power, and recess was canceled due to the dangerous winds outside. The next day, there were fallen trees on both of the school playgrounds, so people were working hard to clear our playgrounds for recess. It was quite the event for my little first graders to have trees falling down and winds so strong they couldn't stand up when the gusts kicked up. 

Hopefully, soon we will be moving our classroom into the permanent classroom, but as of right now, I am still setting it up and making it as organized as possible before the students come in. One of the walls has been painted bright green and the walls are decorated with different posters and Dr. Seuss pictures. 

The students are extremely excited for the upcoming week because they get to go to their first class store to use their points that they have been earning so far in the year. Some of their prizes will be pencil sharpeners, scented hand sanitizer, mechanical pencils, markers, notebooks, shaped erasers, and coupons for things like bringing a stuffed animal to school, not having to wear shoes in class, and a homework pass for a night. Hopefully, it lives up to their expectations!