It’s been a great week at HES!! We have lots of exciting things happening so I wanted to do a blog post. This will be pretty random.
First of all, next week is Homecoming Week for Haleyville City Schools. This is one of my favorite weeks of the school year. We have lots of fun with our themes. I am posting right below this the picture of our themes. HES is different than HMS and HHS due to our picture day — those with older siblings may get a little confused. Also, my homeroom kiddos are to wear 70’s clothing on Thursday for dress from another decade day. I will explain why later on in the post — it’s a good one!! I will be snapping pictures of the kiddos dressed throughout the week — and I will add them to the blog and our 4th grade Instagram page — which is @hes4thgrade.
Next up .. our lunchroom!! I have been SUPER impressed with our lunchroom this year. Our students are getting a choice for the first time EVER!! Students can choose to eat at the hot bar, pizza bar, or a grab-and-go lunch each day. The grab and go lunch is available as supplies last — it looks great! I had one parent stop me at Wal-Mart to say that the lunchroom choices this year has been the best thing to ever happen to them at school! Her child is such a picky eater (her words), but he has been super happy having a choice in our lunchroom this year. I found the cutest idea on a teacher facebook page I follow. I adapted it to fit into our classroom and voila! The kids LOVE putting their popsicle sticks in the correct bucket each day — brought lunch, hot bar, or pizza bar. This also brought about the start of classroom jobs. The kids would beg to let them put the popsicle sticks back in the name bucket — so I made a classroom jobs list so everyone could help out in the afternoon!
Not only do we love lunch choice this year — but we also love our fruit and veggie program. The kids are supplied a free fruit or veggie 3 days a week — and they are SO excited each time they see the containers! It is SO nice for our kids to try new healthy foods. This week we had green bell peppers, grapes, and bananas. The kids LOVED them all! I posted the cutest video on Instagram of a few volunteers trying out the bell peppers. Is this not the cutest thing ever?!
https://instagram.com/p/7bRNC1MZi4/?taken-by=kgoggans2
Continuing on with my random updates, I had to sign a 20 day attendance report one day last week at school. Every 20 days we have to check attendance and sign it to update in the computer. My sheet was surprisingly blank of check-ins, tardies, or absences. I know it is the beginning of the year, but when you have 18 kids in a homeroom – it happens! Why was my page so blank? I have a couple of reasons that I believe my students are being so present this year. The number one reason is my bestie Draco. Our new classroom critter is a great motivation to come to school to see his pretty face each day. The one day I didn’t bring him with me because I had a doctor appointment right after school was super sad EVEN FOR ME. I’m so used to looking over and seeing him in his terrarium … and it was empty. Not seeing his little eyes watching the kiddos and me was just sad. How did I teach for 12 years without him? I have no clue. I will be doing a post very soon on my thoughts about having a class pet.
The other reason I think my kiddos are coming to school so well this year is also because of a cool idea I saw on Pinterest during the summer. Each day that my homeroom are all present, we add a letter to our board. We are spelling the words perfect attendance. To increase the competition, we invited several classrooms to join in and compete against us to see who would win first. When we spell the words perfect attendance, we celebrate and also begin again. I thought we would probably do a popcorn party to begin with — but my homeroom had a different idea. A disco party was what these kids wanted to do. I’m not sure why they wanted this — but how cool are they to want something so out of the box?! I love their personalities!! So … on Thursday of this coming week we will celebrate with a disco party! Even though we made our goal on Wednesday, we are prolonging our celebration because of Homecoming. Thursday’s theme is to dress from another decade — which is perfect for us! We will dress like the 70’s, I have borrowed a disco ball, and I’m planning a disco party during snack time!! I’m sure it will be groovy!! And of course … I will snap pictures for us to have forever!! 🙂
I will be blogging very soon about my classes beginning Class Dojo (LOVE!!), and my many feelings on having a class pet. I’m going to get some quotes from my kiddos to include!!
Love,
Mrs. Goggans
Mrs. Goggans' 4th Grade Scientists 