"Can we call him Rick?"

Wednesday of a 4 day week means one more day until a long weekend!

Starting this week, I will be adding one daily activity per week that I will take over for Mrs. Hoffman. Week by week I'll be adding another portion of the day that I"m in control of the classroom until eventually, it'll be all me!

This week's activity was the morning routine. It's pretty basic, which is a good starting point for me. We do the calendar with the students; What day is it? The Date? How many days have we been in school? Plus a few other wake-up items to kick off our day. M

Mrs. Hoffman has a tradition in her room that at the beginning of the year, one of the students will be chosen to be the King or Queen of the day. Each student will be the king or queen until everyone has gotten a chance. They get to wear a cutesy crown and be the line leader all day. The King or Queen is chosen by pulling a name out of a hat. That special person comes forward and as a class we practice spelling their name and ask them around 10 questions about themselves (age, birthday, favorite food color tv show toy etc.....).

Well.........

I may have left out one teensy tiny part between spelling their name and asking questions about the King/Queen.

Mrs. Hoffman does one other thing for the king or queen of the day.

She draws them.
On the whiteboard.
In front of the class.
For everyone to see.

Did I mention that this week I'm now in charge of King/Queen and the morning routine? Oh, I did? I was hoping you'd forget and we could move on.....

I now have to draw the King/Queen, just like Mrs. Hoffman did, on the whiteboard!

Okay seriously, I was a nervous wreck the first day. I mean how awful would it be for them to get to see Mrs.Hoffman's adorable cartooney drawings of the first 5 king/queens, with precise detail and ease, and then, they get stuck with me, and I make them look like a monkey?! I would feel terrible!

So I went home and I practiced drawing. No joke. I practiced drawing just like Mrs. Hoffman draws hers!

Below is a picture of 1 of Mrs.Hoffman's king/queen drawings:

 Now here is my first time doing a king/queen drawing:

 Not bad right?! I wasn't worried at all ;)

One more quick story!

 We are introducing base ten numbers and using a ten frame to represent the 10 in teen numbers during math lessons. As with most elementary based instruction, there is a character that goes with 10 frames. Mrs. Hoffman introduced him the class as "Tommy ten-frame! Everyone Say 'hi' to Tommy...." In which one of our most commentary filled students replies:

"aww! Hi! But can we call him Rick?"

Haha! For some reason, I don't think Rick Ten-Frame has as nice of a ring to it!