If Someone Had Bribed Me to Read...

Tomorrow, my teaching partner and I are having our celebration for those students who have made the required number (20) of Accelerated Reader Points for the past nine weeks. I agree that 20 is lame; however, for some of my students, it is a struggle to get AR points. Some others, though? Not a big deal. I have several students who have close to 100 points and my star? He's got 270 for this nine weeks - down from his 300 for the first nine weeks.

Now, my unmotivated students? Pure unmitigated disregard for the entire reading process. The assistant principal's daughter? One point. ONE. She won't be celebrating with us.

Let me just say that when I was in the fifth grade, I lived in the library. I remember reading everything, everywhere. I remember getting the World Book Encyclopedias for one of my birthdays. I would sit and read those. If there was going to be a party for people who read, I would have been there. I don't get the ones who won't even read for the party.

Let Me Change That...

Let me change that to four or five minutes. It seems that Charter is having some problems of its own - really? Well, I'm having a problem paying you for a service you aren't providing.

The Great Ticonderoga Experiment

Today at Costco, I bought twelve dozen Dixon Ticonderoga pencils (made of finest cedar) for seven bucks and some change. I just gave a box to BrownBear's best friend and I am planning on handing them out to my class tomorrow. No more crappy pencils in Mrs. Teachergirl's classroom. This whole episode is being brought to you by a blog from Bluebird's Classroom http://bluebirdsclassroom.blogspot.com/ entitled "They Just Don't Make Them Like They Used To."

I am only intrigued by this because of the number of electric pencil sharpeners I have gone through in the last seven years. I can't even count the number I have bought. I have actually had room mothers buy them for me. I am afraid they think I am somehow selling them on the black market. LawyerBoy has had the same electric pencil sharpener on his desk since I met him our junior year in college. His parents informed me today that they bought him that electric pencil sharpener when he was in junior high school.

Now, I don't know what gives. LawyerBoy was an accounting major; he sharpened more pencils than everyone else I knew in college. He has had this pencil sharpener for 30 years. At least. I can't keep one for six months.

We shall see if the rotten, crappy school pencil is, indeed, what is killing the sharpener.

I, personally, have always loved the Dixon Ticonderoga. It is smooth, sleek. It smells right. Really. I had my entire math class just take a whiff of a brand new box of them last week. "Smell, boys and girls. This is what a real pencil smells like." BrownBear just smiled and shook her head; the rest of them smelled and nodded and said," Yes, Mrs. Teachergirl, this is what a real pencil is like."

Tomorrow is Christmas for a girl like me. New pencils. Isn't this why all teachers really became teachers? Ticonderoga pencils?