Our "Tacky Boxes" put "tacky words" in their place!

Students at Big Spring Lake are learning about using kind words with a special "Tacky Box."  In Guidance and Counseling class, students read the book Margo's Magnificent Choice.  In the story, Margo the monkey learns that the reason her jungle friends do not want to play with her is because she uses "tacky words" like stupid, dummy and fatso.  The Wise Owl gives her a "Tacky Box" and encourages her to write down any "tacky words" she might hear and be tempted to say and put them in the "Tacky Box" never to be said or thought of again.  This year at BSLK, we will be focusing on only using kind words by having "Tacky Boxes" in every classroom so students can put "tacky words" in their place.  Students also brought home their very own "Tacky Box" so that parents can help reinforce this skill at home!

Health Heroes

A team provided through the Health Hero program came to Big Spring Lake today to offer flu vaccinations to our students. These are provided at no cost and is a great way to get our students ready for flu season. We had 53 children to receive the flu vaccine through this clinic.

Mrs. Baugh's Speech Class

Mrs. Baugh's students have been enjoying some fun new activities for speech practice. The students love the Articulation Cans with their speech sounds. 

Mrs. Barclift's Class: Peacemakers/Peacebreakers

At Big Spring Lake Kindergarten, Mrs. Barclift's Class has been learning peaceful conflict resolution strategies created by Naomi Drew, author of The Peaceful Classroom.  To go along with their peacemaking theme,  Mrs. Barclift read a series of David Shannon's books about David, a little boy whose behavior resembled a peacebreaker more than a peacemaker!  The students discussed and shared choices David could make that would better fit the characteristics of a peacemaker.  The students still love to read David books everyday.  To culminate the theme, each child created his/her own David (see pictures)!  Each friend signed a Peace Contract after learning that a pledge is a promise. They are still learning the Peace Pledge, which is recited daily during morning announcements.  The children posed as peacemakers and peacebreakers (see pictures)!  Mrs. Barclift's students are well on their way to a year full of peaceful choices and fun!   

Mrs. Armstrong's Class

We recently started number talks in our classroom.  Number talks teach students a different way of thinking about the number.  We also have a special "Tool Time" which my students love!  Each child has a different "tool" which consists of either counters, animals, ten frames, legos, white boards and markers...basically anything that we can count.  These tools teach students that we can use many fun things to count with!  When asked what he thought about number talks, kindergartner Alex Gielle replied, "I like building the number with the tool.  Blocks are my favorite counting tool!"

Mrs. Mosely's Class

This week our theme time was focused on learning about flowers. We discussed how they change and the flowers many parts. We took time to dissect flowers to look at the petals and the stem. The kids loved getting to have centers where they got to write, draw, and even paint their own flower garden.

Mrs. Bryant's Class

Mrs. Bryant's class learned about space.  We even did our own research!  We showed what we learned with a class mural!