2 posts tagged “5th grade”

Going back to work is rough.  After 2 weeks of winter break, my students (and myself!) were braindead this whole week.  It's really tough waking up at 5:30 in the morning, when my body got used to waking up at 11:00 am for 2 weeks. I won't complain.. 2 weeks was a nice, long vacation. 

Some sad news; when I returned to my classroom from the break, one of my students (his job is the "banker" of the class) noted that the class' bank accounts have been deleted from our computer!  I got 2 of our school and district's tech people to figure out where the file could have gone.  No one has a clue.  I had a backup file, which was also missing.  So, the entire class' bank account records (see my previous post) have been wiped out.  The techs mentioned that the computers MAY have been reimaged during the break.  No one knows for sure.  The students' money, bonuses, and fines are completely gone!! Now, 1/3 of the class DID NOT keep their checkbooks balanced.  Those kids have no clue how much "classroom money" they had in the bank.  The remaining 2/3 of the class DID keep copious records of their "money".  Good habits form this early on in life, eh?

The students and I had a long discussed and they decided that they learned a valuable lesson from this...

1) they need to balance their checkbooks

2) their teacher needs to back up the files on a flash drive

i "benched" my whole 5th grade class at recess yesterday.  a week ago, i noticed that my rubber stamps were VANDALIZED by a mystery student.  the rubber was literally ripped off of its wooden post.  it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but i noticed that it happened again the next day.  my entire class got my wrath.  that day, i made the class senators (one senator for each table group) have a meeting with the class vice president (you know.. vp always leads the senate meetings in washington!) to find a way to find the suspect.  well.. suspect never came clean, so i had no choice but to punish the whole class. perhaps the suspect would feel some remorse and confess.

the senators came up with a solution. either give each student a $200 fine (all my students have jobs, from which they earn a paycheck.. the average paycheck is $85) OR to lose their precious 15 minute recess.  the class had an election and the recess got the majority vote. 

i had the kids sit and write an essay on "honesty, responsibility, and maturity - description and practice".  here's what one of my 10-year old geniuses came up with.

honesty:It means to tell teh truth and don't lie even if its the easy way out.  I practice this every day like "Robert, did you brush your teeth" my mom would ask.  I would replie yes or no weather I brushed or didn't.

Responsibility means to turn in homework to pay rent (*note: I also charge my students a monthly rent for their desks/chairs/books). Also to do your chorse at home.  The most important thing is to tell if you stole the stamp!  I practice this by turning in my homework, doing chores, and my other duties.

Maturity is to tell the truth even in the titest situation.  Maturity doesn't have to be hard like giving the last cookie to your brother that's being mature too. not just hog it to yourself.  I practice this by having comon sense and trying my best to look grown up and have proper maners.

i love my class.

edit: my students get paid with a checkbook system.  they each have a checkbook with a register (recordkeeping) and a bank account in an excel file.  they earn paychecks, pay rent, pay fines, and get bonuses.  i taught them how to balance checks and use deposit slips whenever they want to submit a check to the banker.

as for my students' jobs.. here's their list of job descriptions (and the amount of money they earn) that they had to check out before they had to apply for their jobs.