So my principal has been asking me to be a guest blogger for a few weeks now and she finally got her first post together. I told her she could blog on here anytime she wanted to haha! Show her some love because she's one of the coolest principals I know (not just saying that cause she's mine!)
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| The award awaiting my student on Monday Morning |
I
would love to be The Queen.
I
would like to think that Abba’s “Dancing Queen” was inspired by me. However, there are two reasons that I am most
confident that it was not - I was barely a month old when it was first
performed. Furthermore, and perhaps most
significant, dancing is not my greatest strength. I love to dance, have some
rhythm, but I am most confident I would not make the royal court of dancing.
I
would like to be the future Queen of England. Prince William would have picked
me over Catherine Middleton. However, once again there are two reasons that I
was not selected – William and I did not attend Eton together; therefore, we
had no chance of meeting when he was in his Future Queen selection years.
Additionally, I am not sure that one who desires to be the inspiration of
“Dancing Queen” is suitable to be The Queen of England. But given the chance, I
would have traded my dancing shoes for the Crown Jewels … immediately.
Alas!
My time has finally come … in the last 24 hours I have declared myself the
“Queen of Boggle.” Now granted, I have not won my coveted crown, cape, scepter,
and bragging rights yet … but I am a shoe in for the title. The final results
will be revealed Tuesday, but as you can tell, I am remaining humble by only
calling myself a champion until the coronation ceremony can occur.
A
true Queen always gives credit where credit is due and in this case I must
thank Elisabeth, author of this blog and stellar teacher of 3rd
graders at Rhyne Elementary for this honor.
As you well know, Elisabeth and her 3rd grade team (shout out
to Erica and Lisa) work diligently to break all rules of traditional teaching.
They seek and implement what is best and right for children. Two of their goals
were to change their instructional practice of reading and writing…but do not
worry they broke up the rules in math as well.
One element of this was to enhance the general vocabulary of their
students.
To
do this, Elisabeth created a classroom Boggle Board for her students. I happened to be in her classroom the day the
board went up. I do love a word game and
one student in particular (see the picture of the student desk above) seemed to
somehow challenge me to a contest. Now, maybe he really did not challenge me at
all, but as I said before, I do love a word game, I absolutely love a challenge
and I above all, I love to win. So in my
mind, it was a personal challenge. Now granted … I realize that I entered a
competition with third graders. But I was in to win. And I was just wise enough
to know that if the principal was game these third graders would be as
well. So the challenge was on. I copied
down my 16 letters for the week and it was game on.
Elisabeth
told her students they could use the dictionary to assist them in the process,
after all, the goal is to expand their vocabulary and introduce them to words
they did not know, but they could not create words less than 3 letters. I did attempt to level the playing field by
originally not using words less than 5 letters and not using the dictionary. I
never did use the dictionary, but when the kids told me they had over 200
hundred words (this extended beyond the form provided) I did have to result to
three and four letter words to ensure my victory.
For
a solid week, the kids and I bantered and counted words and even a time or two
shared words as we worked towards a victory. The word count was due by the end
of the day on Friday and by the looks of things when Elisabeth and I scanned
over the sheets, I was a clear winner. But, as educators, we know that my win
is temporary but the kids win forever. The kids win because they are working on
building their vocabulary. They are able to look at the composition of one word
and create more words using the concepts of rhyming, homophones (if the letters
work) plurals and palindromes. More so, they are also able to simply learn new
words. And somewhere along the way, if the kids and I make awesome learning
memories together, we are both better for it.
For
the remainder of the year, I look forward to entering competitions with other
classes. Boggle fever is on the rise and I am thrilled to be a part of the
inaugural team. Thanks Elisabeth for allowing me to learn with you and your
students. The Queen of England has
nothing compared to being the principal of Rhyne.
Can
we have an “n” and a “d” in the
challenge next week, please?
Rebecca
Isn't she awesome! My kids were in a frenzy knowing that they were competing against the PRINCIPAL! Tune it to next weeks boogle contest winner :)
