A Favorite Day of the School Year!

Would you like to go to school in your pajamas and read all day? Well, the students at Chickering School get  to do that on a very special day called Read Your Heart Out Day (RYHOD). But you don’t really read your heart out of your body. RYHOD is when the students get to read all day and if they want to wear their pajamas. they can. They can also bring their stuffed animals, pillows, and/or blankets. RYHOD is a celebration of the end of Fit & Lit, a program to exercise our brains and bodies.

During RYHOD students of all classes come to school in pajamas and slippers. Some students bring blankets, pillows and stuffed animals. In some classrooms teachers put up canopies or tents for students to read under or in. Some activities students do are listen to parent guest readers, read with classroom buddies, perform Readers Theater, and sometimes room parents would bring in special snacks. But mostly we read, read, read!

This year with digital readers, we needed to get special permission from our principal, Dr. Nugent. Currently our student handbook doesn’t allow us to bring in any digital devices from home. Dr. Nugent granted permission to bring in Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and other eBook devices. The students were very grateful to Dr. Nugent for allowing them to bring in reading devices for RYHOD.

Everybody at Chickering School loves RYHOD! We talked to our teacher, Mrs. Haggett, and teaching assistant, Mr Crowley, about their feelings regarding Read Your Heart Out Day. Mrs. Haggett said, ” I love read your heart out day because students read what ever they want and we can have fun talking about different books and sometimes parents come in and read to us.” ” Yes, I do,  because it gives everyone a chance to relax, wear comfortable clothes, sit anywhere they want, and also focus on reading all day long,” remarked Mr. Crowley. Some of the students shared with us: “…read all day and not do any subject[s]….” “…it is fun and you do not have to do any work at all.” and “…read all day.  It is nice to relax and not do any work all day.” One student that we interviewed had mixed feelings about RYHOD, ” I like it because I really like reading. But I don’t like it because you’re not allowed to talk so its just quiet time all the time.”

We asked the teachers if they think Read Your Heart Out Day is a good idea? Both Mrs. Haggett and Mr Crowley think that this special day is a “wonderful idea”.  Mr. Crowley said, “…it gives everyone a chance to relax and get a break from all the other subjects and focus on reading various kinds of literature.” “…we do get to choose what we want to read.  We get to do reading plays if we want to , we can read poetry and we can have parents come in and read to the children,” replied Mrs Haggett.

For our outstanding work during Fit & Lit 2012, the principal rewarded the entire school with a second RYHOD! Coming from the gym was a thunderous, earsplitting, booming cheer following Dr. Nugent’s announcement. We certainly love Read Your Heart Out Day!


Reported By: Amy, Martin, and Sophia

 

 

Blogging with Fifth Graders

The fifth grade started blogging this year! Each class got a few lessons with Mr. Homepage of Andrew's BlogHarte on how to make your blog, for example: a lesson on how to comment on other’s blogs, and a few more. The best part about blogs is that you can personalize them,  put how you feel, and other things. When you personalize your blog, you use Widgets, Themes, and other things. 

We interviewed a few students and asked these questions:

  • “Do you like blogging?”
  • ” Do you think blogging is a good idea?”
  •  ” What is your blog about?” 
  • ” What inspired you?”   

Here are some respones to our interview questions.

When we asked our question “Do you like blogging?”, Mrs. Power, our teacher, said  she “loves blogging, is new to blogging, and thinks it will be fun”. Other students in Mrs. Power’s class said, “It gives you a chance to write about your opinion of things and personal ideas”, “yes, it gives you a chance to tell people what’s on your mind, and it is fun to make comments, making the blog, making posts, and posting pictures” [but not of ourselves], and “yes, I think it is fun”. 

Also when we asked our question “Do you think blogging is a good idea?”, Mrs. Power said “It is a great idea and students get to respond to classmates.” Other students said ” I think it is a time to learn to socialize on the web”, “yes, it gives students a place to express their ideas”, and “you get to tell about your life [at school]”.

When we asked our question of “What is your blog about?”, Mrs. Power said she “only writes posts to which students will respond.”

We asked the students what inspires them to write on their blog. Students said things that interest them such as “a bird called Cassowary”, “my random thoughts”, “Boston sports teams” are a few examples.

We think blogging is also a good idea because you can comment on other blogs and receive helpful ideas to help you write your next blog post. We also think that blogging is a good idea because there are many reasons to blog like to express your ideas, to convince people to do right things, and other things.

Soon we may start using our blogs to communicate with other schools around the world and we could comment on each others blogs.

 Reported By:

Andrew and Jude

Principal for the Day

Have you ever been in charge if the school? Well I have! I was the principal of the day on Read Your Heart Out Day, April 13, 2012.

Principal-of-the-Day is a fun activity that one fifth grader wins at the Dover PTO Auction. One student gets to walk in Dr. Nugent’s steps for the day, and be in charge.

My name is Lucy and I won the opportunity to be the Principal-for-one-Day on Read Your Heart Out Day, a day when all the students and staff are able to wear pajamas and slippers to school.

On Monday, 4 days before I was Principal, Dr. Nugent and I had a little talk about what we wanted to do during my special day.

These are the things I thought of for each grade,

  • 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders were read a story by the Librarian, she was so nice because she dressed up as Viola Swamp!  (A character in a really good book.)
  • 4th grade had the ability to sit wherever they wanted, (They usually have to sit by class).
  • Lastly the 5th graders, they received popsicles. I wanted my grade to be happy with me since all the other grades had something great!student principal for the day with her principal

After this fun experience, I feel like I can do anything. Being a principal is like you are the Queen of your own Castle. In the morning I had to get there really early and I greeted all the teachers as they arrived to school. They were being really funny, by asking me for raises, giving me candy and just treating me like I was an adult. All the students thought I was an awesome Principal. At the end of the day I was sad, I did not want to give up being Principal. It was a fantastic day. The only downside to the day is that I never sat down, so my legs really hurt from all the walking!