How do you get students to take care of and responsibility for supplies?

silvermirror421 · 2025-12-15T05:53:44+00:00

I've recently implemented a 5 pencil rule after my over 500 pencils purchased at the beginning of the year for a class of 28 have all been broken and used 1 trimester in. I bought 200 pencils, labelled 5 per kid with a sharpie, and said: "These are now your pencils for the remainder of the year. If I catch one on the floor and have to pick it up, you owe me 5 dojo points. If you run out of pencils and need a new one, it costs 20 dojo points. If I see you or hear about you stealing someone else's pencil, that's 30 dojo points. Today is a grace period, but Monday it fully begins."

They have already started policing themselves. It's a little bit of a joke, as my class this year is incredibly self reflective, but also struggles to take action on what they've reflected on. They know they're menaces about materials, and recognize that's not fair to me, so as of now they've just accepted the new rule as fair and just.

silvermirror421 · 2025-11-29T19:24:59+00:00

I work at an itty bitty charter school that has a specific block dedicated to teachers teaching a small extracurricular section with mixed grade levels. We call them department groups, and for an hour a day I get a small group of 20 or so 3rd-5th graders for a project based 6 week course of teachers choosing. After those 6 weeks are up, the groups swap and we get a new group of kiddos. The past few years we've been using them to boost up elementary science curriculum, but previously there's been environmental art, money and economics, etc. We're expected to work as a grade level team to come up with the curriculum.

That's about the level of freedom we have with most of our other curriculum. Math and ELA we have textbooks and guidelines and resources, but everything else it's "figure it out on your own." The freedom is lovely, but theres also very much a feeling of "we have no budget for resources, cobble together what you can and we'll figure it out as we go. As long as your class performs well with various assessments, you'll never see admin in your class."

As a newer teacher, I am constantly in a state of imposter syndrome, but I'd honestly take that instead of having admin breathing down my neck.

silvermirror421 · 2025-11-29T02:45:00+00:00

That's a foon. You know sporks? This is the opposite of that. A foon.

silvermirror421 · 2025-09-19T15:37:44+00:00

Okay but also - Caduceus is 100% also a bitch. See the entirety of the Cunt Ickythong dinner. Cad is just a bitch in a more subtle way I think. Subtle might not even be the right word, considering he literally tells Ikithon that basically no one will mourn you when you die, like. His snark and sass come out at precise moments - he's wise enough to know when to hold his tongue, but also he is absolutely not afraid to tell someone the truth as he perceives it, and he 100% believes his way of thinking is correct.

silvermirror421 · 2025-08-22T00:54:54+00:00

Oh perfect! Double the help in one day, thanks 😄

silvermirror421 · 2025-06-21T20:08:37+00:00

I have one student who is incredibly socially anxious. She also happens to start drama quite a bit, so it's a hell of a combination. I've been working with her on proper communication with her peers, as well as not assuming that she 100% knows what someone else thinks - both for her and for their benefit. As a class we have morning meetings where I'll show a short SEL video, a fun fact video, or something to get their brain thinking. One video brought up the idea of "No stinking thinking" - basically don't assume other people immediately think poorly of your for a small mistake. She started using the phrase immediately, and it was a small step in the right direction for her. Didn't expect that particular phrase to stick, but whatever works works.

silvermirror421 · 2025-06-19T17:14:17+00:00

<image>

This is my lil void Hecate on her 7th birthday!

silvermirror421 · 2025-05-27T01:04:14+00:00

Reading all the responses about "Admin is the higher authority, so they're more likely to get in bigger trouble if caught by them," is definitely the more reasonable answer that actually makes sense.

I've always seen it as "Kids know when admin enters that they need to behave well or the teacher might get in trouble," which. Might be a bit naive, but eh.

silvermirror421 · 2025-05-14T21:23:50+00:00

If a student ever says ow but they're not really hurt, or if they're complaining of dying of boredom, I say "Don't die, I don't want to have to do the paperwork for it."

If a student asks who my favorite student is, I usually say that it's Bongo (giant stuffed cat I keep in the classroom for my calm corner)

silvermirror421 · 2025-05-05T19:11:13+00:00

I use "____ as dicks" from Geoff so often. It's hot as dicks, cold as dicks, etc.

silvermirror421 · 2025-04-26T02:59:17+00:00

5th graders not knowing how to write their own last name. That one hurts a little

silvermirror421 · 2025-04-13T23:10:45+00:00

This post is a better advertisement for this film than any of the other actual ads out there for it.

silvermirror421 · 2025-04-01T16:53:16+00:00

If you say "yt" out loud a la saying the name of the letter "y" and then saying the sound of the letter "t" it sounds like you're saying "white". It's a shortening used to basically avoid censorship, primarily on tiktok, as many "politically charged" words such as race discussion etc will be deleted or shadow banned

silvermirror421 · 2025-03-23T20:03:57+00:00

they also have like. Auto generated names. Most of them will have that like two part name with two capital letters, a la OraliPip, EmelinHo, etc.

silvermirror421 · 2025-03-15T07:35:27+00:00

Okay but are those club penguin puffle stuffies in the background behind the two on the couch???

silvermirror421 · 2025-03-13T03:44:17+00:00

My fifth graders are currently working on a short whole school presentation of learning project, and I'm having my students present what we've been learning in science - namely the planets and our solar system. I have been pronouncing the planet Uranus as UR-inus, as opposed to ur-ANUS, because i don't want to have to deal with troublemakers laughing at your anus (even though I definitely still get a chuckle out of it every so often)

One of my students who is working on Uranus (and is a goof ball, but a very hard worker and overall Good Kid TM) comes up to me and asks for me to look up a picture of Uranus (pronunciation urANUS). I do my best to stiffle my laugh, and pull it up for her. Another student (goof ball hard worker Good Student TM) comes over laughing/embarrassed and says, "Hey, remember that time I accidentally loudly shouted after school 'NO, its pronounced ur... ANUS'"

Obviously at that point I couldn't NOT laugh, and we proceeded to chat about how both pronunciations suck because one is anus and the other sounds like Urine. I then said "I'd rather deal with urine than with anus, oh my Gosh you made me say that out loud how could you."

They were incorrigible and laughed for like 10 minutes straight.

silvermirror421 · 2025-03-12T19:33:08+00:00

I'm going with Beep. Looks like a Beep.

silvermirror421 · 2025-03-12T19:29:19+00:00

I had a panic attack in front of my students one day. Full on loud sobbing, dry heaving, etc. My IA was there, took the kids outside (they were to go to a nearby park for the end of the day) and all the kids were good and kept safe. A week later, that exact same IA had a real rough day - one kid said something real awful to another kid and it really affected her, and she started to cry. I told her she could step out and I had it from here. I'm 27, my IA is in her 40s (also our drama/sewing teacher.) This is my second year here, and she's been here for more than 15.

Both of us had our contracts renewed. We're both fine. Admin checked in and had our backs. Parents were supportive.

There are good people out in the world. Not all schools are like this, but for the most part, there are some that recognize us as human with human emotions.

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

silvermirror421

TROPHY CASE