Making our mark on our classroom. (Day 5/31 #sol20)

I bought a new stamp for Writing Workshop. It’s pretty cool – it’s self-inking, it offers places for writers to give themselves their own feedback, and it’s worded in a way that makes sense to my second graders.

It arrived two days ago, and I made a big deal of pulling it out of the box and trying it out on some scrap paper so everyone could see how it worked. A few writers were in a place in their writing where the stamp would help them out, so they used it, they enjoyed it, and it actually kept them on track as they moved through their revision and editing steps.

After writing class was over, I put the stamp on top of the cabinet where our other shared supplies go – ya know, the staplers, the tape dispensers, and the pencils. I didn’t think twice about it.

And then…

SOMEONE stamped the stamp on the cabinet. Of course they did. They’re seven and eight. Stamps are super fun to push on and see what happens. The only problem is that this particular stamp mark is not coming off and is now on the cabinet for the foreseeable future. Whoopsies. Sorry, school property!

When I actually take the time to introduce a new tool and let students come up with ways to take care of it, then things tend to be taken care of in a more careful way. But… we can’t be 100% on our game all the time, right? This little faded stain will just be one more memory that’s etched into our classroom for days to come.

We were here.