Is it over yet?

Valentine's day is evil. Todays receptionist gave me a little bag of home-baked heart shaped cookies and one of the students at the school brought in a box of chocolates for everyone. I guess the gym workout this morning equaled the sugar content of the above. Maybe?!

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I have a class of three 6-year old girls. One I've been teaching for about 5 months, one for about 2 months and the third for 2 weeks. The first two have been getting naughtier and naughtier and, naturally, the third thought, last week, this was okay to copy. So I decided to take action.... As they can't read their names yet, I had them wear name badges with a different picture on for each. These matched their names and symbols on the board, under which I gave them five boxes for lives. The intention was each time they were naughty, they would lose a life. Each time they did something exceptional, or won a game, etc, they would gain a life. The one with the most lives by the end was going to get a whole sheet of stickers. (To put this into perspective: I give ONE sticker as a reward for completed homework normally. Six year olds get VERY excited about stickers - so you can imagine WHOLE sheet). I pre-warned the receptionists that if any kid lost all five lives, they would be sent to sit in reception for two minutes....

It took me five minutes to realise one of the receptionists had explained my entire plan to the girls. GRRRRR! However, it worked an absolute treat and I had three complete angels, and only one life was lost all lesson. It was also a lot more fun as they were concentrating better and we could move much faster between activities, which is preferable for us all!