No TV Week 2019: Spuds in Space!

May 20th to the 26th was "No Time for TV Week" at Ashaway School!  (Although I realize we really should start calling it "Screen-Free Week".  A lot has changed since I started doing this program twenty years ago!) 

The rules were the same as always: students were challenged to pay attention to which activities they were choosing for their free time.  They earned points for non-screen activities, and they earned bonus points for each full day with no screen time at all.  Students who earned at least 100 points get a prize, and those who earned at least 100 points and had no screen time for the entire week get two prizes! 

This year, just for fun, I encouraged the students to exercise their creativity by decorating a potato to look like an alien, or anything else space related! (This extends our Reading Week theme "A Universe of Stories" while also urging students not to be “couch potatoes”!)

Students brought in their creations all week to be displayed in the library, and we all loved admiring their creativity!  We got lots of cool aliens, some rockets, a couple UFOs, an astronaut, and an asterism!!  (Click on the word if you need the definition; I didn't know that one until my student taught it to me!)

Neil Spudstrong!

UFP : Unidentified Flying Potato!

Since "A Universe of Stories" is also going to be the summer reading theme at the public libraries this summer, I asked Miss Heather at the Ashaway Free Library if she'd be interested in co-hosting a potato-decorating workshop.  She enthusiastically agreed, and on the evening of May 21st many children gathered in the library's new community room for "Potato-palooza!"  We had a blast, and I transported (not teleported!) the kids' incredible creations to our school library for everyone to admire.

Big thanks to Miss Heather and Miss Cheryl for co-hosting this fun event with me!

All this week students have been bringing back their papers to show how many points they earned by exercising their minds and bodies, and there are a LOT of them!  I'll be handing out the prizes next week for those who earned at least 100 points, but today I got to announce the 10 winners of the $10 gift certificates to the Savoy bookstore in Westerly!  While the deadline has passed for being included in the drawing, I will continue to accept participation forms from those who earned at least 100 points.  These students will be allowed to select something special from the library "prize basket" next week!
  

Congratulations to our ten lucky gift certificate winners!

Thanks to all the families who participated and supported their children during the week!  I am also grateful for the sponsorship of our wonderful Ashaway School PTO, who provides the funds for the gift certificates and "basket prizes"!