As a part of the annual Barrow tradition, the Purple Room friends have been busy working to name our classroom for the 2023-2024 school year. Over the past few weeks, we introduced voting to the children and helped them begin to understand the idea of democracy. When given some options, we asked the children to pick which they liked best. We began this ritual simply by offering a choice between two snack offerings, Veggie Stix or Pizza Bagels. The children waited patiently to “cast” their individual vote with their given Magnatile by placing it under the picture of the snack they preferred at that moment. In the end, we counted the Magnatile’s together to see which item got the most votes. Veggie Stix prevailed.
Another day, we had the children vote on their favorite story we have read this year in the Purple Room, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt or Pete the Cat’s Perfect Pizza Party. Pete the Cat was the favorite.
On our last day of practice, we asked the children to choose between three activities – Slime, Puzzles, or Drawing. Slime was the winner!
We also discussed many of the more complex ideas and feelings that accompany voting – it’s okay if your choice doesn’t have the most votes. It’s okay if you like many of the choices, but in this instance we have to pick just one. And it’s also okay if you don’t want to vote that day at all! We offered some absentee ballots or alternatives to voting – tell the teacher which you like, say no thank you, or offer a different idea (a write in!)
After a week of practice, we began brainstorming potential class name ideas. We talked about how our class name could be anything – a favorite food, a favorite toy, or a favorite animal. We shared some other team or class names from all of Barrow in the past – the Unicorns, the Fish Sticks, or the Super Lollipops. Some more popular national favorites like the Lions, Ravens, Hurricanes, Wizards, Suns, and Cubs also entered the conversation. We lastly discussed how we wouldn’t want to name our classroom after any of our own names, so those were off the table! Here was our initial list…(teacher ideas were crossed off before the voting began :))
After more days and weeks of narrowing it down by voting with stickers, we are pleased to announce our class name is…
THE EXCAVATORS
