“Our Talking Chips Are Missing!”

Shaundra Ellis
Second-grade teacher, North Lakeland Elementary School, Polk County, Florida

In our PLC meetings, we use talking chips. One day the talking chips disappeared. I decided to “borrow” talking chips from my scholars for the next PLC meeting. I returned from the meeting and placed the talking chips on our group table. We have specials at the end of the day so I completely forgot to put the talking chips back. The next day, during the ELA block I asked my first question for collaborative talk (team talk). After the Helpers passed out talking chips, they began to frantically wave their hands. I asked the Helper from Red team what was wrong. He told me that some talking chips were missing! Blue, Green, and Yellow teams confirmed that they were also missing some talking chips! After calming everyone down, I confessed that I was the one who took the missing talking chips. I returned them to the scholars and explained why I took them. It took a few days for them to forgive me.