Today was a bit of a roller coaster.  The VTS segment went very well.  The boys were really excited about the Yeti image.  I was pleased to hear comments about the Yeti looking sad and several possible reasons for this including loneliness and global warming. :) The boys did derail quite a bit and kept looking for "pictures in the clouds" so to speak.  I took your advice, Mary, and reiterated the first question.  It took a few times of doing this, but they did get back on the right track.

There was a lot of work to do in finishing up the books and it was here that we ran into a little trouble.  We spread the boys out so that they could work more diligently and set up a station out in the hall with the book cover materials where they could go to pick out their papers once they had finished the contents of their book.  Two of the boys wound up fighting over the same piece of paper and by the end of it all, one of the boys was in tears.  This was the first time I have ever had to settle a disagreement like this.  I noticed there was a problem when I overheard them arguing over who saw it first.  I asked the boys to settle down and how we might resolve this?  It didn't seem like either was willing to budge so principal Tilly stepped in and said, "Ok.  Well then no one gets it."  Probably the best thing to do under the circumstances, but by then, other boys had chimed in and I think feelings got hurt.  I'm not sure if there was anything we could have done to avoid this.  Perhaps having them line up one by one  as they finished to pick out their paper, rather than just having them crowd around the table and having them all looking at the same book together.  Then it would have just been first come first serve.  I guess sometimes these things are bound to happen, no matter what you do.  I was really taken off guard though.  I did learn from Mr. Tilly's response.  Best to just nip it in the bud right away. 

Quite a few of the boys were able to finish their books and they are looking great!  As I said, it was a very up and down sort of day.