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I teach third grade. There are many times throughout the year in which I have to randomly choose a child for whatever reason. One example would include two kids teaming up on making a poster and I have to pick the one that gets to take it home after the project is graded/complete.

Instead of flipping a coin for such things, I roll a die. Lately, whenever I've rolled our 'special die', it has come up as a 6. This has happened with such frequency lately that the kids have been saying, 'It's going to be a 6' before I even roll.

Yesterday we were having problems with hallway talking during bathroom breaks, so I gave them a little motivation to stay quiet before we went out for our afternoon stop. As we were standing in the room I said, 'If I don't hear ANY voices in the hall during this break, I will roll the die twice when we get back. If it comes up '6' both times, we'll skip silent reading today and I'll give you 15 minutes of computer time instead.'

The strategy worked; didn't hear a peep during our break. When we got back in the room I was thinking, 'We really should get our silent reading in today. It's a 1 in 36 shot it doesn't happen though, so I should be safe.'

So they all sit down and I grab the magic die. I fling it across the room, it bounces off the wall and sure enough, it comes up '6'. You can imagine the cheer I'm sure.

So now I'm thinking, 'Down to a 1 in 6 chance. I'm still safe. Maybe.'

I fling it halfway across the room once again. Yep, you guessed it. Another 6.

 Imagine the cheer in your head. 

It was even louder than that.

Spending your days with 8 and 9 year olds is priceless.