Motivational Lovies

As a teacher, it is my responsibility to instill knowledge in the minds of crazy interesting sixth graders.  And, as well all know, the only way to determine if I am teaching them is to have them take a big hour and a half long test once a year.  This ninety minutes of work completed by people with their own attitudes, perceptions, and lack of literacy skills will determine if I am good at my job. Sweet.
So, in order to bribe encourage them to do their best, my school does a lot of different things.  Namely, yelling at them.  I happen to take a different approach: sucking up to sixth graders.  Over the course of the next week, my students will be fed breakfast (by me), given pencils, stickers, and the like.  But my favorite thing to give them is a Lovie. 
I was first introduced to them when my brother's kindergarten teaching assistant left in the middle of the year and she gave them Warm Fuzzies upon her departure.  She also gave me one; I walked him to his classroom every day.  I always liked that Miss B.  I made them my first year teaching for my fourth graders and now I am making them for my sixth graders.  When I offered my fellow teachers a chance, they declined.  Thus, I am making them for all 85 kids!  Woot!

The original design... with the first skein of yarn.

Here they are.... in all their purple yarn (which I am allergic to) glory!  This allergy was determined on the 78th-ish lovie, when I was covered in hives.

The ones with feet and bows are for my homeroom ladies... and the puff balls with eyes are for all of my science kids. NOTE: Attila was helping me model by adding color contrast from his tail!

You have to admit, pretty darn cute.  Are they cute enough to encourage you to read all the answer choices? We shall see.

A sea of little purple lovies starting at me!

I will be curious to see how this next week goes!  My prayer is that they try on these tests; the pressure is on the kids and the teachers.  It is truly unfortunate what we are putting kids through to test our schools - but that is a soapbox for another day!