Andrea, Author at Mrs Payan Reads

Slice of Life: Positive Thinking

I am participating again this year in the Slice of Life challenge in which we write a slice every day in March. If you are interested in joining in, visit the Two Writing Teachers blog for more information.

It has been a long while since I have written on this blog. Coming back here to get started with my Slice of Life challenge, I stumbled across the beginning of a post that was started in August and never finished. It seems appropriate to revise my words and add my perspective at this point in the school year. I am glad for the reminder to celebrate!

I forgot what it feels like to be excited about my job. I have spent the last few years working to make the best of my situation rather than working to have an awesome situation. I worked hard in the last two years to find fun and engaging activities and to inspire readers and writers. I think I did okay at it. I can think of at least five students who started the year hating reading and writing and ended the year loving both. That is success when you are talking about changing mindsets of 8th grade students. The majority of the students became better readers and realized that reading can be fun. My students all wrote novels for NaNoWriMo and maintained blogs. They all figured out how to write better and how to find enjoyment in that writing. These were also successes.
However, I didn’t take the time to celebrate these things. I focused on the negative. The students who continued to fake read and barely write. I let them get to me. I went against my nature and fell down the rabbit hole of excuses for their behaviors. I let myself be influenced into complaining about that which I could not change and not focusing on the good things happening and the ways that I could change some things. This had to do with internal and external factors alike: some toxic influences, a negative pattern in my thoughts, a boss who tended to be negative, etc.

This year, I am surrounded by positive thinking and good attitudes. I am conscious of the need to find celebrations even in the weeks that seem impossible to get through. I have changed my perspective and I enjoy my work again. Part of the issue is the ability to work with the age group that I most enjoy working with. After working at many different levels, I am convinced that every teacher has an age group that is the most natural fit for him/her. Mine is middle grades. I am so much more myself when working with 4th graders than I was when working with 1st graders or with 8th graders. I can be myself and love my students and get hugs and drawings and notes that make me smile. There is so much more energy in my step, and I have so much more energy to give.
Does that make my workplace perfect? No. I still struggle this year with students who are incredibly chatty and some that are just not very nice to their peers. I still have a few students who choose not to be convinced that reading is a good thing to do. I have a lot of students who don’t really know how to be polite…they need my guidance to help them learn what is respectful and what is not. I have a hard time getting through my whole lesson because there is little impulse control in this group and I get interrupted. Every. Single. Lesson. However, my ability to continue to plug away and to try to make this year a great one for my class is directly related to my change in attitude. I have lifted a weight of negativity off my shoulders and this makes it easier to persevere.

The power of positive thinking is mind-blowing and I am so glad I have rediscovered this power.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/23

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

I did not finish any books because I am reading too many at once.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am listening to Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge. I really like the story and I am curious about how it will turn out in the end. I love how imaginative this retelling of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is. I am also reading Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman, which is every bit as fascinating and intriguing as Seraphina. Another amazing story world that I am visiting is Laini Taylor’s world from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. I am reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters and as much as I love this book, I am missing the audiobook narration. I listened to the first two books and loved the narrator. I also have a couple of professional books that I have been reading.

What’s Next?

I have The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up on my shelf and it is due back to the library soon so I will probably pick that one up in the next day or so. I also just got The Marshmallow Test from the library and it sounds really interesting. Other than that, I don’t know. It will depend on whether I make it through the books I have already started.

What are you reading this week? Do you have any suggestions or recommendations for me? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebrate 2/21

It’s Saturday morning and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by the host Ruth Ayres’ blog to read others’ celebrations.

This week I have a lot of small celebrations to share.

Monday was a day off for us for President’s Day. I enjoyed having the extra day off because that meant that I could actually have a weekend without having to worry about working on Saturday and Sunday to be ready for my week.
I changed up how I am doing my math lessons so that I work with half the class (or fewer) at a time. My students are just so chatty that we can’t get through what needs to be done when I have all of them in the gathering space. I am lucky enough to have a Chromebook cart at my disposal so they get a good mix of teacher-led instruction and practice on the computer using Khan Academy or Compass learning Odyssey. I feel like so many more students learned so much more this week.
We started a new routine of making a weekly goal for reading, math, and behavior. I remembered to have them make the goal and I remembered to have them rate themselves on how they did toward achieving their goal.
On Thursday, it was frigid outside. We should have had a Cold Day off from school. With temperatures on the thermometer of -11 and wind chills of -29, our school district got a lot of complaints for not calling it. About half of my class made it to school that day. It was a nice relaxing day for all of us. We did a lot of learning, but were able to have some fun as well.
Friday, everyone was in class and everyone had a lot to say to one another. I ended up sending a few kids out for time-outs in other classrooms in the afternoon. One student, who I thought really did not care for my class, wrote me the sweetest apology note. It really made me step back and reframe some of what I have been letting myself think lately. These opportunities to adjust your perspective do not always come up and I am thankful for this one.
The staff book club is up and running. We have our first title selected and will meet at the end of March to discuss it. I am so glad I put the idea out there.
Last, but certainly not least, the middle school dance last Friday went well and the kids had fun. My student council did their part to make the night fun for everyone as well as a great fundraiser for us.

What do you have to celebrate? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/16

Books I Finished This Week:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a really engaging book. I read it almost in one sitting and had a hard time putting it down. A post-apocalyptic world that sounded scary realistic to me. What would happen if there were a deadly flu that acted so quickly? What I loved about this book was an inherent message that performance and music and art matter and can be very important for people. I love that the author shows us a bleak world but gives us hope at the same time. I highly recommend this book.

Nnewts is the first book in a new middle grade graphic novel series by Doug TenNapel. I thought the story was intriguing (and somewhat weird) and I am sure my students will like it. The use of color in this graphic novel is especially striking. I would recommend this one for grades 4 and up.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a very interesting book. I found it to be sort of a mix between Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, but definitely for adults with the situations and language for mature audiences. I found myself really disliking the main character by the end of this book. I was a little surprised at how dark everything got toward the end as well. I know that this is the first in a trilogy and I am interested in reading the rest of the series. I only hope I will be able to start liking this character again.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am still reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters and Shadow Scale. I started listening to Cruel Beauty and so far it is intriguing. I also dipped into Mortal Heart.

What’s Next?

I have some professional reading to do this week so I am not sure I will get to much more than what I already started. We shall see what the week holds.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/9

Books I Finished This Week:

I finished listening to Death Cloud (Young Sherlock Holmes #1) by Andrew Lane. This was a fun mystery. I will definitely look for the other Young Sherlock Holmes books after reading this one. What a nice, light read!

That is all. The problem with reading multiple books is that you make progress in all of them but don’t finish very quickly.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am almost finished with The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I am also reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor and Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman. Both are really amazing story worlds that I am glad to visit again.

What’s Next?

I have a pile of books from the library and will probably have to return some before getting to them. Too many ambitious hold requests. I also have a few titles from NetGalley that I want to get to soon. I would like to improve my percentages there for giving title feedback. I am really looking forward to Read Between the Lines by Jo Knowles.

I am very much suffering from the too many books, too little time syndrome. I really want to be able to stop time whenever I want so that I could have some guilt-free reading time.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a great reading week.

Celebrate This Week! 2/6

I am not always consistent with writing these blog posts, but I am so grateful for this community because I do always think of reasons to celebrate. Having the habit of writing this type of blog post has transformed my thinking and I am able to be more mindful and step back to appreciate it when things worth celebrating pop up. Last week, I did not blog about it because I was at a conference, but I did make a nice list of celebrations in my planner. I will share a couple of those celebrations here along with this week’s list.

First and foremost, I celebrate the fact that I feel healthy and have been feeling healthy for the last couple days. It has been a while since the last time I could say that. Now, fingers crossed that I will be able to stay away from all the nasty bugs that are still circulating out there.

Second, I celebrate my wonderful husband who has been doing extra shares of all the work around the house as I have been feeling sick. This was especially apparent on Sunday when he had to go out to shovel 12″ of snow by himself since I was coughing up a lung. He does this extra work with only an occasional complaint. I am so lucky!

Last Friday, I was given a free Chocolate Croissant at Starbucks for National Croissant Day. Who doesn’t love free pastry???

A former student has been regularly volunteering at school and I have really enjoyed some conversations with him. I loved talking about his decision of which college to go to. It is awesome that he had multiple acceptances and could choose among the great universities he had applied to. We also talked about his ambitions for medical school and I was able to give him a little bit of insight because my sister is a doctor. I just really enjoyed that conversation.

My classroom is a chaotic, loud, and fun-filled space. I am frequently at the point of pulling out my hair with frustration at never getting through what I need to get through because of talkative and energy-filled kids. One of my favorite times in the week, however, is our board game time on Friday afternoons. In my classroom, this time is our community-building time. No one is excluded from this time. Every one of my students is allowed to participate and play in order to help them all be able to get along. This is one of the noisiest times of the week, but I can just stand there for a moment and observe groups of kids cackling and giggling and getting along. They play with other students they might not normally play with, they talk, they teach each other the game rules, and they have fun together.

I switched my schedule around and I am so happy I did. We are able to do so much more with our longer literacy times and math works so much better in the morning for me. One of the best things about the switch is the way I was able to work a few new routines into our day.

We have started to read the Wonder of the Day on Wonderopolis each day. My students have fun making predictions based on the teaser about what the next Wonder will be. I love that they are getting a solid example of informational writing every day.
I also started doing Sacred Writing Time every day. I bought the slides from Corbett Harrison to make my life easier and we jumped into this routine. I am so excited about how this has started. I explained it to them the first day and started my timer and it was silent and they were writing. (My jaw hitting the floor didn’t make a sound) I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get them to just write. Every day for two weeks now it has been completely silent in my classroom for that 10 minutes of quiet writing. Every day there is an audible groan when the time is up. Every day there is a clamoring to be one of the lucky ones to share. Every. Single. Day. I am celebrating this excitement about writing. I am reenergized by their excitement. I am loving my chance to write for 10 minutes with them and to share my playful entries.
We worked again on building stamina for independent reading. Some of my students had fallen out of good habits and into bad habits. This week we got back on track.

The excitement for the book box to arrive this week was amazing! I am so happy that my students have that book love that makes us ecstatic at the sight of new books.

I sent out an e-mail to see if I could drum up interest in a Staff book club this week. I was really amazed at the amount of interest from my colleagues. We really need to build up the reading culture at my school and I am so excited to take this step to helping that happen.

Last, but not least, I celebrate co-pay assistance. My district decided this year to switch our prescription drug coverage to a new provider. In the past, this would barely have been a blip on my horizon because it really didn’t change the price for the medications we get at Target pharmacy. However, my specialty MS medicine went from a $50 a month co-pay to over $500 a month because of the change. Luckily, the pharmaceutical company that makes the medicine has an assistance program to help people afford it. With co-pay assistance, I only have a minimal payment to make. I am thankful for this program so that I can continue to take this medicine that seems to be working well for me.

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a wonderful week.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/2/15

Once again, I have gone too long in between blog posts. I swear I will get back into the swing of things soon.

Since the last time we saw each other, I have read some great books. I will include all of my books from the last few weeks since some were quite long so there are not too many.

Books I Finished:

I am not really sure what to say about this one. It really caught my attention and I was intrigued by most of the book. However, I think there are some parts in the last half of the book that were not necessary and sort of made the story drag. A book this long inevitably will have some extra content and a few slow spots. Overall, this was a good read and the story really made me think about right and wrong. There are a lot of people in this book making bad decisions, but are those people bad people? It is interesting to contemplate the answers to this.

I got Queen Sugar on NetGalley because I was intrigued by the book description. This is another book for adults. I really enjoyed the story of this woman who moves to the South because her father leaves her a sugar cane farm. She grew up in California and does not know the first thing about running a farm, much less the way things work for African Americans in the deep south. She is living with her grandmother and struggling to learn what she needs to learn in order to save her inheritance from her daddy. The story really captured my imagination and I enjoyed learning more than I knew I wanted to know about sugar cane production. I was impressed by the way the racial tensions were woven into the story and present without being something that hit me over the head–very thought-provoking! I highly recommend this one.

This is a fun and quick read for middle grade students who are interested in science. I thought the whole time I was reading it about one of my students and I can’t wait to get this book into his hands. Jon Scieszka is hilarious and this book does not disappoint!

LOVED this one! Maggie Stiefvater is a genius. I can’t wait to find out what happens next in this series.

I got this one from Netgalley as well. It is coming out later this month. I really enjoyed this fantasy. I will be very interested to see where the next book goes with the story. I would recommend this one for teens who enjoy fantasy series. I like how there is a little bit of a love plot without it really being a main storyline. The world in this book is really interesting and I love the premise.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I started The Magicians by Lev Grossman and am loving it so far. I also am reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters. I listened to the first two books so reading this one is a different experience. I am glad I listened to the audiobooks for the first ones, because the narrator is amazing and I also know how to pronounce the weird names in the book.

What’s Next?

I still have my ridiculous pile of books from the library plus a bunch of galleys to read. I will be choosing mostly by due dates.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebration 1/24

Join in the celebration at www.ruthayreswrites.com or share on Twitter #celebratelu

I am cautiously optimistic about the change in leadership at my school. We all were nervous about this really messed-up situation. A higher-level administrator in Central Services was demoted and placed at our school. This bumped out the Assistant Principal who was acting as Principal for our school. We were all upset about this change because we really loved what the Assistant Principal was doing. She was moving us in a great direction. At first, they were going to take this person away from us and bring in the other person. Then, they changed their minds, due in part to pressure from parents, and left her at our building along with the new person. Now, we have two really strong administrators. It seems to be going well. The few things I was worried about don’t seem to be happening. Our school is transitioning well and I think we will continue to move in the positive direction that we were moving in.

The last two weeks, my niece had her first dance lessons. My sister has been sending me videos and pictures of the class. It has been lighting up my day to see the joy that is in the room with all those toddlers learning to dance. Plus, the tutus!!!

The ridiculously miserable cold that has been hanging around me all week seems to be getting better and going away. I don’t have as much congestion this morning. Maybe I will actually be able to get something done today!

Friday was record day for us at school. I was able to clean and organize my classroom. I also put together the cart I bought from IKEA. I bought it so that I would have a place for my document camera. It fits perfectly. It is going to be so much better for me. I know I will be using the camera more frequently now.

I talked to the new principal and got permission to rework my class schedule. I had been following a master schedule that was given to us by the principal with whom we started the year. I am super excited about flipping my schedule around because it will give me more time for literacy. I have been trying to fit everything into a too-packed morning and falling short.

My husband and I have been watching Friends on Netflix. It is so fun to watch the show. I can’t believe that it already was 20 years ago that these episodes were airing for the first time.

My package from Erin Condren arrived on Wednesday. I bought a package they put together for New Years. I can’t wait to start using my new colorful budget planner and health journal. I also bought some pretty address labels. I know it will make my day to use those labels. Yay for pretty stationary!

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 1/12

Books I Finished This Week:

Rick Riordan is a genius at what he does. I have loved every single one of his books, and The Blood of Olympus is no exception. I really admire his ability to write about these really difficult issues and violent battles while keeping the book appropriate for middle grade students. I love how much I learn about Greek and Roman mythology and I absolutely love the characters. I highly recommend all of his series for anyone grade 4 and up.

Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sachar is a science fiction thriller for middle grade students. It will be published this summer and I will definitely be buying a copy for my class library. The author brings out environmental themes and the price that we sometimes pay for scientific progress. I think kids in grades 4-6 will be riveted by this book.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I started reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and am still reading El tiempo entre costuras. I also started listening to a Young Sherlock audiobook.

What’s Next?

There is a ridiculous pile of library books on my shelf right now and I will try to get to at least one or two of them. I have Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Dreams of Gods and Monsters, The Magicians, Mortal Heart, The Winner’s Curse, and The Treatment in that pile. I also have a few titles from Netgalley that I would like to get to. My percentage of feedback to requests is really dismal so I want to do better with that. I somehow keep picking up these ridiculously long books, which makes the number of books I can actually finish much smaller. *sigh*

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a wonderful reading week!

Celebrate This Week 1/10

Join the celebration by linking up at www.ruthayreswrites.com or just visit and read the great celebrations!

This week was all about the temperatures outside. Our entire week was below zero and wind chill advisories. My biggest celebration this week is the extra two days off I got from the cold weather. I was happy that my district chose to close because the extremely low temperatures are so dangerous for the low-income students who don’t have appropriate outerwear. Also, the other days this week were so low in attendance that it was pretty hard to do anything that I had planned.

I had an awful headache and am now pretty sure I have a sinus infection. I was so glad for the days off to rest and recuperate without having to make sub plans.

I also want to celebrate the new year and the reflection time that comes with this time of year. I had a great time writing my blog post about my favorite reads of 2014. I am looking forward to another great year.

My 2015 resolutions:

Continue to lose weight using the digital tools from Weight Watchers and my Fitbit. My ultimate goal is to lose 60 pounds.
Read one classic novel each month.
Get organized with my budget and set financial goals that I am working towards.
Continue to read voraciously without getting too obsessed with it.
Take at least 10 minutes each night to reflect on my day in writing.
Write at least 1000 words each week.

What do you have to celebrate? I would love to hear from you in the comments and I hope you have a fabulous week!