Category: Celebrate This Week

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

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

I have had such a hard time getting to my blog lately. As I am getting back into a school year routine, I am working to try to carve out the time for everything I want to do. It doesn’t help that the school year always starts with super hot temperatures and humid conditions which make it hard to get through the school day in a building that is not air-conditioned. Since I now know that I have MS, the extreme fatigue at the end of a super hot work day makes much more sense to me. At the end of one of these days, the only thing I want to do is veg out on the couch and go to bed early.  And so, the first thing I am celebrating today is the fact that I remembered and made the time to write a blog post.

I have had a great week! 

On Wednesday, Liesl Shurtliff came to do an author visit at my school. I was super excited about this visit and so were the students! We loved her presentation and I know there will be a lot of kids reading both Rump and Jack this year. I know that I will be able to celebrate the release date of Red: The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood this Spring with many students at my school.  

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

This week was full of celebrations–big and little. 

Monday, my husband left for Spain to go visit his parents. I decided not to go with him this year, and it is hard. However, my celebration is that he had a safe flight. I also love the modern conveniences of being able to use the internet to communicate. We are able to use FaceTime to communicate and he doesn’t seem so far away.  

Tuesday, I had a meeting with my book club. I was so excited that we continued to meet for the summer. I continue to celebrate the fact that I took a chance and sent out a message and now I have a fun time with colleagues to look forward to each month.  Some of the teachers in this book club have been encouraged to start reading more which I am so glad about. 

Also on Tuesday, I had a massive fangirl moment. I wrote a Slice of Life post about seeing Dave Burgess speak. Then I shared the post on Twitter. Dave Burgess commented on my post! He also shared the link to my blog post and I had a lot more traffic to my blog. I was flipping out!  

Wednesday, I decided to walk to a local restaurant for lunch and then to the public library in my neighborhood. It was a pleasant day and I enjoyed the walk through the park. I saw so many kids and moms. I enjoyed my solitary walk and a delicious lunch. 

Thursday, I lost myself in a good book. I had packing and cleaning to do. I should have mowed the lawn before leaving town, but I sat and read. It was amazing. I love that I can have these kind of moments in the summertime with minimal guilt. 

Friday, I had two smooth flights with a nice layover in Phoenix. I arrived at noon and had a great day with my mom, my sister, and her family. 

Lastly, let me say Happy 4th of July! I am especially excited for this holiday this year because I traveled out to California to spend some time with my sister, her husband, and my two nieces. I am overlapping for a few days with my mother visiting them as well. It is so fun to spend this holiday with my family. When my grandparents were alive, the 4th of July was one of two times that we gathered the entire extended family for a party. It is nice to enjoy a holiday BBQ together this year. My older niece is 2 years old and she is such a busy toddler. It is so fun to spend time with her. The other one is 2 weeks old. Cuddling with a newborn is a special time. 

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

 

Every week is full of celebrations if you just look for them. Here are my celebrations from this week:

• A new responsibility at school of keeping up our web presence. I have wanted to take this over for a long time, but did not want to step on the toes of the person who was responsible. So, when he asked for someone to take over the job, I jumped at the opportunity. It is overwhelming to think of the work involved in getting the website updated, but I am really excited about the opportunity to be able to share great resources with our families. 
• My DonorsChoose project was funded in less than a week. I am excited to receive some great STEM materials next fall to beef up my Science instruction. I also will have some great tools for exploration and a small Makerspace in my classroom. Yeah for people who are generous in donating to classrooms! 
• Some good things happening for my husband…can’t elaborate yet.
• Measurements being done for a possible kitchen renovation. Still in the planning stages, but I can see the possibilities! 
• Given time to choose what they would like to work on, a number of my students chose to do another research poster. I love seeing the drive that some of them have. 
• The harmonious nature of our board game time on Fridays. It took all year to get to the point where students don’t abuse this time, but the last month of Fridays have been glorious. I love having fun with my students. 

This week I am celebrating…

A friend who will always be in our hearts and the good memories of good times with him. 

A student who persistently asks to read with me and her great gains this year in reading. 

A fun field trip to the local science museum to learn about water treatment and conservation. 

Students who have gone above and beyond for their final research project. I actually really put together this inquiry project as a way to keep them engaged in the last couple weeks of school. They have taken it and run with it. One student even asked her parents to buy her a presentation board and paint in order to have a great poster. I am looking forward to hearing their presentations next week! 

A fun week of math class. Finding angles in real world objects and classifying them on a group poster. Some of the angles they found are so fun! 

A weekend without any plans. Time to read and write and clean and relax. 

Finishing the ridiculous amount of paperwork that we now have to do in Wisconsin. A new evaluation system based on the Danielson framework seemed to me like a good idea until we were given requirements for what we needed to do for this system. I had to upload artifacts for evidence for all 22 components of the framework for my district requirements. The platform for uploading and tagging the documents is really unwieldy and difficult to navigate. I am so glad I have finished for this year! I am at the end of an evaluation year that was far from ordinary and I am glad it’s done. 

An anonymous donor that generously gave $100 to my project on DonorsChoose. 

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

This week has been a whirlwind of the particular chaos of this time of year. There is a ridiculous amount of paperwork, the kids are starting to look forward to summer and get squirrely, the weather plays with us in Wisconsin, and all the while all I want to do is sit on a secluded beach somewhere, relaxing. 

Finding small moments to celebrate seems especially important as my principal starts conversations about next year and most of the staff in my school turn to negative thinking. New leaders bring new ideas and change, which is needed. This is somehow threatening to a lot of the people on staff at my school. Therefore, my days could be filled with noxious clouds of negativity. But I am a positive thinker and I don’t let that get to me most days. On other days, it is this ritual of looking for celebrations that is my saving grace. I am most grateful for this weekly tradition. Even in the weeks that I do not write a post, I find myself picking up on the small celebrations and rejoicing in them. 

Things to celebrate this week:

1. One of my students got a new baby brother on Thursday night. We were excited when the office called to tell him that his grandma would be picking him up from school on Thursday. Sure enough, his mom was in labor and at the hospital. The new baby was born at 9:41pm so my student hadn’t seen the baby yet when he got to school on Friday. Boy, was he chomping at the bit to leave at the end of the day. I love celebrating this kind of good news with students!

2. On Wednesday, we had a local company come in to our school to volunteer. We do “JA in a day.” The employees of this company who volunteer in our classrooms come in and do a whirlwind day full of Junior Achievement lessons. We had two welders visiting our classroom. It is always a fun experience to hear a little about other people’s jobs. They always leave with a much better appreciation of a teacher’s job as well. 

3. I started going to Barre class at a local studio. This workout is killer and seriously challenges me, but I have loved every minute of it (once I actually am finished that is). 

4. I am looking forward to the summer and some great travels and conferences. It always starts to be much more real once the arrangements are being made. 

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

 

We traded in our old car for a fun, new Toyota Venza. It is so much fun to drive and I love the bluetooth audio that will pick up my phone’s audio player. I have loved being able to listen to my audiobook on the drive to and from school.

2. Professional Development opportunities: Last week, I attended EdCamp Milwaukee. I absolutely love the opportunity to hear about innovation in other people’s classrooms. I left with a head full of ideas for gamification, makerspaces, and tweaks to my genius hour time. I am also looking forward to SummerSpark, which is another conference in the Milwaukee area. I cannot wait to hear Dave Burgess speak! I was able to get on the website and register for my sessions this week and I know I will have a great two days there.  I also sent in my registration for All Write summer conference this week. I am so excited to drive down to attend that conference full of rock stars. I also can’t wait to meet people face to face!

3. Author Events:

I saw on Twitter that Jarrett Krosoczka was doing free virtual book talks on May 5th as part of the publicity for his new Platypus Police Squad book. We tuned in to see him talk and answer questions from classes all over the United States. This was such a cool and interesting thing to see. My students loved that they were able to see the author in real time.

We also had Jonathan Maberry visit our school on Thursday. The students were enthusiastic and listening with rapt attention as he spoke to them about his books and about being a writer. His new book The Nightsiders: The Orphan Army is a middle grade fantasy book. He also talked to the kids a little bit about his Rot and Ruin series. The graphic novel of Rot and Ruin just came out on Tuesday, by the way. The questions our students asked were amazing and I loved that we learned so much from this visit. I love being the person who is responsible for bringing this type of experience to our students. It is worth every extra second I spend on organizing.

4. Time with Family: In the last two weeks, we have spent more time with family. Two weeks ago, we participated in WalkMS with my parents, my uncle, my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. It is nice to walk in an event like that with the support of loved ones. Then, we went to my brother’s house for my nephew’s fourth birthday party. The day was spent surrounded by family and enjoying our time together. Then, last weekend, I had everyone over for Mother’s Day. I was happy to be able to cook a nice meal for my mother and to have another great time together. My nephew is such fun to be around!

An action shot of my nephew playing with my husband. Yes, that is me in the mirror. Not the best photography, but what can you do?

5. Winding down the school year: We have four weeks left to go. It is so close to the end of the year.  We will be sprinting for that finishing line as we cram in some more learning. My students are eagerly working on some inquiry projects that I hope will sustain momentum. We have finished all the testing and now we need to continue to learn, but also celebrate our time together. I have had a really topsy-turvy school year and I am looking forward to some time off this summer and a new group of students next year.

It has been a while since I sat down to write a Celebrate blog post, but that is not to say that I have not been celebrating. I love that this routine of writing these blog posts really made me much more aware of the small things I have to celebrate each week.

This week was a crazy one and I don’t think it will let up anytime soon. With the new Badger Exam (Wisconsin’s Smarter Balanced Assessment), and an administrator trying to catch up on evaluations and cramming in the observations, the craziness that is the end of the year is upon us.  All of the changes to our routine are a big thorn in my side since this group of kids is one that cannot handle it. However, we are handling it and I am able to stay less stressed out because I am finding things to celebrate each day.

Since I knew there was going to be a weird schedule this week, I decided to spend some time thinking about Earth Day using The Lorax. We read the book and watched the newer adaptation movie and compared the two. We spent time talking about how the Earth needs our help and what could be done to help. We made Truffula trees to go along with the Lorax students had made in art class. Then, two of my students took it upon themselves to make a poster to hang up with the artwork. We have a wonderful display and I love that these students took the initiative and ownership of the display.

My student council had decided earlier this year that they wanted to do a book drive. We threw it together with minimal planning and sent out flyers. We collected books for two weeks. It took longer for us to count them than we had originally planned, but we finally got a count done this week. In our school with an enrollment of about 600 students, we were able to collect over 2,000 books that will be donated to a community organization. I am super impressed with this result, and only slightly inconvenienced by the multitude of boxes of books in my classroom. (I would really love to share a picture here, but I am so bad at remembering to take pictures of things)

On Thursday, my dog had knee surgery. I am celebrating the fact that the surgery went well and she will hopefully not be in so much pain with the new fake ligament. Of course, right now there is more pain, but it has already gotten better which is another thing I am celebrating. (That first night was horrible) I also have to celebrate how cute the bandage is. I love that my vet matched the bandage color to the collar she was wearing.

This week, I had a former student come to school in a surprise visit. This particular young man was a very needy and very special young child. I taught him in first grade, then again in fifth grade, then again in eighth grade. I did this same pattern with many students, but none needed the calming influence of a stable adult so much as this boy. I was his fiercest advocate throughout his years at our school and he knew it. On the day of his 8th grade completion ceremony, he told me that he didn’t know how he would have made it through his years at our school without me. He is now a high school graduate with plans to go to college and wants to be an aerospace engineer. I was choked up to see how successful he seems to be. It was not always evident in his 8th grade year whether he was going to stay on the right path, so I am glad to see that he did. He came to school specifically to thank me again for the many years I worked with him to help him stay on track. It was a really nice surprise in a week that is full of stress. It is a reminder of why I do what I do.

My students are loving the read aloud of Rump. They beg me to read each day and then it is the most quiet in my classroom while I read. Since quiet moments are few and far between this year, I love that time even more.

Lastly, I want to celebrate living in a place in which we experience the four seasons in all of their glory. Our weather has been wonderfully weird in the last few weeks. It has gotten warm enough on some days to give us a glimpse of summer. Then, we actually had some snow flurries one day this week. I think it is wonderful to live in this kind of place because then when we have sunshine and warmth, we really know how to appreciate it.

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