Celebrate This Week Archives - Page 4 of 8

Celebrating Imagination 2/13

Field trips are always fun, but they are also the most stressful days for teachers. We worry about whether students will behave and be respectful to the educator at the destination. We worry about possibly losing someone or a kid having some sort of emergency while we are on the trip. We try to contain the unbridled excitement of the students all day. We also worry about what the parent chaperones might be thinking about the job we are doing keeping the students in check (at least I do). This week, on my field trip to the zoo, I had the chance to focus on fun rather than stressing out.

As I sat eating lunch with my students on our field trip to the zoo, I realized much more was going on than just a chance to learn about animals.

“Mrs. Payan, we found clues!” Nicholas was glowing with excitement and ready to tell me all about it.

“Yeah, first it was the way the peahen was following us, then the elephant gave us a signal,” Moises chimed in.

“Clues for what?” I innocently asked

“We’re not sure yet…look there is a birthday balloon. I wonder whether it is his birthday or if he is going to give it to someone. Oh! That’s another clue!” Nicholas stopped to take a bite of his sandwich and I turned around and looked where he had pointed. One of the zookeepers had a birthday balloon on his chair.

“That’s It! The animals are planning something. See, there is the peacock and he’s acting suspicious. They’re planning to get out,” Moises was letting the gears turn quickly in his brain. His face lit up and he became quite animated.

Now, Michael started to join in the conversation. “Yes. I knew it was suspicious when Christopher said, ‘Have a nice day’ at the end of our program. He was trying to keep us from finding out.”

At this point, I just sat back and continued listening. We had already had a zoo class about endangered animals and had a chance to see the big cats. We were eating lunch and then were going to head out to see as many other animals as possible before our bus came to get us. We had the cafeteria to ourselves, because it was a school day in the middle of February and super cold outside. My fourth grade students were incredibly hyper and excited about the opportunity to see all these cool animals. And this lunch time was a chance to take a small break.

I looked around the cafeteria and was full of pride about how well my students were behaving. It never stops making my heart sing to see the way these kiddos get along with one another. And now, I was listening to the most imaginative thinking in a place that I didn’t really expect to see imaginative play. As I listened to the mystery and the clues unravel at the lunch table, I took a minute to drink it all in.

Throughout the rest of the day, I heard one of the boys say, “another clue!” every once in awhile. Then, when we were back at school, the boys had the whole conspiracy figured out and told me the whole story (which unfortunately I do not remember to write it here).

I love how this regular field trip day turned into an opportunity for these students’ imaginations to run wild. I love a great mystery and I know these boys had an awesome day full of mystery solving. Now, I need to go find my copy of Chasing Vermeer to give them!

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

Celebrate This Week: Creativity, Innovation, and Teamwork 1/23

This week was a short week because we had Monday off for MLK day and then Friday was a teacher PD day so students had off. Unfortunately, all week I have been nursing a ridiculously awful head cold. So the first celebration for the week is the fact that I could call in sick on Friday and rest without having to make sub plans. I also love having a boss who understands that you are human and sometimes need to take sick days. I haven’t always had bosses who didn’t make me feel guilty when calling in sick.

My second celebration has to do with the community that has formed in my classroom. It isn’t perfect, we all make mistakes and some days I am ready to pull out all my hair with frustration because some students won’t stop talking, but this group of students gets along. I mean, they all get along. They work together no matter who I put in a group together. They help each other, they play together, we have a harmonious existence in our classroom.

I know that this community has been helped along by the rituals and routines that we have every day at school. We always do a morning meeting and often end up doing something silly together as part of the meeting (this idea is from Responsive Classroom there are many free resources on the website). We almost always recap our day and evaluate how we did today at school (this one came from Learn Like a Pirate which I highly recommend reading). We work together in groups and partnerships frequently. Our norms have been crafted together. We have agreed how we will treat each other and students will hold each other accountable for this respectful behavior. We read books together and laugh and feel sad together as the characters make their journeys through the novel. Our community is strong because of these rituals and routines, but it is also because of these amazing kiddos. They understood the lessons on growth mindset and they have run with them. I don’t have to do much damage control when I challenge them. I don’t have kiddos who break down in frustration and give up. They get it that this is the time that their brain is growing and that their learning is strongest. This is something amazing that I love celebrating each and every day.

Last week, we did a STEM challenge day. I have some kits that I got through a project on DonorsChoose (something else to celebrate). These kits are available from Lakeshore Learning. I gave students a choice between building a roller coaster in which a marble would continue to roll the whole time without stopping, building a structure that would withstand 20 shakes on the shake table, or building a grip that would pick up a ball from 12 inches away. We did very little preparation for it. I just gave them a pep talk about group work and reminded them that rock, paper, scissors is often a good way to resolve a conflict, and off they went. It was awesome! I was able to circulate and answer questions and offer pointers and they were working. No group had a conflict I had to intervene with. Only one group had someone I had to coach not to give up. At the end, one group building the structure failed gloriously and they all laughed about it…the boys in that group were the first ones to laugh. No one was feeling awful that their ideas had not worked. Everyone had an amazing time. And I started thinking about how to incorporate this type of challenge more often.

Although this is something we tackled last week, I am still celebrating. I know we will have this day to look back upon as the first of many days in which we built collaboration and celebrated our community of growth mindset learners.

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

Celebrate This Week 1/16

It’s Saturday 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.
I’m late to the party this week. I have MLK day off on Monday, so that has made me a little bit lazy this weekend. I love having the extra day to relax and reboot.

I loved this week! I have so many things that I am so blessed to have. I am so grateful for my wonderful life.

This week, the Student Council at my school, of which I am the supervisor, sponsored a Bully-Free week. The students came up with the awesome ideas and made sure that each day was successful. I was so proud of the group of 6-8 grade students for really stepping up and being leaders. The best part of the week was the fact that the Student Council went to classrooms of younger students to teach them a lesson about bullying. I got glowing reviews from teachers about how the students did. The kids loved it too. I think this is a great start to opening some doors and getting teachers of lower grades to give the middle school students a chance.

My students got a chance to do some STEM challenges this week. I had requested these STEM kits in a project on Donors Choose last year. I finally got them out and let the students have at it. They did phenomenal with it and really loved it. I am excited to work more of this type of challenge into my plans in the future.

This week, I continued to work on some of my resolutions for self-improvement. I am loving the morning routine and feel great about the way I am focusing on the things that really matter to me. The bullet journal is a great way to keep myself focused on productivity. I started the Whole Life Challenge on Saturday. I am excited to have this game to focus on some great daily habits.

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

Celebrate 1/9

This week I am celebrating the making of avid, voracious readers.

Coming back from winter break is always a little rocky. Students need to be reminded of the procedures and routines and it takes a little while for them to re-adjust to being in school. I was not so nervous this year about that new beginning. My group of students this year is just a great group of kids. They are kind and funny and they love to learn. I missed them over the break and was happy to see them again this week.

On Monday, the assistant who works in my classroom told me that her son has become a reading fiend this year in my classroom. She said he always liked to read, but this year he is devouring books. I LOVE to hear that I influence kiddos in this way.

Every other routine was a little bit shaky on Monday, but not independent reading. My students were able to sustain their reading for 50 minutes. I was trying to re-establish our Words Their Way groups and routines so it took a little longer than usual, but that didn’t matter to this class. I continue to be amazed at how engaged this group is in really losing themselves in their books.

On Wednesday, I was trying to get my Scholastic catalogs together so that I could hand them out to my students. I had not had enough time before our Art class to give them out, so I was working on sorting and stapling them during their Art time, which goes right up to the end of our school day. The catalogs were in 5 piles, 4 piles of separate catalogs and one pile of stapled together catalogs ready to hand out. When it was time to get ready and line up for dismissal, I turned around and saw a mob at my table. The students were so excited about the Scholastic catalog that they ignored what they knew they should be doing and created this mess trying to look at the catalogs. I couldn’t even be that mad at them because I was glowing with the fact that they were so excited about the catalogs.

Then, on Thursday, when I was going to hand out the catalogs, I decided to show them books that I would recommend. I got about halfway through showing them my recommendations when one of the students spoke up. Lucas raised his hand and very politely said, “Mrs. Payan, can you please stop spoiling it for us?” I didn’t get what he meant at first. I thought he meant that I was spoiling the books for them, so I immediately defended myself saying, “I’m not spoiling anything” to which he replied, “Yeah, you kinda are.” And then I realized he meant that I was spoiling their experience of looking through the catalog for the first time and finding the treasures that they want to order. So I stopped going through the catalog.

At the end of the day on Thursday, I stopped early so that I could give students time with the Scholastic catalogs. I knew that they would be looking at them instead of getting ready if I waited until our usual dismissal time. It was amazing when they had those five minutes to look through the catalog. They were clustered in little groups. Most had markers or pens in hand and they were circling and starring the papers. It was magical.

Thursday was also the day that I introduced reading partners. At the end of our independent reading time, I had students come back to our gathering space and tell their partners about a place that they were really envisioning the story. Every single partner group was completely engaged in discussing their books. I just sat there and soaked it in knowing that we still have half the school year to go and I know we will go far with our reading work.

My other celebration this week is the introduction of blogs. I had my students set up their blogs on Kidblog this week. We started by doing a paper blog experience and discussing comments. I showed the students my It’s Monday! post and the comments posted there. It was a good way to start the discussion about what makes a good comment. The students did the best job of any class I have worked with so far of putting meaningful comments on each others’ work. The best is when students want more post-it notes so they can leave more comments.

On Wednesday, the students were able to start writing on their blogs. Writing time this week has been focused and quiet and amazing.

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

Celebrate 1/2/2016

This week I am celebrating a nice two weeks of relaxing and rejuvenating. I have had a fabulous winter break and am ready to head back to work on Monday. I celebrate fun family times. We drove down to Savannah, where my sister and her family are now living, for Christmas. Then, we came back to Milwaukee just in time to drive through a winter storm and enjoy almost a full week relaxing at home. Here are some pictures that capture our days on the trip. Happy New Year to everyone!

My niece was super excited to ride on the trolley through Savannah.

My husband, Ramon, with the kid’s menu hat and our adult beverage at The Pirate’s House restaurant. Fun times!

Sometimes you end up with hilarious pictures when you try to force a pose. My mother did get a nicer picture with smiles for everyone, but this one is too funny! (And I am celebrating the smile on my mother’s face. It is hard being recently widowed during the holidays)

Someone is quite pleased with her Christmas haul, without even really understanding what is going on.

This is the best picture to sum up how yummy is the ice cream at Leopold’s Ice Cream

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and is ready for a fabulous 2016! What do you have to celebrate? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebrate This Week 12/12

My biggest celebration is just a fantastic week at school. Our classroom just seems to be clicking into place. We did the things that matter this week. My students sustained their independent reading and are finishing more books and thinking deeper about them. Our math times went well. Our writing times are fun and productive. We are all enjoying our days at school. Does it sometimes get crazy? Yes, of course. Do the students still manage to drive me nuts some days? Yes. However, the majority of my day is a pleasant and enjoyable experience. This is such a nice situation and it doesn’t always work this way. There are two things I did in the last two weeks that I think made a big difference.

First, I changed our morning schedule a bit to start our day with morning meeting instead of starting with quiet work and then doing the meeting. I think this focus on starting with our community has helped some students to center themselves during the day and to work on our shared goal of learning. This little change in our timing seems to have given us a more productive day each day.

Second, I have been working my way through the first Unit of Study for Teaching Reading. I am adapting it slightly since I already had my workshop pretty much set up. However, the language of the unit and the lessons about reading intensely are definitely helping my readers to focus. I need to improve in making sure readers in my classroom have goals that they are working on and keep track of. I also need to improve my record-keeping routines. The Units of Study are helping me with this because they give me the coherence in my teaching to help me get there.

The other fun thing at school is the holiday celebrations. We are doing some fun things as we approach the holidays, including a door decorating contest. It was really fun to brainstorm with my class and to come up with our idea. Yesterday, we spent a lot of the afternoon making the snowflakes and toys and presents and candy canes to put in our North Pole scenes. We also made some elves and Santa and Mrs. Claus. The students are so proud of our efforts and confident that they will win the hot chocolate party. It is a lot of fun!

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

Celebrate This Week 12/5

Come celebrate with us on Saturdays!

I have had such a difficult time making the time to blog this year. I could give it all sorts of excuses, but it really comes down to not deciding to put my butt in the chair and write. I hope to correct that and continue to write with more frequency in the coming weeks.

This week’s celebration includes a few things from other weeks in which I had the ideas but did not write them up. Better late than never, right?

First, I celebrate the creativity of my students. I had just finished reading aloud Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin and I wanted to put up a display of artwork. So I thought about it and decided to have my students depict scenes from the book in our watercolor project. They turned out so well! I was amazed also at the details that they decided to include in their art. I love that we have this shared book experience! Then, also there is the one piece of art that gave my colleagues and I a few chuckles after school (look at the pictures and you will see what I mean).

This is a tower with a thorny bush at the bottom, of course.

We have been reading The One and Only Ivan now. I love that one of my students made the connection between Mack and King Barf. We were talking about how Mack seems to only think about money and this student brought up this connection. It was followed with a chorus of “Yeah, I was thinking that too.” So fun to hear their thinking!

This is a carnation that one of my students brought me the day before Thanksgiving break. When I asked her what it was for she said, “because I love you.” So sweet.

In the middle of November, I had the opportunity to attend a day-long workshop with Lucy Calkins presenting about the Units of Study in Teaching Reading. Mind Blown! Of course, I immediately purchased the units and then read and reflected about my own classroom and the workshop environment I had created so far this year. The workshop and the things Lucy had to say really helped me to rethink some of the extras that I had been trying to do. I have started using the first unit for 4th grade, with some modifications since I already had some procedures and routines in place. I stopped trying to figure out how to work in other reading work to look more like other reading classrooms in my building. I lost a huge weight off my shoulders and we have started to sink into the work of reading intensely and deeply. I love it.

My district started something new this year with our calendar. We had teacher work days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It was awesome! I had a ton of time to rearrange my classroom and work on the never-ending work of sorting and labeling my class library. I am very pleased with the amount of work I was able to accomplish in those three days and I really like the new arrangement as well.

This week was full of amazing reading time. My students were able to sustain their independent reading time for 40-45 minutes each day. Even on Monday, which was the day after a week-long break for them. I am loving seeing most of the students really becoming avid readers.

In my personal life, I celebrate time with family and friends, a new fancy Kitchen-Aid mixer, fitting in regular workouts again, HGTV, and spring-like weather in December in Wisconsin.

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

Celebrate this week: Celebrating Everyday Life

This week I am celebrating a return to my normal, everyday life. October was a doozy of a month: my kitchen remodel project was in full swing, my stepfather passed away suddenly, I spent every weekend with my mom and sister to help take care of my nieces while my sister stayed in town with my mother, and through it all I spent most of the month sick with a cold and then a sinus infection.

This weekend I am looking forward to thoroughly cleaning my new kitchen, grocery shopping, cooking, doing all of the laundry in my new washing machine, sleeping in my own bed all weekend, going to TJ Maxx to shop for decor items, and having some time to myself. (And finally getting somewhat caught up with planning and grading maybe)

The biggest celebration I want to share is my new KITCHEN. Here are the before and after pictures. Please excuse the mess in the before pictures…I was working on packing things up at that point.

BEFORE

AFTER

I am absolutely loving our new space and I know we will enjoy cooking and eating in there for a long time to come.

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

Celebrate This Week 10/24

Things to celebrate this week:

Curiosity I got to go to the Madison Central Library with my 2-year-old niece. The building was completely renovated and the library Children’s room is awesome! It was so fun to follow my niece around as she explored the space. Since the library is a block from my Mom’s condo, she had already been there a few times and knew just what toys she wanted to play with. We also used the iPad that is set up for kids. She did an awesome job using the app Endless Alphabet and did these loud (sort of embarrassing) child cackles as she saw the app celebrating her correct answers. It was so fun!

Learning My classroom continues to be a place that makes me smile every day. I love the fact that this group of kids is so respectful of each other. We have fun with GoNoodle every day and the students are loving many of our learning activities. This week I showed them the fact that our desks are dry-erase surfaces. They LOVED being able to draw on their desks. I also introduced my logic games from ThinkFun and they enjoyed being able to problem solve with these puzzle games.

Doctors I was able to get to urgent care and not have to wait for very long on Thursday night. I am glad to have the antibiotics that will kick my sinus infection to the curb.

Family Out of our awful experience of losing my Stepfather, comes the opportunity to see and spend time with my sister and my nieces each weekend. I am heading to Madison again today to be there with my family and help out with babysitting for my sister to get some of her work done. We get to see them one more weekend before they head off to Savannah to start their life there. I am also looking forward to hosting the family for Halloween trick-or-treat in my neighborhood (and I will have the kitchen finished and ready by then if everything stays on schedule this week).

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

Celebrate This Week 10/17

This week was tough. Two weeks ago my stepfather found out that the reason he was feeling so sick for the last six months or so was because he had very advanced Cancer (either stomach or colon cancer). He was working to heal himself through his faith of Christian Science, which is why he had not had screenings or had not seen a doctor yet. We all reeled at the news and were thinking that we would have to cherish the last months with him. He had fluid removed and was eating and feeling a little better so my mom and stepbrother got their hopes up that they would have some more good times with him. Then, last Tuesday, he got really sick. They went to the ER and found out that it was a bowl perforation. There was nothing to be done. He passed in the middle of the day Wednesday. It was so quick and it was overwhelming. So, I started my week this week with a funeral on Monday. I celebrate the life of my stepfather and the many friends and family who loved him and love us and are supporting my mom and stepbrother in their time of need. I also celebrate the excellent care of the nurses at the hospital. The vigil at the deathbed of a loved one is so very hard. The nurses worked not only to take care of my stepfather in his last hours, but also to take care of us. It was very nice. I also celebrate the good work that funeral homes do. I can’t imagine having that as a career, but it is such a tough time for grieving families and they do such a good job of helping to take care of details. The funeral director that worked with us was so good at helping my mom and stepbrother through the process of decision making.

The rest of my celebrations seem so small in the face of this big event, but they have helped carry me through a tough week.

My sister and her family came to town to be here with the family. They are in the midst of their move to Savannah, so it was easier for her to stay here with the girls until their furniture and things arrive at their new house. She is going to be here until the end of this month and I am so happy about the chance to spend more time with her and my nieces.
The little tickle monster
My kitchen cabinets are installed. Counters come soon. We are seeing the light at the end of the remodeling tunnel and the kitchen is going to be so pretty!

Just a peek

My students got right back into the swing of things after one pretty rough day. They had a sub for four days and we all know that means mayhem when you return. It only took one day to get them back on our routines.
I only have a cough left over from the pretty nasty head cold I had all last weekend through Wednesday. I am glad it didn’t develop into bronchitis or sinus infection or something worse (knock on wood).
The assistant who works with me also happens to be the mother of one of my students. She told me the other day her son told her that teachers are like electricians. He said that since the neurons in your brain fire like electricity, teachers help that happen so we are electricians. What a great analogy! And I am glad that my lessons are inspiring this deep thought about how his brain works.

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