school traditions

This month, and I'm already a little late, but the Compelled Tribe is writing about traditions. I was racking my brain trying to figure out what to tell you about that was a tradition at my school, and then next thing I know I was sitting in our annual Veteran's Day Assembly and my heart was happy. Our whole district celebrates Veteran's Day in a big way - at each school, each with art, and songs, and writing, all to honor the Veterans in our community!

There are so many people involved with planning the event. Our art teacher has the kids make all kinds of art to use to decorate the gym.

Our local Boy Scouts post the colors and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. This is followed by the choir who sings the National Anthem.

One of our fifth grade teachers created a slide show that ran throughout the assembly. This slide show listed the names of Veterans in our community - by relation of teachers, staff, and students. It's such a nice touch to add to our assembly, and we're so appreciative of all the time and effort it takes to create it! Thank you, KS!

Our Assistant Principal, up there in blue, was our Master of Ceremonies, leading us through all the various songs and traditions throughout the show.

My favorite part is the singing! Our choir, led by our music teacher, did this mash-up of two great songs. Kids singing patriotic songs always gets me!

Then, each of the grade levels sings a song. Here, fourth graders sing Fifty Nifty while the younger kids look on, wondering how they can remember all those states, and in alphabetic order, too!

And of course, we honor the Veterans who join us for the assembly. Some years, the students who invited them give them a special pin. Every year, they stand to be recognized. Towards the end of the assembly, we play Taps, too.

I love that our traditions teach students about our country - not just that we have a day off for something called Veteran's Day, but also why we have that day off, and who it is for. It's so awesome to see the arts and literacy practices collide for an authentic celebrations of our American heroes.

What traditions does your school keep?

Please leave a comment and share!

bulletin boards & our staff lounge

Hi all! I'm back, coming at you from the end of our first day of school. It was a great day!

I wanted to share about our staff lounge that I've been working on - wanting to turn it into a relaxing place to hang out and have fun with teaching friends at lunch. The first thing I started with was a new bulletin board.

At our school, we use Responsive Classroom. One thing that all students are prompted to do each year is to think about and write down their Hopes and Dreams. So, as a staff, we did the same. Inspired by some art I saw in a yoga studio, I created the bulletin board below with our Hopes and Dreams:

The board is just some twine pinned up and the each staff member wrote their hopes and dreams on a white tag:

Here are some of the hopes and dreams our staff shared:

"That my team continues to grow and we become a strong, cohesive team. Also that my room becomes a strong community."

"My hopes and dreams for this year include making considerable gains with my students this year while maintaing a balance within my personal life for relationships, spiritual growth, leisure, and physical/mental health."

"My hope is to create a positive, collaborative environment where all enjoy coming to work each day."

and here's mine:

"I hope to empower teachers and staff as we collaborate towards authentic reading and writing lessons."

What's cool about this display is that in the winter, we will add on: Let Go and Look Ahead:

Blue Tag: Let go - Teachers will give themselves permission to let go of something from the fall

Green Tag: Look ahead - Teachers can set a goal for what's coming up

And then in the spring, we'll add on another tag, perhaps in reflection of the year.

A great display that grows throughout the year!

Another awesome part of our lounge is our Pinterest Board that Jennie put up last year. Stuff on it is funny stuff - our laminator is really broken, and then just some jokes that arise out of lunchtime conversation. I hope to continue to add to it throughout the year, and I hope our staff does as well!

And finally...

I've been obsessed with Buddha, and picked up this cheap little statue at TJ Maxx yesteday. Then, the quote that I always keep front and center in my mind so I can keep things positive.

Teaching is a lot of work, so taking time around noon to hang out with friends and gossip about The Bachelor and share about new recipes or catch up on personal lives really does improve the school culture.

Do you eat in your lounge? Did you help decorate it? Please share!

what I'm loving wednesday

Today's a great day friends, it's What I'm Loving Wednesday! Would you like to write with me? Just compose a list of all the things you love and then link up below!

❤ a Political Revolution
Who is Bernie Sanders?

• Never ran a negative political commercial.
• Raised 1 1/2 million dollars in the first 24 hours after announced he was running and has 175,000 people working for him on grassroots.
• Wants to make it a democracy again, rather than having all the billioinaires buy the elections (Supreme Court's ruling on Citizen's United)
• Too big to fail means too big to exist - Break up the banks.
• Wants to guarantee single-payer healthcare.
• Believes in quality education in America - affordable for all, no matter what your SES.
• He wants to beat the Koch brothers and billionaires.
• Stand together - all of us - all races, religions, genders - to make a political revolution happen.

Watch more below. Follow him, tweet him, publish him to facebook. Get registered to vote for him in the primary. Do your part to elect the man who speaks for all of us, not just the Billionaires!

LOVE LOVE LOVE

❤ Hand-Crafted Writers Notebooks
Make your own, friends. Make one for your self, make your students make their own. I love mine and want to fill it up! Love Jennie's, too!

Side note on my hypothetical dog: I asked my landlord if I can get a dog even though his policy is no dogs. He's solid on that no. So.... idk when Dudley is going to be a reality :-( Don't you love how Duds has his own category here on BigTime Literacy but he's not real? That pic is from Google!

❤ My funny new friend
I don't have a picture of her yet (Erika, I want one. I hope that's not creepy?!) But she's funny. Here's just a bit:

Principal of the elementary school we're working at stops by and was talking about his teachers observing each other. He tells us, "Yeah, so then I encourage them to go visit the reading specialists, too... watch them in action and the pacing and the program, it's amazing!"
Erika, in this voice she does, "Yeah, they are pretty great." (I can't do this justice without her tone, voice and body language, but it was hilarious!)

Erika on the cookies she baked: "Not only am I a fantastic Reading Specialist, but a great baker. These chocolate chip cookies, made with vanilla pudding power.........and love."

You need to go follow her blog. She's exploring writing with her funny voice in one of her upcoming posts, because, as she wondered aloud to us earlier, "I'm funny in person, and you all take me seriously...? Riiiiiight?" Yes, we do!

Love!

❤ Writing Blast (Rehearsal Strategy)
2 minutes at the beginning of workshop. Give your class a word. They write words and phrases about this word for two minutes. If and when they cannot think of another association, they rewrite the word until they get something new. Here's the one I just did:

Change

change - hard - takes time - change - change - change diapers - messy - smelly - then fresh - rebirth - alive - smiles - change - change happens - back and fourth - pendulum swings - change - change - change - change - cambiar - dual language - best for kids - enlightening - duality - good to great - Dr. Mary Howard - Twitter Chats - PD on Demand

Some tips:

1. Use a multiple meaning word (I didn't go to they money change, but others did!)
2. Make sure it's just free association words and phrases and don't stop!

I have lots of ideas of more stuff I can writing about, and some figurative language is percolating in there!

❤ Sleeping with the windows open
It's just blissful. Cool breeze blows through, sun seeps in when morning comes, leaves dance and cast calming shawdows in as I wake up, love, love, love it!

❤ this Swatch sprinkles watch
There's another girl in our class, Michelle (awesome name, right?), who has great style with this watch below. I want it. It's perfect for casual days and it's sprinkles! It's like calorie and toxin free cupcakes all day!!!

Get the details for this challenge here!

An InLinkz Link-up