SOL #4 Thankful for a Writing Community

I'm so happy that I dedicated myself to this Slice of Life Challenge.  So far so good. I've written everyday, have gotten positive feedback.  I've surprised myself. 
The challenge has also immersed me in the blogs of many writers.  Even though I have held on to the belief that to be a good writer, you must first be a good reader, I have not been practicing my belief.  I noticed and admired craft in others' writing and caught myself saying things like "I love how she meticulously described each person instead of listing the people in the cafe."
Different topics have struck a chord in me. I am going to write about that next.
So now I have this rebirthed knowledge that writers learn from other writers and I need to reflect on my own teaching of my fourth grade writers. 
Getting ready to embrace the Classroom Slice of Life Challenge, I googled some ideas about kids blogging.  Thank you Karen Arrington for your blog about table blogging.  Students are encouraged to comment on others writing on a table sized dry erase board. 
Using her ideas about how students can meaningful comment on each others writing, I encouraged my students to comment on each others opinion essays about colonial life.  The students were engaged and thoughtful.  Sharing after one student said, I noticed that my writing is not as long as others and I am going to try to include more details in my body paragraphs. Wow! What might have taken fifty mini lessons and seventy-two writing conferences, this student arrived at his own writing goal through this one experience.
Thank you for giving me this month to be reflective about what writers really do.

SOL #3 The Treadmill Calls

What makes you so daunting?
Why do I run and hide?
I bury myself under comfy blankets only poking my nose out for a slurp of hot coffee. 
I find projects and excuses once I emerge.
The guilt bubbles in my gut.
Once, I'm there I'm fine.  I mean, I'm not fine. I hate it. But I do it.
I promise, "Right after blah, blah, blah.."
Oh no. I just finished my coffee.
but this remodeling show has not shown the big reveal yet.
I should tweeze my eyebrows today.
What are the kids doing?
I have to go to the grocery store.
But, if I get ready to go to the store, I wont want to get all sweaty later.
I should get on the treadmill now.
In just a
few
minutes.

SOL #2 Marvelous Monotonous March

As a teacher, March is the month with no holiday breaks.  It is the long stretch of not winter, not spring. Weathered in my twentieth year, March has new appeal.  

I realize that this is the time of year that my students and I really get our groove on.  Expectations are habit, foundations are laid and we just dive into the work, bettering ourselves everyday in small easy increments.  The long month is a quiet time of slow and steady but happy, cozy and familiar.  Yesterday, the first of March, I should have started the day harried from a slightly, snowy commute. March miracles! Every single child was working on writing, or spelling or finishing up a math project.  The classroom volume was at the perfect decibel. I breathed.  I smiled.
After lunch, we snuggled down to conclude our read aloud, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, an annual favorite that has shaped me as a person and teacher and crowns each of my students. "Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia."
The day culminated with one of my struggling students receiving a classroom certificate to his total surprise and another struggler's work honored at a school wide assembly. Can I say it?  It was the perfect day in the classroom.
Today, I slept in, as much as a mother of a 6 and 7 year old boys can.  My husband wants to know what we want to do today.  This. Just this.  The boys made a fort of those jumbo, cardboard, building brick, blocks and inhabited it with army men.  I'm writing this and I'm still in my pajamas, coffee in a think cozy mug, enabling me to savor thick warm gulps that my weekday travel mug just can't deliver.
March is nothing special but everything just being.

SOL #1 February End Resolutions

Making resolution for the new year is so 2018.  I have just realized that I have made some promises to myself to begin at the end of February.
I've promised myself to make a commitment to writing everyday, getting back to healthy eating and getting my butt on the treadmill everyday.
I started getting myself healthier over the summer.  I committed myself to eating right, pushed myself to do cardio everyday and weight train twice a week.  Besides the weight training, the healthy habits have fallen by the wayside since the holidays.  Today, I went on the treadmill and set my alarm to wake up to do it again tomorrow.  My portions and choices of food were healthy today and my food is prepped for tomorrow.
Prepping myself for the week of teaching I came across Slice of Life challenge.  This is something that has intrigued me in the past but I never committed to it.  So here it goes with my first slice.
Why the gung-ho ness at the end of February?
Why not?
The winter is coming to an end and I can almost feel spring coming.  Perhaps I will be the crocus this year, the first to emerge.

I’m here to amuse you? #DWHABIT

I’m funny how? I mean funny, like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I’m here to amuse you? Whattya you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny?
I better be there to amuse them. If I don´t amuse them, I certainly will lose them. Could you imagine sitting through a 6 hour show that was dry and boring? As the one time assistant to a magician, I often equate my day as a six hour show. It is one hard gig.
The prep. It is the backstage work, the rehearsals, the set construction and costume design and it definitely is not long enough! I spend my time at home revising the day, the lesson, the conversation. There is Smartboards to create, animated gifs and text to download, fonts to chose and the best interactive venue to be chosen.

The different acts of my day must draw them in.  There must be action, suspense, drama, and certainly comedy.  I must also be able to read my audience.  Why are they here?  Are they invested or are they just here because they have to be?  How can I get them invested?  How can I get them to care about the show that Iḿ putting on?  How can I get them to see that they are not just the audience but the characters themselves.

Of course Iḿ here to amuse them.  They are children and they are here to have fun.  I just have to sneak the education in there.

Posssess or Not To Possess

In trying to increase my daily writing habit and the fact that Iḿ home sick and done binge watching tv, I thought I would embrace the challenge posed by Teach Write. The Word of the Day challenge is to eliminate the fear of the blank page. The word for today is possess.
The first thing I thought of was, ¨Wow! There are a lot of Ss in that word.¨  The next thing I thought of was Sarah McLaclanś song Possession. That song was constantly on the 5 disc changer during college.
More prevalently, as I look at the wrapping paper and gifts to be wrapped, I think about all the possessions that my little ones have.  TOO MANY!! There is too many possessions for them to keep track of, to clean up, to appreciate.  I think they have more toys then my 4 brothers and I had put together.  I ask myself is this a sign of the times?  Are we a society of possession hungry people.
I hear the news of the middle class having a hard time making ends meet, of Long Island homeowners being house poor and I wonder what have we created.
I remember driving around in a used station wagon.  Not us today.  I have a beautiful Ford Explorer and my husband has a Chevy Colorado.  We just did our house over, with new tile, new countertops, new siding.  I see something online and click! I buy it.  It cannot just be me that can confess this kind of spending and accumulating of possessions.
I drive about two hours a day and the majority of cars are new.  The expectation for a destination vacation is commonplace.  We are a society of possessions.
We just studied the Native Americans of New York and how they met all their wants and needs from the good Earthś natural resources.  While my students marveled at the idea of living such a way, I saw the beauty in the simplicity.  Iḿ sure their lives had their hardships but Iḿ sure they also had less need for Xanex.
I wish I could turn back the clock for my kids and help them appreciate having all of what they need.  I first need to get rid of my own possession addiction and Amazon account.

Craving Creativity and Starving for Structure

I have been so bored with my current writing curricular.  It seems that we are writing essay, after essay, after essay.  I laugh at myself though, because some years back when the pendulum was swinging far to the left brain, I found myself questioning the necessity of all the narrative writing.

I recently found The Art of Storytelling, a set of videos and exercises designed by Pixar in a Box through Kahn Academy.  My students who were lulled to sleep by the many lessons on paragraphing and editing conventions were awakened by these concise, quick, structured activities.  I incorporated the videos and activities into a Google Slide that the students can reference as many times as they want through Classroom.  One of my students, who normally avoids anything to do with the written word, asked if he could work on his idea over the Thanksgiving break. The project is designed for those wishing to make films but who knows, maybe the next film artist is in my class.