When Life Gives You Lemons, Squeeze in a Little Learning

Summer break equates to downtime and rest and relaxation for many of us.  Pool time, taking time for coffee, slushes, or lemonade, taking a class, running kids to activities or playdates, visiting your local library with a bunch of books in your arms - ahhh, sweet summer - when our time is (mostly) our own!!

Summer also means more time to explore professional learning.  These might be things we don't take the time to do during the year.  Let's face it, often the school year doesn't afford us the luxury of reading professional books or exploring new blogs or podcasts.  This is one of the things I love best about summer!

In June, I actually scheduled time to "meet" with an online book group to discuss a book we were all reading.  I was so excited to have this learning time set aside—and then life got in the way.  My daughter wrecked her car, our flights for vacation were delayed, a contractor we'd scheduled for some home repair work was available a month earlier than we'd planned, and I had a bout of pink eye (in the summer—who gets pink eye in the summer??).  All of these events prevented me from participating in my book study for two weeks in a row.  Life was giving me lemons, for sure!

Just how did I turn these lemons into lemonade?  By adjusting my attitude a bit to see the many unplanned episodes of waiting as chances to read, listen, and to learn!

Whether you read a professional book at the pool, listen to podcasts in the car while running errands, or catch up on your favorite blogs while waiting for a flight—there are lots of opportunities to use small snippets of time to expand your knowledge on a topic near and dear to your heart.

Author Donalyn Miller calls it edge time reading in her book Reading in the Wild, where readers learn to use even the smallest of spurts of time to get in a few pages with their current book of choice.

I think we can apply this same principle to LEARNING.  Here are a few ways I used small chunks of time found "around the edges" of bigger commitments to squeeze in a little summer learning just in the last week alone:

• read a blogpost while waiting for the spin cycle on washer to end
• read another blogpost while on hold with car insurance company
• caught up on new blogposts while waiting for a prescription
• read PD book reviews while waiting for paint to be mixed at hardware store
• listened to podcasts while painting a room
• read a professional book while traveling to airport an hour away
• listened to podcasts while waiting for flight
• read blogpost while waiting for Uber ride
• followed up on Instagram post book referral while in hospital waiting room 

Most of these examples involved waiting or trying to finish a project.  Instead of seeing these as frustrations keeping me from moving on to the next thing, I chose to see them as OPPORTUNITIES to learn - the old LEMONS vs LEMONADE debate.  I took these opportunities to squeeze in a little learning!  

Here are some of what I've been reading and listening to this summer:

• Relentless by Hamish Brewer
• The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers by Jennifer Seravallo
• The Creativity Project edited by Colby Sharp
• Our Story Begins edited by Elissa Brent Weissman

• Cult of Pedagogy podcast 
• Not So Wimpy Teacher podcast
• House of #EdTech podcast
• Mind/Shift podcast
• Edverything podcast

What are some of your favorite ways to squeeeeeeeeeze in a little learning (or reading) in the summer?

Grab this free resource to help you record you thoughts and learning as you listen to podcasts during your own "edge time" learning!  Happy listening and reading!

Lions and Shamrocks and Lambs - Oh, My!

 

Thanks for stopping by, and happy March to you!  Finally, March is here and that means spring can't be far off - we hope!!

If you've been here before, you know that we feel pretty strongly about {at least} two things:  regular writing for our students, and making resources to make life easier for our fellow teachers!   If one or both of those are also near-and-dear to your own heart, keep reading!


    ✅  Regular writing - 7 ready-to-print templates for March

    ✅  A FREE seasonal resource for your classroom

Our March Follower Free resource has four different shamrock writing options and three different in-like-a-and out-like-a lamb or lion templates.  Samples are shown here:

   

Your students can write about a lucky day, unusual or different lucky charms, and the March weather in your area - print the lamb and lion today and you have an easy writing prompt for this week.  Use the shamrocks now or in the coming weeks to make a cute bulletin board for St. Patrick's Day.

Different teachers use our monthly writing papers in different ways:

•   for a morning quick write,
•   or plan a lesson specifically around the themes for that month
•   use for early-finishers 
•   use as a writing station during literacy centers
•   differentiate by customizing your writing task specifically for your learners' needs

You can find writing papers for each month in our Teacher Pay Teachers store under the monthly custom categories.

If you download these and use them, be sure to tag us if you post a picture on social media!  We'd love for you to win a TpT gift card!

We'd also love to hear about other ways you build in opportunities for regular writing for your students.  Comment below and you might also win a TpT gift card!

How to Keep Your Sanity When You Have a "Latte" Kids Out Sick

© Prettygrafik

Welcome - we're glad you are here!  We've made a couple of freebies for you to help lessen the work involved when students are out sick.

 Have your students missed a LATTE of school due to colds, strep, and flu?  Has your family been able to stay healthy?  We have been hit so hard by the seasonal flu and strep going around!  We've had about 75% of our students out at some point during January and February—and not just for a day or two!  Most have missed four or more days, so we hope to celebrate having perfect attendance once again soon, let me tell you!

Does this sound like your class?  Want to know a little secret?  There's something we hate more than strep, the flu, or colds.  Are you ready?

Make.  Up.  Work.  Uggh!!

It's a pain to get it pulled together, and it's a royal pain to go through it all when it comes back.  Here is a little trick that lessens the pain a bit: color code the pages so parents know what is a higher priority to complete.  You could code them using a highlighter in this manner:

• yellow - must do, high priority (mustard, get it?)
• red/pink - catch up when you can, not high priority (ketchup or catsup, get it?) 

Another option is to color code the work according to what goes where when it is returned; just code the assignments by drawing a line with a highlighter at the top of the page: 

• blue for any work that needs to be handed back to another teacher (for example, a small group teacher or math teacher, if you switch classes)
• green for go (check quickly and send home)
• pink for stop (take time to grade)
• yellow for wait (if it's part of a bigger project and needs to be put away in a special place)

© Jessica Sawyer Designs

As much as we hate it, make up work is as much a part of this cold and flu season as Clorox Wipes, Kleenex, and hand sanitizer.

DONUT worry, we're here to help!  Today we're also sharing a simple page to help record assignments for absent students, and it's FREE.  You could even use the color coding strategies above on the boxes on this page.  And you might have guessed, we've used a donut and latte theme to make it at least a little fun for those poor sick students.  (Here's another tip—train your students to help with getting work out for missing classmates when they pull out their own materials.  They can even fill in the work on the recording sheet if you'd like them to.)

Some schools don't send home make up work, and if that's your situation, use this resource to keep a record of what students have missed and need to work on when they return.

Speaking of returning students, we definitely need to celebrate those days when we have all students in class.  We've created a few fun and festive PERFECT ATTENDANCE posters for you to use on your door or in your classroom to celebrate when everyone is present.  We've included several spring-y options as well as black/white options for those with limited color printing capability.

Use this link to grab your posters!

Enjoy—and good luck keeping your family and your class healthy!