A Teacher's Wish

This year there seemed to be a common theme in several of the novels we read together - wishing. We analyzed our characaters' wishes and learned: Wishing helps you hope. Wishing doesn't make things come true. Wishing things for others shows you care about them. 

As we read our last read aloud, I Wish You More, together as a team, I began to think about my wishes for my students. Many of my wishes are for the future of my students as many I will not see again for several years if ever again. I want them to have new teachers and experiences that challenge and change them. I hope that some of my wishing on acorns, stars, and flowers will bring my students some good luck in the future.

A Teacher's Wish

To my students

I wish you more
good days than bad.

I wish you more magic
and mischief
than repetition.

I wish you more stories
and love and laughter
than the boredom of being
alone.

I wish you more challenges
than easy answers. 

I wish you more books
than I could ever buy.

I wish for you to stay
readers, creators, and believers
no matter how old. 

Celebrating Our Reading

As the end of the year starts to feel more real, it's important to stop and celebrate all the good that's happened in the year. I know it can be hard with parties and stir crazy students, but it feels amazing to stop and reflect on all the great things happening that just feel routine at this point.

Something, really important in my room is celebrating our reading successes. The initial idea came from Donalyn Miller's Reading in the Wild. We didn't compare goals because we're all different readers. For some a HUGE reading success was reading 10 books this year, for others it was reading 79, 87 or even 104 books.  We counted any books they wanted. Some students included picture books as well as novels - other kids wanted their count to be strictly novels. I told them that all reading is valuable and worth celebrating - so we did just that.

We took 20 minutes of class time and made our awards (I made one too! I read 61 books this school year) and then we went outside to capture this memory! If I've done my math correctly, we've read over 2,000 books this year! The best part for me is that you can't pick out my students that told me they were non-readers at the beginning of the year - because they are all readers now. Thanks impart to a growing classroom library, Mock Newbery book club and some of my at-times-relentless-crazy book loving nature.

I'll print these as 8x10s and hang them in my classroom next year. I really wish I had started this tradition 11 years earlier. Hopefully, it will become a new tradition of readers celebrating and looking up to other readers. We also had sixth very dedicated readers complete the 40 Book Challenge and step outside their reading comfort zones this year. #BucketFilled

We also wrote Farewell Letters today. Each student wrote a reflection to his/her homeroom teacher. They could reflect on the year, their favorites/not so favorites, and even share their summer plans. These letters were truly heartfelt and amidst the crazy of our party today, it made me realize just how much I'll miss this group of students.

Paper Doll Activity

Need an end of the year lesson???

Every year for the past several years, we've had our students create "paper doll" versions of themselves at the end of the year. It's always the time of year when you need something to do and aren't quite sure what to fill the time with. A few years ago, we saw another teacher (Shout out to Mrs. Brewer!) creating paper dolls with her team. Our team decided to borrow the idea and now it has evolved into a time honored team tradition!

We begin by reading a book to the students. We've read Is there Really a Human Race? by Jamie Lee Curtis in the past. This book celebrates humanity and all of our differences and serves as a great kick start to creating our dolls. But this year, we decided we wanted to make the dolls more meaningful. My ATP (Amazing Teaching Partner) Chelsea, came up with idea to read the book How Full is your Bucket? by Tom Rath. We stressed to the students that after creating our dolls we were going to sign them with meaningful messages that would be a drop in someone else's bucket. The kids took this heart as they created and then signed the back of each other's paper dolls! It was truly a touching moment to see the students writing "warm fuzzies" to their fellow classmates. I also got some very nice compliments on my paper doll as well.

For the activity you just need some multicultural paper and construction or scrapbook paper. We also have a "doll" template we have students glue to the back so they have a white area for signatures/comments. We allowed our students to bring in additional materials from home for the project. We laminated the finalized dolls after the students had the class and teachers sign their dolls. 

Check our our team dolls!

My dolls past & present...

How did we do?