Zumba!

Since it's been so cold lately, we have had to find fun ways to get the kids active even though they haven't been able to go outside. Some days we have normal inside recess where they get to make cool things out of legos and manipulatives, but I wanted to give them a chance to use their large motor skills too (in ways that aren't against the rules...).

We've been doing Adventure to Fitness, which the kids LOVE (and so do I!). You can find out about it here. 

We went on the castle adventure and now we're in the middle of the dinosaur one. Our recess isn't quite long enough to do the whole thing, so it's been kind of nice to just do it in little pieces, even as just a warmup in the morning when they come to school sleepy. 

Anyway, during sharing time one morning, I told the kids that I frequently go to Zumba class. The kids found this very amusing and one of them said that he goes to Zumba with his mom at church. I was chatting with my Zumba instructor after class and she actually volunteered to come and teach my kids for half an hour. You wouldn't believe (or maybe you would) how ridiculously cute it was to watch 24 kids try to dance to Starships by Nicki Minaj. 

My favorite part, though, was when she asked them to freestyle in the middle of the circle. The kids really wanted to hear "Opa Gagnam Style", so she played it and every kid (and one mom!) spent the next five minutes bouncing up and down, Gagnam style. Naturally, I caught it on video. It was incredibly cute! 

I wish I could post it here, but since I can't, here's a cute video of some babies doing it too.

Recess.

So it's been a very cold January, and the kids and I have spent quite a bit of time indoors during recess time. And so, every day at 12:15, we have the exact same conversation. "Aww, Ms. M, por que no vamos afuera?"  Bueno, amiguitos, porque hace mucho frio y se van a convertir en cubos de hielo. Yo quiero ninos en mi clase, no cubos de hielo. "Oh."

("But WHY can't we go outside Ms. M?" Well, friends, because it's cold and you'll turn into ice cubes. And I want a class of children, not ice cubes. "Oh.") 

And then finally, after all this time, the weather decided to give us a break and the bring the temperature above zero for a day. (Shocker!) When I told the kids we were going outside, they erupted in cheers and one of them ran over and hugged me. Not one of those kids who is normally hanging on my arm, but one who is usually off in another galaxy, so it was pretty out of the ordinary for him. I guess he was really excited. 

Also, there is a headless, body-less snowman outside. I guess he's just a giant snowball. And yet, he's still endlessly entertaining. Yay snow! 

Well, hello, Wednesday. We meet again.

Today was our first day back to school after Christmas break. I was pretty bummed that the district cut our break short this year after having two full weeks off last year (that was heaven!). But of course, I love my kids, so once I'm actually out of bed, going to work isn't so hard.

On the first day back after a long break, I get a mild case of those "first day jitters" that I always get in August before the first day of school. (Yep, that's right, no waiting til after Labor Day for us.) I'm not quite sure, what will happen. It turned out to be a pretty good day. Here's the un-good, the good, and the adorable.

The un-good: Today is Wednesday. Imagine that--starting school on a Wednesday. No big deal, right? Short three-day reintroduction to getting up at 5 am, time to ease back into routines. Weekend is in two days. All that good stuff.

Problem is, Wednesday is not Monday. Why is that a problem, you ask? Because when one side of your brain knows it's Wednesday, and the other side of your brain thinks it's Monday, you have a tendency to frequently find yourself confuzzled. And thus, my predicament today. I got an email saying, "See you at the meeting this afternoon." My first thought was, What? That meeting isn't til Wednesday...OH CRAP IT'S WEDNESDAY, ISN'T IT? Oops. Good thing the meeting was in my room...Then later I saw another teammate who said, "See you at the meeting tomorrow." I said, "Um, aren't we meeting on Thursday?" (Pause for dramatic effect...) OH CRAP IT'S WEDNESDAY! Yep, again. Sigh...good thing it's almost the weekend.

The good, which is also the cute:

- It snowed, so we took my little ones out to play in the snow, and I got really adorable pictures of them rolling down the hill and making snow angels.

- When reviewing our classroom rules, we talked about why it's important to take care of books. "Why don't we step on them and rip the pages?" I asked. M raised her hand and said, "Because if you rip out the pages, you won't know what happens in the beginning. And if you don't know what happens in the beginning, the story won't make sense." (SEE? I KNEW we did a million story trains for a reason! Yay retelling skills! *pats self on back*) I love it when they learn stuff.

- Smiles. When my kids walk in the door at 7:15, and their little faces light up when they see me, waking up at 5 is totally worth it.

Happy January!

Loving the New Year

Happy New Year, everyone!

I know I've been gone for a while, sad times :( But I'm excited to be back in Blog Land!

It's 2013, can you believe it? We all survived the 21st--the Mayans were wrong, thank goodness.

I woke up this morning gushing with gratefulness for everything in my life. Even though I've recently had a few trials (some of them self-inflicted, unfortunately), I am so blessed I can hardly stand it. Even in the midst of my trials, I am surrounded by favor and goodness!

2013, for me, is the year of love. My resolution is simply this: to love. To love my family more (and make sure they know it), to love my friends old and new, to love my students more (is that possible?), to love myself more (and allow myself, therefore, to be unapologetically imperfect), to rest in the amazing love of God, and to spend more time doing what I love (which is part of why I'm back on Blogger -- I love to write!).

 Many people have a resolution, a theme, a goal this year. Mine is just to fill the year with love. What's yours?

Happy pills.

It's NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), and I've been neglecting my poor blog for a while. Sorry! I'm back though. Here's today's post.


Today I had one of those moments where I forgot. It happens every once in a while. Sometimes the weight of all the non-child things that we deal with every day just gets so heavy...I started to feel like Eeyore always did when he'd walk around the Hundred Acre Wood and that little black raincloud followed him, raining on his head all day. Sometimes, it's all just overwhelming.

I went to go talk to my teammate, who sweetly went on a mini-quest for some chocolate to cheer me up (though all he ended up with was granola--it's the thought that counts, right?). And as lovely people are wont to do, he reminded me of the thing I momentarily forgot--my Reason.

The Reason I wake up at 5 every morning and stay at work til 5 most evenings. The Reason I can stand in the doorway at 7 am with a smile on my face. The Reason every day is filled with songs and smiles and random dance breaks. My Reason is my children. I love them more than anything. And no matter what happens outside of class time, no matter how dark or how heavy the cloud over my head sometimes appears or how hard that rain falls, all my children know is that their teacher loves them, they are awesome readers, writers, mathematicians and thinkers, and every day is one big dance party. And that's all they need to know.

When I remembered that, and looked into their sweet, smiling faces after lunch...the cloud lifted and the sun came out. So much better than chocolate--my children are my happy pills.

Crazy times

Today we were reading this great story about Minerva Louise, a very funny chicken. She leaves her farm one day and goes for a walk, arriving at a school. However, since she's never seen a school before, she just thinks it's a funny-looking farm. Everything she sees (a flag, blocks, cubbies, sweaters) she describes in farm terms. When she called the baseball an egg, I asked the kids to check for understanding (one of our CAFE strategies) by telling a friend what the story was about. Their response: "It's about a hen that's crazy."  

It's times like these when I have to mask my laughter with a question, like, "Why do you think that, darling?" ("Because she thinks the baseball is an egg, DUH, Maestra.") But what I really want to say is, BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! My kids are hilarious. 

Dancing.

This summer, my assistant and my mom accompanied my kids and I to the zoo for our field trip. Upon meeting my mother, he informed her that I apparently have "chronic dancing disease." This is probably true--given more than a few seconds with nothing to do, I often start dancing around (much to the amusement of my students). So whenever I can, I make dancing part of our normal classroom fun.

Yesterday the kids were working on some measuring activities. Actually, they were "working" on some measuring activities. I went through their work at the end of the day and half of them weren't finished. Disappointed by the amount of work accomplished in comparison to the amount of time I gave them to do it in, I decide that today's learning objective would be "I can do my best work in math class." 

I gave them my usual speech about how working harder makes us smarter, and we learn both by being good listeners and by getting our work finished (or as much as we can). And then I introduced them to the Smarty Pants Dance. If you haven't seen it, it's amazing. Arty Smarty Pants is a puppet from the reading show Between the Lions (a fantastic show if you've never seen it--totally worth watching with your own kids, or even your students) on PBS. Arty Smarty Pants is all about word families, so he pulls  these words out of his big red checkered pants ("Hot, pot, lot, popcorn!" And then popcorn also comes out of his pants. Random, I know, but highly amusing). 

We talk about what a "smarty pants" is (someone who works really hard at school and as a result knows a lot of stuff) and then whenever we have a day that everyone works really hard, we get to watch the Smarty Pants Dance. (And of course, we sing along.) 

On this particular day, not only did we watch the Smarty Pants Dance, but we also did a little dance every time someone finished their work. And whaddaya know, the more we danced, the more kids got their work done! 

Dancing is a magical thing. 

Oh--and here's a link to the Smarty Pants Dance!