Celebrate This Week! 2/6

It's Saturday morning and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by to read others' celebrations.


I am not always consistent with writing these blog posts, but I am so grateful for this community because I do always think of reasons to celebrate. Having the habit of writing this type of blog post has transformed my thinking and I am able to be more mindful and step back to appreciate it when things worth celebrating pop up. Last week, I did not blog about it because I was at a conference, but I did make a nice list of celebrations in my planner. I will share a couple of those celebrations here along with this week's list.

First and foremost, I celebrate the fact that I feel healthy and have been feeling healthy for the last couple days. It has been a while since the last time I could say that. Now, fingers crossed that I will be able to stay away from all the nasty bugs that are still circulating out there.

Second, I celebrate my wonderful husband who has been doing extra shares of all the work around the house as I have been feeling sick. This was especially apparent on Sunday when he had to go out to shovel 12" of snow by himself since I was coughing up a lung. He does this extra work with only an occasional complaint. I am so lucky!

Last Friday, I was given a free Chocolate Croissant at Starbucks for National Croissant Day. Who doesn't love free pastry???

A former student has been regularly volunteering at school and I have really enjoyed some conversations with him. I loved talking about his decision of which college to go to. It is awesome that he had multiple acceptances and could choose among the great universities he had applied to. We also talked about his ambitions for medical school and I was able to give him a little bit of insight because my sister is a doctor. I just really enjoyed that conversation.

My classroom is a chaotic, loud, and fun-filled space. I am frequently at the point of pulling out my hair with frustration at never getting through what I need to get through because of talkative and energy-filled kids. One of my favorite times in the week, however, is our board game time on Friday afternoons. In my classroom, this time is our community-building time. No one is excluded from this time. Every one of my students is allowed to participate and play in order to help them all be able to get along. This is one of the noisiest times of the week, but I can just stand there for a moment and observe groups of kids cackling and giggling and getting along. They play with other students they might not normally play with, they talk, they teach each other the game rules, and they have fun together.

I switched my schedule around and I am so happy I did. We are able to do so much more with our longer literacy times and math works so much better in the morning for me. One of the best things about the switch is the way I was able to work a few new routines into our day.

• We have started to read the Wonder of the Day on Wonderopolis each day. My students have fun making predictions based on the teaser about what the next Wonder will be. I love that they are getting a solid example of informational writing every day. 
• I also started doing Sacred Writing Time every day. I bought the slides from Corbett Harrison to make my life easier and we jumped into this routine. I am so excited about how this has started. I explained it to them the first day and started my timer and it was silent and they were writing. (My jaw hitting the floor didn't make a sound) I couldn't believe how easy it was to get them to just write. Every day for two weeks now it has been completely silent in my classroom for that 10 minutes of quiet writing. Every day there is an audible groan when the time is up. Every day there is a clamoring to be one of the lucky ones to share. Every. Single. Day. I am celebrating this excitement about writing. I am reenergized by their excitement. I am loving my chance to write for 10 minutes with them and to share my playful entries. 
• We worked again on building stamina for independent reading. Some of my students had fallen out of good habits and into bad habits. This week we got back on track. 

The excitement for the book box to arrive this week was amazing! I am so happy that my students have that book love that makes us ecstatic at the sight of new books. 

I sent out an e-mail to see if I could drum up interest in a Staff book club this week. I was really amazed at the amount of interest from my colleagues. We really need to build up the reading culture at my school and I am so excited to take this step to helping that happen. 

Last, but not least, I celebrate co-pay assistance. My district decided this year to switch our prescription drug coverage to a new provider. In the past, this would barely have been a blip on my horizon because it really didn't change the price for the medications we get at Target pharmacy. However, my specialty MS medicine went from a $50 a month co-pay to over $500 a month because of the change. Luckily, the pharmaceutical company that makes the medicine has an assistance program to help people afford it. With co-pay assistance, I only have a minimal payment to make. I am thankful for this program so that I can continue to take this medicine that seems to be working well for me. 

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a wonderful week.