Celebrating: Her Heart Burst

I typically write my Saturday Celebrations during the week and have them finished to post early.  Come back later in the day to read everyones posts, and I always find a few posts that linger with me. Our community and how we comment and share our thoughts is so important to me as a teacher and a writer. 

This week was busy, and I did not get my post written.  It's Saturday morning. I'm looking at the snow on the ground, birds eating in our feeder, drinking my hot tea, and I'm ready to share my journey of becoming a teacher. 

The picture above is one of my greatest treasures. If the house were burning, I would want this. I need this.  It begins my story of becoming a teacher. Both my grandparents were well educated. My grandfather was a world renown pediatric surgeon. His career started in Boston and ended at Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. There is a library in the hospital dedicated to him.  My grandmother LOVED reading and words!  She shared with me some of my favorite books and taught me the love of writing thank you notes.  She continued into her 60's translating Russian documents for The Ohio State University. My grandmother gave my mother the statue above while she was still living. When she passed, my mother passed it on to me. 

Mothers are always our first teachers. My mom wanted to be a teacher and never had an opportunity. She became my teacher.  Weekly trips to the library, helping me choose books and puzzles, reading to me every night and sharing her favorite authors especially of poetry.  Opening my eyes to the gift of books and "how they allow you to travel anywhere."  

For me I played school in our basement as soon as I could walk down the stairs. I've written a little about this in past blogs, but I honestly believed I was a teacher everyday as I walked downstairs. Being an only child, I never felt alone because i had my students. My mom's friend, Kathy, who was a teacher gave me a few "teachery" things. My heart burst with my first real grade book at age 8. Remember they were red or green, spiral bound and smelled wonderful.

Fast forward to our daughter, Anna, who is teaching in South Carolina. She played in our basement, and I brought home "teachery" things for her to use. Her heart burst when I allowed her to grade real math papers. She believed she was a teacher playing in our basement. 

Yesterday I was pulling down anchor charts (they were becoming wallpaper) and I was going to throw them away. I remember having conversations with H. about playing school in her basement.  I asked her if she would like them to take home.  Her heart burst.  I believe it is our job to encourage younger teachers, open our classrooms and share with them.  H. will be getting every little "teachery" thing I can find for the for the rest of this year. 

I'm thankful for our Celebration Community.  I will be reflecting on Ruth's post today for a long time.  Thank you Ruth for writing about what your afraid of and sharing when you're ready. 

Favorite New Titles and Their Journey to Room 234

compliments of Google Images

We haven't had any snow days or delays the past two years...today is our second snow day, and I am taking every advantage to knock down my TBR pile.  Several years ago I promised myself not to "press order" every time a new title hit a blog post or twitter. During this time of year with all the mock Newbery and Caldecott lists coming out,

 it could get really expensive quickly. It's still expensive; however, I have read every book ahead of time that I purchased for our classroom.  

I find as much enjoyment in opening a new tab for Delaware Library and start requesting books.  It's even exciting when Delaware doesn't have a book, and I use Search Ohio which is an amazing resource if you live in Ohio.  Any book can be borrowed from any public library and shipped to your home library for free.  My class has learned when I share a new titles the book has a large white sticker on the cover that it's a special book which has traveled to our classroom. They are always curious where it is from. Sometimes that leads us to a mini geography lesson :)

Every twitter feed & blog post mentioned this book. I had to order it in from
Search OH.  There are moments when I read a picture book and realize a whole new world
is open to me.  A world that I have a huge desire to learn more about. I've had conversations
about this book. I shared it with my class. We had conversations about this book.
Conversations that opened up new learning for everyone. #powerful

LOVE every part of this book.  The illustrations are fun and captivating.
I learned several new facts about bees and was entertained as I read the book.
The cartoon style of the speaker is a blast too. 

I'm searching and purchasing more books about #diversity.
Helping my young learners see themselves in books & learn
about others has been a focus all year. The illustrations are perfect with
the shiny gold woven into an extremely important story.

Three Celebrations All Rolled into One Day

I'm celebrating with our Saturday community. This week's celebration happened on Tuesday. The first celebration was a snow day on Monday. It was our first one in two years.  I LOVE snow days because they are unplanned and a huge gift to teachers & students. Our class was a buzz Tuesday morning as everyone entered.  Listening to their conversations and agreeing with everyone was so fun!  Several students replied, "Mrs. Caplin you are as excited and we are."  I replied, "Yes I am!"

Our next celebration was in word study-in case you don't already know I love word study! I am passionate about vocabulary and weaving in new words throughout the day.  Our focus this week is a Latin room "struct" which means to build.  After our mini lesson, I always encourage learners to search for other words with a similar pattern.  While they wrote them on the chart paper, I was as quiet as a mouse listening to the rich conversations. My final celebration is our student generated word list which is always better than the teacher made list - just saying :)

Super list of vocabulary words and rich conversations
about roots + suffixes leading us toward another conversation
about parts of speech.

I

Celebrating JOY

I recently heard Sheryl Sandburg speak with Oprah on her Super Soul Conversations.  I appreciated how candid Sheryl was about her husband’s death and how she no longer had an Option A, but she does have Option B.  I get entranced with speakers who are sharing their heart stories. I want to listen deeply; however,  I also want to write down key points in my notebook.  I chose to listen deeply, and I then proceeded to check her book out at the library.  I didn’t read it cover to cover, but certain chapters I read several times.  Poignant take away moments for me included, searching for JOY!  And when you’re searching for JOY, you find JOY because it’s there often times in the smallest moments.  

I automatically connected the idea of celebrating JOY with my #OLW gratitude. That little word changed my life in ways that I never saw coming. That is what #OLW are suppose to do; however, some years my word captures all of me and other years it flounders along beside me.  I had decided not to choose #OLW this year.  Nothing was sticking or knocking me over.  I still consider gratitude my lifetime #OLW.  JOY is lightly tapping on my shoulder asking me to consider it. 

Yesterday was one of my celebration of JOY!  I got an email before Thanksgiving from Jordan. I had her in fifth grade, and she is currently a Junior at The Ohio State University. She was very kind in her email and told me that her favorite grade was  fifth grade, and she decided that she wants to be a teacher.  She visited yesterday and spent the day with our class. I expressed to her that as an educator we are never sure when we will have a lasting impression on a students' life. It's such an honor to know that I've created a lifelong difference for her.  

Celebrations and our Saturday community help me find JOY, and I feel a huge sense of gratitude for our conversations.  When I'm leaning toward closing up and not blogging, I always reflect on those discussions which always lift me up. Happy New Year friends. 

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First Day Jitters: 2018 Style

I was sick for the entire Christmas vacation not moving from the couch and/or leaving our home until Dec. 26. Finally, we went to South Carolina to visit our daughter and her husband and the couch sitting continued – it was just a different couch with friendly loving faces taking care of me.  My husband was very thankful for the respite. 

New Year’s Day I started to come back to the land of the living….I knew I was feeling a little better because I started writing in my head because my energy level wasn’t able to put my thoughts on paper yet.  Today, I finally looked at twitter and got caught up on blogs…my thoughts were turning to our first day of school which is tomorrow.

I’ve read several blogs about the importance of starting slowly, saying hello to everyone by name, sharing favorite books read over break, not worrying about learners who are wearing shorts in 0-degree weather, One Little Word choices, and my most favorite posts included favorite books of 2017 and several new titles for 2018.  With that inspiration and my energy level probably going to be zapped by 9:45 tomorrow morning, I just finished my lesson plans for tomorrow.  We will ALL ease in slowly to the new year. And the best news is if these plans don't work then we will flow with what is working.  After all it's the first day jitters all over again.

Room 234 Agenda

Fact or Fiction (write 3 facts and 1 fiction about Christmas break) We will guess which one is fiction.

Share our favorite books and pull them up on Amazon so we can create a class list of titles for our new reading logs. Chart: Favorite titles for 2018.

Morning read aloud: An Invisible Thread (hopefully I can make it through reading it) 

I might need an assistant reader to help me.

THANK YOU! We will share who we are most thankful for over holidays.  I will pass out thank you cards and everyone including me will write a thank you notes.

Lunch/Specials Hopefully I won’t need a nap….

Where’s the Math? Sharing holiday math stories.  Connecting with multiplication.  Simple rich problems to help their math brains starting problem solving again.

Afternoon read aloud: The Story  of Snow  (hopefully I can make it through reading it) 

I might need an assistant reader to help me.

3:35 dismissal and collapsing I would imagine. 

Quick trip to the library today...time to read several pictures books.
Decision has been made - can't wait to share these two gems tomorrow.

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