The EduNinja Mindset

11 Habits for Building a Stronger Mind and Body

Dear Readers,

If you are like me and love The Zen Teacher by Dan Tricarico (@thezenteacher) then I strongly encourage you to read The EduNinja Mindset by Jennifer Burdis (@jennifer_burdis). Both books are published by Dave Burgess Consulting Inc. (@dbc_inc).

"What activities or restorative practices refuel you?" (pg. 26)

When the end of the school year rolled around on June 22nd, I admit that I was excited for some time to recharge, relax and step away for the summer. I knew that I needed to plan some uninterrupted "me time" and really get refueled for the upcoming year. 

I spent the month of July and now August....

• walking
• reading
• listening to music
• sleeping
• meeting friends including my #CoffeeEDU Group
• swimming
• sketchnoting
• spending time with a very special person in my life (and his family) 

 

 

As far as professional learning, I moderated/co-moderated #PD4uandme, responded to Paul O'Neill's (@PaulONeill1971) daily reflections and occasionally participated in his weekly #PLN365 chat, jumped in #LeadLAP after reading Talk to Me by Kim Bearden (@kimbearden) and connected with my PLN through voxer, to name a few. 

My main focus was on my personal life.

"How do you want to live? What does the best version of you look like?" (pg. 41)

I often tell people I love "slow starts" to the day. When I am on vacation or it's the weekend, I enjoy getting up late, having coffee, checking twitter and voxer, and then settling down with my latest read. One of my favorite fitness activities is walking. Heading out for a 2-4 mile walk with my music and no distractions is definitely a priority when I have (make) time.

Now that summer is drawing to a close, I have started to think about heading back to school. How am I going to "balance" (I know some prefer other vocabulary, but when I think of my personal, professional, health, etc. lives I do think in terms of a balance.) the back to school craziness with my summer calm?

My main focus is to be thoughtful and purposeful about how I spend my time.

"Surround yourself with people who make you hungry for life, touch your heart, and nourish your soul." (pg. 66)

Life is so short. We have to make the most of the time we have. Over the years I have made some difficult decisions about who to keep in my life and who to distance myself from. As I have gotten older and gained more life experience, my perspectives have also evolved and matured.

It seems as though people who are unhappy in their own lives sometimes work so hard at trying to infiltrate others' joy. In order for us to maintain healthy relationships, we have to be able to identify those who do not wish the best for us and establish clear boundaries. This is not an easy task and sometimes it can be hurtful. The goal is not to hurt others, but to protect ourselves.

My main focus is surrounding myself with people who uplift me, support me, encourage me and sincerely care about me.

"I'm a teacher, but will forever be a student-learning, growing, and refining." (pg. 163) 

As a former speech therapist and current literacy teacher, I teach my students that knowledge is power. As Steve Wyborney (@SteveWyborney) reminds us in his book The Writing on the Classroom Wall, there are the same number of students and teachers in the classroom.

Have a wonderful start to the 2018-2019 school year! Thank you Jennifer Burdis for a fantastic read!

Warmly,

Teresa

Building Our Reading Lives: Sharing What We Are Reading

Dear Readers, 

There are a few ways that our classroom community shares what we read throughout the school year.

Graffiti Walls

A couple of years ago I hung up a piece of chart paper in the book corner. We kept track of anything we read including independent reading books, whole class novels, articles, picture books, etc. As we filled it, we started a new one.

Our Reading Lives Chart

Another format we used was to organize the graffiti wall idea and create a chart of what we read.

What Are You Reading.....

Beth Houf (@BethHouf) gave me a fantastic idea! Post "What ______ is reading......." outside the classroom door. Her example was of staff members, but I thought it would be fun to have students do it too!

Class W.I.G. (Wildly Important Goal)

As a Leader in Me and Lighthouse School, we incorporate the Habits into our school community, including creating personal, classroom and schoolwide goals. We decided we were going to challenge ourselves to read a certain number of books, as a class, each quarter. It was wonderful to not only keep track of our reading lives, but to encourage others to read so we could meet our goal. 

Happy Reading!

Warmly,

Teresa

Building Reading Lives: Speed Book Browsing

Dear Readers,

As I think about heading back to school and planning for the first few weeks, one of my top priorities is how we will build our reading lives as a classroom community. Instead of writing one blog with many activities, I thought I would break it up and offer some of my favorites throughout the week. 

Speed Book Browsing

In the past, I have done a speed book browsing activity that I had seen many of my PLN members do. 

• I take all the books (or as many as I can) from the book corner and put them in baskets according to genre. 
• Then I label the baskets and set them up in different areas of the room.
• The students are divided into small groups and rotate from section to section. I put a timer on the board and play music. I use approximately one song per "round". Of course this can be adjusted if they need more or less time.
• As they browse the books, they take their notebook with them and start to create a list of "Books I Would Like to Read". The idea is they will have some ideas for when they choose independent books.
• At the end of class, they choose an independent reading book to begin the year.

 

Book Tastings

I have also seen Book Tastings where the room is set up like a restaurant. At the tables are books for the students to have a little "taste". This is a fantastic activity as you move through the school year because students can recommend books to one another.

Happy New School!

Warmly,

Teresa