Incorporate Playfulness and have fun with learning:UBS Ch.12

Chapter 12: Incorporate Playfulness and have fun with learning.
I teach first grade where playfulness comes a little bit easier than most other grade levels. Even so, I still am a pretty serious person, I get caught up sometimes in "getting it done" that I forget I need to relax and enjoy what I do as well.

I am fortunate to have a really fun teammate who loves to make up songs, and pop in my room with her whole class to sing to me and mine. She reminds me that even though we have a tough job to do we can have fun while doing it.

In this chapter, Angela talks about different ways we can be "playful" and you can choose from their. I am going to discuss some of the things I try to incorporate as well as a few I plan on trying this year.
Appeal to your students emotions. We remember things that we have some feeling about. Whether it makes us laugh, cry or angry. Those are the things our students will remember too.

Why playfulness? "Happiness is a powerful emotion and we tend to remember moments of joy very well"
Try integrating Music into your classroom. I use I {Heart} radio. I usually choose the piano instrumental for a calming effect. But on some occasions I've been known to play a little Kids bop as well.
How about songs?  I sing a song when my kids are coming to the rug:
Make a circle, Make a circle 1, 2, 3
All my friends are here with me.
I usually sing this 3 times. By the 3rd time all of my students are sitting and ready to learn.
I'm sure you can look on pinterest or you tube and find a zillion songs that work for you.
How about a dance break or a brain break? I personally love Go Noodle. It's free and fun and my students are always begging to do more. They have 1, 2, and 3 minute videos that get kids up and moving. It is great for transitions and you can control which video/song you pick!
Talk or read in various accents and voices 
ah-hem, cough, cough. I already do this. Yup, I have a pretty good Irish cadence since my brother-in-law is from Ireland and I speak a little yiddish and do a great Yenta voice. I usually pull my voices out when I'm reading a picture book on a topic. But you can try it out at different times as well. 
I have not however, transformed myself into a different character. If you are the dramatic type or a really into a certain topic this may be the avenue for you. I'm trying to think how I can add this into my repertoire because I think the kids would absolutely love it!
Create a Learning Environment where Humor is celebrated 
Of course there has to be a balance, but if you are having fun teaching you know your students will be having fun learning!
How do you think you can incorporate playfulness into your classroom?

Just stopped in? want to see more of what Unshakeable is about? Here is what we've covered so far.
Click the links below to go to previous chapter reviews.
Chapter 1 share your authentic self to bring passion and energy to your teaching
Chapter 2 Allocate your time and energy wisely through productive routines
Chapter 3 Establish healthy habits for bringing work home and decompressing
Chapter 4 Determine how to do what matters most an let go of the rest
Chapter 5 Go the extra mile for families (but don't take forever to get there)
Chapter 6 Learn to say "no" without guilt and make your "yes" really count
Chapter 7 Do your part to create a positive school culture
Chapter 8 Take charge of your own professional development
Chapter 9 Let your vision define your value and measure of success
Chapter 10 Uncover the compelling reason for every lesson you teach
Chapter 11 Create curriculum "bright spots" you cant wait to teach

Unshakeable Book Study: Chapter 11

I hope you have been enjoying this book study, as much as I have. I am getting so excited for the upcoming school year. Every year I am tired and in desperate need of my summer vacation. This book is really helping me to get in the right mind set for next year.

Chapter 11 is called Create curriculum "Bright Spots" you can't wait to teach.

Angela Watson from The Cornerstone For Teachers

wrote this book for us, the people who are teaching everyday. She writes from her experience as a teacher and a coach. I have to say I am getting so much out of this book. There are so many things I am reading; thinking, wow, I never thought of it like that before, or that is awesome! I need to share this with my team. In fact, I shared this on my county's Facebook page, that's how much I think teachers need this book of encouragement right now. I'm happy to say, that several of my teammates have ordered it and are going to read it as well, which makes me even more excited about next school year.

This chapter is full of a lot of meaningful ideas and strategies. First and foremost, don't apologize for not loving everything you teach. Burden removed! I know there are several topics that I cringe, when it's "that time of year" or certain stories in our Anthology, that has me thinking "Really?!" Angela gives us some practical ways to get through it.In those units, that are the bane of your existence, do your favorite activity--whatever that may be. I love playing academic games, so for my least favorite topics, I plan on creating some really fun games to get us through it all. Another ideas is to create a fun unit-long project around a topic, incorporating a variety of your favorite activities. Student-directed work stations is another alternative to those hard-to-teach topics. There are a lot of free and $ resources on Teacherspayteachers.com that you can find and don't have to create in order to accomplish this. 

This one right here, really resonated with me. Hence, the cute graphic above. Make boring concepts more rigorous by incorporating 21st century skills. I hope you don't mind if I talk about this for a little bit. RIGOR is the BIG word in my county. Like every other word is; RIGOR this and RIGOR that. But no one ever tells you how to make something rigorous, it's like the vocabulary word everyone throws around but no one really knows what it means. Here is the definition of RIGOR: (from edglossary.org) "while dictionaries define the term as rigid, inflexible, or unyielding, educators frequently apply rigor or rigorous to assignments that encourage students to think critically, creatively and more flexibly. Likewise, they may use the term rigorous to describe learning environments that are not intended to be harsh, rigid, or overly prescriptive, but that are stimulating, engaging and supportive." In this section Angela gives 3 practical examples of 21st century skills we can use to increase rigor.         1. Life and Career Skills: help kids identify how they can use the information in their future careers.                                    2.Information, Media and Technology skills: This is a big one! How often are you on your phone, on facebook, on instagram, on pinterest, on twitter, on whatever? We need to give our students the opportunity to practice technology skills too.                    3.Learning and innovation skills: The 4 C's-Critical Thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.

 

Here's the other area that I felt I could accomplish in my own classroom. Angela, talks about how she would schedule into her week something for every day. What are some things that lift you up? Are there people at your school you really love to be around? schedule something each day to create a "bright spot". Maybe it's buying some munchkins for your team-meeting, or team-teaching a reading or writing lesson. Perhaps it's eating with some students at lunch once a week. Think about things you enjoy and intentionally schedule them into your work day.

Overall, Be intentional. Don't just wait around for something good to happen. You are in control of your environment and surroundings. While there may be things we can't control, an unruly students or an upset parent. Think about what you can do to intentionally create these bright spots.
Tomorrow I'm talking about Chapter 12: Incorporate playfulness and have fun with learning.

   

Unshakeable Book Study Chapter 2

Chapter 1 Read Here

Chapter 2 of UNSHAKEABLE by Angela Watson

Allocate your time and energy wisely through productive routines.

Here's a little cheat sheet of what this chapter is all about. I am reflecting today. What do I do in my classroom? What do I need to try next year?

1. I can't tell you how many times I go to work and leave thinking "I have so much to do" but, I know I have to go home and cook dinner, take my kids to after school activities, etc... Some days are better than others. I try my best to stay productive or multi-task because I can't always stay late.

2. Go to school each day with the mindset that you're there to work.

I am always making mental and literal lists of my things to do. Staying focused on the goal will get the work done.

3. Early morning, can be most productive. I am going to be honest. It's hard for me to get to school early all the time. I get there early when I have a faculty meeting or team leader meeting. But usually, I only get to school about 15- minutes before actual teacher report time. My kids come to school with me, which means I'm waiting on them or nagging on them to get ready :-} Fortunately, they will help me with putting my lunch in the fridge or passing out morning work. My daughter has even checked student homework for me if I am out of the room (mini-teacher in the making)

4. Don't do things in the morning that will put you in a bad mood.

I can't tell you how many times this has happened this past year. Usually it was an UN-foreseen parent phone call that would get me going. Listen, I am a very even-keel person, most things don't bother me. This year was an smorgasbord of parent issues. Basically, know your triggers-if it gets your blood boiling do it at the end of the day, so when you leave school after, you can let it go.

In addition, don't do anything in the morning that is absolutely essential to the rest of your day. Don't wait to the last minute. Sometimes this is inevitable, but do your best to plan ahead of time.

5/6. My morning work is on a poster I named "Wake-up Work" (i just spent 20 minutes looking for a picture of it--aghh! I can't find it.) But basically it's a simple list of 5 things I want my class to do every morning. 1. Unpack back pack

2. Hand in Homework Folder

3. Get or trade-in a pencil for the day

4. Shop for new books (book bin)

5. Wake-up-Work, Read-to-Self, or Journal

7. Never depend on your planning break. Some days are better than others. You never know when a problem will need to be solved!

8. De-Stress--I put on I heart radio and listen to music that keeps me calm. Usually it's something instrumental.

9. True story, don't take care of personal business at school. I think I need to let my family members in on this. Recently, my mom was group texting my cousin, sister and I about a problem with my brother. Needless to say my phone was beeping like crazy. I read the texts and got very upset and had to leave school. It turned out to be nothing, but it totally interfered with my day and it was something I could of been told after work.

10. I happen to have a great team and enjoy eating with them in the faculty lunch room. Choose what works best for you.

11. Other options for your lunch time: Eat with 1 colleague, eat with your students or eat alone. Know yourself and what will leave you with the most energy at the end of your lunch time.

12. Mindless tasks and stay in motion. For me this is cleaning desks. I don't know why, but kids desks get so dirty--UGH. I keep baby wipes for the kids to use, after they leave I use my dis-infecting wipes to get rid of any germs. 

13. Check your school email last so you don't get sucked in. I do find myself getting sucked in quite often. This is something I will need to try come August.

14. Take it home or stay late?  Hmm... It depends on the day. There have been many days where I take home a whole stack of work and it just stays in the bag. I find it easier to tackle it at work. I allot a certain amount of time before my kids go crazy and want to go home. (I mean my own personal children here, after the bell rings and everyone else leaves, my kids need to stay with me) I usually let them know, "ok, Mom's gonna finish one more set of papers and then we will go home."

15. The 40 hour workweek- We will learn more about this in the next couple of chapters.

So what do you think? Are these things you can do? 

What sounds the most difficult? the easiest?

Click Here to download our Unshakeable Bookmark so you can follow along.

Next time Cassie at Adventures in Teaching will be sharing: Unshakeable Chapter 3: Establish healthy habits for bringing work home and decompressing

UnShakeAble-Book Study Ch. 1

I came across this book on Instagram. I'm a visual person, so Instagram is the perfect social media outlet for someone like me. Blogging takes more time (sorry) and sometimes I just don't have the energy to reflect and write. Angela Watson from The Cornerstone for Teachers  is the author. Every summer I try to read at least 1 professional book, to get me going and get excited about the next school year. Summer of 2015 it's UnShakeAble
A few friends and I will be sharing with you what we learn from this book, over the next 20 posts. 

My self, Cassie from Adventures in Teaching, Sandy from ELA Everyday, Chrissy from First Grade Found Me and Brittany from Sassy and Sweet in Second (formerly Fabulously in First) will be taking turns sharing what we learned from each of the 20 chapters.

Title: UnShakeAble {20 ways to enjoy teaching every day...no matther what} 

Chapter 1: Share your authentic self to bring passion and energy to your teaching

Energy, as I mentioned earlier is one of my biggest challenges, as a wife, mother of 2, full time teacher and all that goes along with it.
Here are 10 things we can try and do to help us get our passion and energy back into our lives.

 A college professor once said to us, Do you want to be the sage on the stage? or the guide on the side? It's hard to be "on" at all times. Sometimes, we need to act a certain way in the classroom. For example, when something out of the ordinary happens, we need to remain calm even though we may not want to on the inside. But the first step in being authentic and passionate, is to allow your true personality into your teaching.

When you are "into" "passionate" "engaged" in your teaching because it interests you, your students will feel the same. Kids want to see who you are, what you like and dislike. "Let them see the real you, and watch as they are drawn in and make connections in new ways."

I chose an owl for the graphic above for a reason. A few years ago, I decided to go with an owl theme. Well, let me tell you, I have more owls than I can count! Why? I let a part of my personality into my theme, owls on the door, owls hanging from the ceiling, owls on folders, owls to go home. I wasn't just Mrs. Berggren, Jessica was in the room as well.  In this section she also talks about having fun and joking around with your students in the midst of teaching them.

This can be done my making connections with your life and curriculum. Be on the look out for stories you can bring back to your classroom, anecdotes about things you experience and tie them in to what you are teaching.

Everyone is different, so while owls may work for me, they may not work for you. One teacher may be more animated, another more reserved. The whole point is to be you. Angela says to think back to a lesson that you really enjoyed teaching, one in which you were totally immersed in the content and fully present with your kids. That's what passionate teaching looks like for you.

Don't neglect yourself, if you do that, it will drain you. Make time for things that interest you and are passionate on a personal level. When you bring that back to your classroom, you will be able to relate to your students in a different way. "If you want to be a passionate teacher with Unshakeable enthusiasm, you have to develop that trait in your whole self."

Number 7 and Number 6 are closely related.
What is your passion at home?  I've been thinking about this, like what is my passion? I have my kids activities that keep me busy, but that is for my kids, not me. I enjoy reading, going on "jogs", being crafty, coloring (adult coloring books are new to me and I love them) and even a little decorating when the mood strikes. What do you do outside of school?

This right here is my biggest struggle. I feel like I'm always running in a million directions, trying to get my own kids out the door and ready for school is just the start. Mental energy is very valuable. I'm aware of it, and according to this section of the book, awareness, is the point!

Angela asks this question: If you have an important task to do, which would you rather have, a lot of energy but just a little time? Or a lot of time but just a little energy?
If you said energy, then we are on the same page. Make an effort to do something after school that re-energizes you, so you are ready for the next day.

Do you know anyone like this? I might know a few, How do they do it? you may ask yourself. According to Angela, they have more energy, which makes them more efficient, and able to get more accomplished in the same amount of time. They also make time for those things that will replenish their energy levels. They prioritize sleep, eating well, exercising, and spending time with people they care about and doing fun and restful things for themselves. They might not do that every day, but they structure their lives so that the things that are important to them are given top priority.

Click here to print out our Unshakeable Bookmark, so you can follow along with us.
In the next post:

Chapter 2: Allocate your time and energy wisely through productive routines