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I see you, I hear you, I'm praying for you

 

To say things are challenging is an understatement.

Maybe you're going through a debilitating health challenge, and you're whispering between the tears, "please God, help me."

Maybe you're going through a financial difficulty, you're drowning in bills, life is too expensive, and you need to buy a new stove with money that doesn't exist.

Perhaps you're managing your finances and health by the thinnest of hairs, but your job is toxic and draining, and you don't have options right now.

There's a family situation that feels impossible right now.  Sleepless nights, endless fights, responsibility for a sick loved one, children who need extra support and guidance.

You go on social media to distract and forget yourself, and yet, you feel worse because either people are living their best lives or there's someone who is dealing with a more horrible situation than you. Guilt and jealousy compound your situation.

Let's not even touch national and world events: apocalyptic wars, natural disasters, pain, suffering, and injustice.

At the end of each day, you ask yourself, "how did I get through today?" 

At night, you force yourself to pray.  Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.

You try to find something to be grateful for.

You ask God to lighten your load, to grant you the strength to endure, to enlighten your darkness.

And then you wait.  You hope.  You want your suffering to have meaning.

I see you.  I hear you.  I'm praying that merciful Lord envelops you in His love.

Please DM me @workshopclassroom if you would like me to pray for you.

Laying the foundation from the start

Laying a strong foundation for your classroom culture, whether you're a homeroom teacher, a specialist, or an interventionist, is a significant task.  No matter how long you've been teaching, you definitely map out those first few weeks of school to cover your expectations, procedures, and the ethos.  All your read alouds, morning meetings, and activities revolve around building this important foundation so that the school year can run more smoothly.

1. Simple guidelines with specific acceptable behaviors

For my students in grades 3-5, I begin with the foundational classroom culture statement: I want everyone to grow and succeed.  Which means we need to agree on certain expectations so that all learners have the opportunity to reach their goals.  This leads to the presentation of 4 simple guidelines: 

  • Be respectful to the teachers, your classmates, and the school.
  • Be responsible for your learning and your decisions.
  • Use kind and polite words and actions.
  • Make safe choices.

Not the Summer Slide, but Summer of Growth

Ah, summer time.  Most teachers feel like this:

But many families may have mixed feelings about the long summer days.

They're grateful for the break from school, but they may have some wonderings:  what do the kids do with so much unstructured time?  Will my child maintain what he learned over the past school year or will he regress? 

Learners with Dyslexia & their Mental Health

I *love* that during that Dyslexia Awareness Month, reading teachers and organizations highlight important teaching tips, statistics, and research regarding this language-based specific learning disability and its impact on learners.  Many of us who work with struggling readers also notice the need to address their social-emotional needs as part of our instructional strategy.  So then I wondered:  what does the research say about the mental health of learners with dyslexia?

New Year's Resolutions: Definition + Example -- Create!

How do you get your students excited and hopeful for the New Year?  By giving them something to look forward to.  And there's nothing better than being able to picture a better version of yourself in the future!

It seems to be a natural rhythm of life that when we begin a new year, we want to grow, become better, or improve from previous years.  And we pass this onto our children.  So how do we deconstruct the New Year's Resolution for our students?

SEL Daily Check-In: Quick, Efficient, Informative

As I map out the procedures in my small groups this year, one of the first things I will teach my students is how to check in with me.  Pre-COVID, I would always do an informal, "how are you?" or "tell me about your weekend."  However, during and after the pandemic, doing a social-emotional check-in became imperative.  It was important for me to know my students' mindset when coming to my small group, as well as connect with them positively at the beginning of our lesson.  But I only have a short time frame for my intervention lesson, so I needed something quick and efficient, yet meaningful.

Boom -- the daily check-in sheet was born.  And not only did it make my day easier, more importantly, the students couldn't wait to check in with me. 💝

Some more thoughts on doing a daily SEL check-in with your students:

Scaffold & Support: Making Inferences Anchor Charts

Are some of your students plateauing in the area of reading comprehension? They can give you a basic re-tell, but when it comes to developing ideas about the character or determining the author's lesson, they're struggling. How can we best support students in making good inferences?

Just like any phonics structured literacy lesson, we’re not leaving it up to chance: direct, explicit teacher modeling. Show students exactly how you figured out your new idea. And then provide students with many, many opportunities to practice with constructive feedback.

Let’s break down the process of making an inference: