What's Up In Room 14?

So it's hard to believe that the first half of the year is over.  Where did it go?

Tons of amazing and life changing stuff has happened, and I want to share it here, but in small doses.  Here are some of the topics that I have become more familiar and experienced with in the first half of this year:

• Team Teaching
• Differentiation
• 2nd grade
• Whole Brain Teaching
• Social/ Emotional Education
• Class Meetings
• Waldorf Education and Parenting (My Sam is in a Waldorf school for Kindergarten, and it has changed my life!)
• Soul Care for Teachers and Students
• Showing Up to Love our students
• Rafe Esquith's latest book
• Mentoring Teachers
• Mentoring PreService Teachers

It's crazy that with over 15 years of experience, I am still learning so much!  It's an every single day sort of thing for me!  It's overwhelming and exhausting, and I want to share it with you here.  So call out your peeps and invite them over because I'm bringing this bad boy back!

We ended December with our off, off, off, off Broadway production of The Gingerbread Kid Caper.  It is a school tradition, but it was my maiden voyage.  I worked with my team teacher.  She had the brilliant idea of turning the door area of her room (our performance hall) into a gingerbread house with gumdrops with everyone's name.

The students voted to make gifts for everyone who came to our performance.  (It was totally packed.)  So the week before we made yummy cinnamon ornaments.  Our recipe was 1 cup cinnamon (I know it's a ton.  I bought it at Aldi's for a buck a cup!), 3/4 c. applesauce, and 2 - 3 tablespoons of white glue.  I mixed by hand and rolled it out in a gallon ziploc bag.  I only gave the kids 2 cutters--trees and gingerbread.  It was just right. We used toothpicks to make the holes.  A couple parent volunteers ran sweet little strings through--that red and white bakers string.  Our class smelled great!

Looking forward to sharing so much more.

Happy 2015 to us all!
Where are you learning and growing professionally?