Day 274- Celebrations

Everyone can use a little attitude adjustment now and then.  I am certainly no exception to this... that's the whole purpose for this blog, after all, to remind myself of what is important and to recognize the million things I have to be thankful for.  We have a practice at school where we have to start out every meeting with celebrations, and I really enjoy it.  It is wonderful to hear about all of the amazing things happening in other people's lives, and it's lovely to hear people speak about the things that are going right before they get into the airing of grievances and down to the nitty gritty details of everything that's going wrong.

I decided to bring this idea into my classroom today for the warm-up that my students do to start the class.  I asked students to write about something exciting/fun/amazing happening in their lives or to share something they were looking forward to doing over the weekend.  Once they wrote these things in their warm-ups, the abbreviated versions made their way up to the board.

By the end of the day, every square inch of my front board was covered with excitement.  My students were thrilled that they would be playing or singing at the Cardinals game tonight.  They were looking forward to hanging out with friends this weekend and sleeping in... me too (well, the friends part at least)! One was raising money for leukemia at a car wash, while another was painting picnic tables for Girl Scouts all weekend in the hopes of a future scholarship.  I have skateboarders and football players and soccer players and softball players and a black belt in Tae Kwan Do.  Some less optimistic students took my advice and decided just to be happy to be alive.  Others overflowed with joy and had trouble picking just one thing to write. These kids were so excited to share and to read what all of the other classes had to say, and the atmosphere in my room today was incredible.  I'm going to leave these things up for a least a few days, and we had so much fun that I hereby proclaim every other Friday "Celebrations Day!"  Five minutes at the beginning of class gave us a whole day of wonderful.

My students are witty and kind and athletic and altruistic and thoughtful and sarcastic and bright and silly and cute.  They inspire me to try harder and to push harder.  They hold me accountable to giving my best every day, and I am better and happier for it.

I can only hope that these kids will learn as much from me as I am learning from them.


Thank you, celebrations, you made my day.

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