Mindfulness

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, Anna, Kathleen & Deb for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers.

Be. Present. Now. There's too much. Life is too fast. It's hard to catch my breath. I'm in the middle of two planning days between first and second quarter. I love the end and the beginning. It's time to reflect. Readjust. Renew...usually...but the words, "too much" keep floating around in my head as I worry about fitting it all in. My attention is distracted with new initiatives and techniques. I'm overwhelmed and failing at mindfulness. This thought shifted my thinking to mindfulness. Am I in the moment? No. I worry and plan and check emails...what can I do? The first thing I did was to stop checking emails multiple times a day. In the past, I would check my work email ten or more times a day!

My notebook helps me with my mindfulness. It's like my security blanket. When I feel like there's too much coming at me, the pages of my notebook save me from that. I dive in and remind myself what's important and the calm returns quickly.

As this school year started, I noticed that I only checked email once in the beginning of the day, during planning and as the day ended. A couple of weeks into the school year, I caught myself checking in between classes and found myself getting very distracted and frustrated. It was that lightbulb moment that told me, "Checking email takes you away from your students and instruction. STOP!" That's tip number one to move closer to mindfulness...Don't check email during the day. BE present with your students. They notice! Teachers, we need to practice mindfulness. We need to model it for our students. Life moves too quickly. Slowing down and savoring the moment is vital to enjoying life. How will our students know how to do that if we don't show them? Wanting to know about the practice of mindfulness, I have a couple of books...

The Little Book of Mindfulness by Dr. Patrizia Collard and The Zen Teacher by Dan Tricarico.

I'm searching for interesting and informative videos too. I found this one from TED. He challenges us to do nothing for ten minutes a day. NOTHING. Does that cause you stress just thinking about it like it does for me? I think that means we need it! Take ten minutes and listen. Let his words sink in and do something to practice mindfulness today! 

Do you practice mindfulness? How? Some of my other mindfulness practices include... walking, coloring, yoga, writing. I'd love more ideas!

What is Your Sentence?

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, Anna, Kathleen & Deb for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers.

Today we took our writing notebooks out to write a sentence. Just a sentence. 

What is your sentence? I stumbled upon this amazing video from Daniel Pink's book, Drive. 

I asked my sixth graders this question. We decided that we'd like to see some examples, so I shared a couple of other videos with mentors of this sentence. 

We analyzed their sentences. We noticed that the sentences were written in the third person. We noticed that the sentences were written as if these things had already happened. We got lost in their words. 

It's time to write our own. We spent five minutes writing and rewriting our sentence. We added details. We rearranged words. We tried out new ideas. We shared. After a few students shared out loud, we split up into groups and revised our sentences. We wrote our final sentence on an index card.  Once again, I'm impressed. My students wrote and revised and shared. They thought deeply about who they are and who they want to be. We talked about our process of writing. "How did it go? How did you write your sentence?" Those conversations make the act of writing less scary (I hope). We noticed that everyone has a different process. I shared my process with them as I worked on my sentences for three blocks today and I'm not done. Here's a peek into my process…

They took risks and shared their hopes, their dreams, they shared themselves in their sentences. Here are a few of the sentences from my brave and talented sixth graders. Enjoy!

What is your sentence?!?!

September Celebrations

Thank you to Ruth Ayres for the opportunity to focus on celebrations every week! September 19 will mark our 100th celebration! Please join us!

I love September. September means new beginnings and fresh starts. It reminds me of the new year in January. As teachers, we get this additional opportunity for a new year and I love it! 

I celebrate enthusiastic and sweet sixth graders and their parents. This week school started. We are getting to know each other. We are reading and writing a lot! Thursday was Back to School Night and I met lots of kind and supportive parents. I am blessed to work in such a wonderful school!

I celebrate my OLW of the year, FLY! 

This word has taken me places I didn't expect. I began writing a book this summer. It's about notebooks and how I keep them and how I use them with my students. Hoping this has an audience when I'm done. I'm hoping to get a publisher and get it published, but the act of writing it is amazing and powerful.

I've been sharing notebook pages each day on instagram and twitter with the hashtags #sharingournotebooks & #haseltinenotebooks

Please share notebook pages from you and your students!! I'm honored to have a blog post on Sharing Our Notebooks. Please stop by and check it out and use the hashtag #sharingournotebooks and #haseltinenotebooks

I celebrate unexpected beginnings. Not much more to say here...yet...but look for some new things coming... Off to do some more writing and reading! Enjoy your weekend!!

Celebrating Family

Thank you to Ruth Ayres for the opportunity to focus on celebrations every week! September 19 will mark our 100th celebration! Please join us!

I'm writing this blog post on my phone because I'm in Massachusetts this weekend celebrating my cousin's wedding. I'm attending an "I Do BBQ" with family and friends. 

Spending the weekend before school begins four hundred miles away was stressing me out, but now that I'm here...it's perfect!

Yesterday I took my sister and niece and nephew for ice cream. We played games and built Legos! 

We played in my notebook when we were out at dinner.

Last night, I got to be the one to read bedtime stories! 

Today, a morning with just me and the kids to some fun places. I love getting to spend time together and spoil them! The BBQ is this afternoon. Lots of family to visit and relax and have fun!

I celebrate my wonderful, loving, beautiful, crazy family today! 

New Notebook #58

Slice of Life Challenge

Please join the challenge over at Two Writing Teachers!

Yesterday, I began a new notebook. I'd been dragging my feet, so I wouldn't finish my previous notebook. Changing notebooks stresses me out! (I never realized that I share this stress with others until I read Betsy's post last week!)

My notebook goes everywhere with me. When I look to purchase a new purse or bag, one of the considerations is always, "Will my notebook fit?" It becomes part of me...almost like a baby's security blanket. I feel incomplete if I forget it, and when I get home, I immediately need to "spend some time" with my notebook. OK, OK, maybe I sound crazy, but it's true. My notebook is where I am free to be me with no judgment or worries. It's where I figure out ways to solve problems. It's where I let go and I just am...to let go my notebook, when I finish is sad and hard. At the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I miss my old notebook and everything it contains. Sometimes I carry around old and new until the new notebook has established a hold...contains enough to make me feel comfortable and safe. 

I have been writing in notebooks for thirty four years for a very long time! I'm particular about my notebook. My favorite notebook (lately) is hardbound 8 1/2 x 11 book...sketch books, as I prefer NO lines. I love when the cover has pretty art or an inspirational quote on it too. 

Notebook #57

For this notebook, I'm trying something different...taking a RISK. This notebook measures 8" square. The pages have lines, faint lines, but they are there. I LOVE the cover...

Summer's quickly approaching and I thought a smaller notebook might be better. Since I feel no connections with my notebooks early on, I spent some time this weekend preparing it...

Notebook number fifty-eight, here we go...