5th Grade Talent Show - Slice of Life Challenge

Gymnastics,  piano, violin, jokes, singing, dancing, Irish stepping, guitar -- those were some of the talents on display at the 5th grade talent show at my school today.  Much like our recent GRE Meltdown, it was so insightful to see facets of my students not normally on display in our day to day workshop routines.

I love that every student at every grade level at my school will have the same opportunity to shine in front of others with their talents.  Better yet, since we only get to attend our own grade level's performances, what a wonderful idea to have a student tape it, and then loop it all day through the video system so that others can watch when time permits, or in our case today, when there is an indoor recess.

Celebrating the well-rounded child -- I'm happy my school puts a premium on that, and we honor their talents in such a special way.

As always, thanks to Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Challenge!

Life Lessons I've Learned at Yoga - Slice of Life Challenge

Recently I started attending a yoga class once a week on Thursday evenings.

My yoga teacher, who is also one of my close friends, has some phrases that she likes to remind us of as we breathe, stretch, and strike poses.  Some of my favorites are:

• Be present
• Be grateful
• Be aware
• You should feel an awareness in ... (and she names a location of our bodies)

Jen, my yoga instructor, also recently told us that the best yogis are not the most flexible or the ones with the best meditation skills; rather, they are the ones listening to their bodies and minds and working at the level at which they are most capable.  Then, they take a deep breath and see if they can go just a bit further.

While all these are perfect phrases for me to concentrate on while doing yoga, I've noticed that they've spilled over into my everyday life as well. 

Be present - I'm trying to be more present in the moment, whether it is with friends, family, colleagues, or students.  I am such a to do list kind of person, and sometimes I need to stop, and enjoy the moment or situation that might present itself to me, even when it is not on that darn list.

Be grateful - Since this challenge started, I have read many posts of gratitude.  While I feel gratitude and generally have a positive outlook on life, there are those moments where I get bogged down in what could be instead of what is.  One of my favorite slices about this topic was Kelli's.  I need to be more like her, and take a situation that might be frustrating and try to find the grateful moment in it.

Be aware / feel an awareness - I feel like this is similar for me to the "be present" goal, because both are affected by that darn to do list.  I think about the colleague that came to me recently, and I was in the middle of doing something so I only listened at 50%. I should have been more aware that her visit to me was of huge importance to her.  I didn't pick up on that until much later.  I need to lift my head up, make eye contact, and be aware of what others are saying to me.

So, as I write this on Sunday, and I'm looking toward the hectic schedule of this week, the week before our spring break, I need to take several deep breaths and see if I can go a little further in the skills of being present, grateful, and aware.

Hoping your week is filled with much presence, gratitude, and awareness, as well.


As always, thanks to Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Challenge!

Freshly Washed Jeans - Slice of Life Challenge

Today, as I was getting ready for school, I was hoping there were none of those hidden cameras getting footage for What Not to Wear on TLC, because I definitely would have qualified as an individual needing help from Stacey and Clinton!

Today was a Friday, so I knew I could dress down a bit and even wear jeans.  This is normally the easiest day to dress for me because of how comfortable I feel in a comfy sweater and my jeans.  But then when I went to my closet, disaster struck!  As I was looking at my jeans, I realized they were all freshly washed.  If you are like me, a closet entirely full of freshly washed jeans is not a good thing.  Where were the ones that were slightly broken in?  Broken in so I wouldn't have to lay down on the bed to get the newly washed jeans zipped up.

I looked at that pile of freshly washed jeans, and I knew I couldn't do it -- I just couldn't put those jeans on today.  So there I was, half-dressed, with a nice sweater on already.  I had a decision to make.  Did I start all over, or did I go with the sweater I already had on and just put on a pair of regular nice pants?

Oh no!  That would be the smart thing to do, but I didn't take that path.  Right beside my pile of jeans was a pile of workout pants that caught my eye, including my favorite yoga pants.  My favorite yoga pants because they are so incredibly comfortable, something all of those freshly washed jeans would not be.

Guess which path I chose?  I must say, I was quite the lovely vision in my striped blouse under a nice sweater, followed by yoga pants, and ending at the feet with rather old tennis shoes.  I thought about taking a picture to accompany my slice, but it was just too bad.  However, I was comfortable, and my appearance made me chuckle all day long. 


As always, thanks to Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Challenge!

Side View Mirror and ACT retakes - Slice of Life Challenge

Tony posted a slice the other day that made me think of all the things I was seriously not ready for as my girls were growing up.  One of the things I was not ready for was them being behind the wheel of a car driving solo (or worse, with a group of friends sure to distract them).  This post recalls one of those car moments that really stands out.

It was a Friday night, and the next day was an ACT retake for our youngest daughter, Carrie.  We knew it would be a fairly early night for her as she would want to be rested for the next morning.  But, when I got a phone call from her at 9 PM Friday night saying she was headed home from hanging out with her friends, I was pretty surprised.  I chalked it up to her appreciating the seriousness of what these ACT results might do for her in terms of possible scholarship monies.  I was so impressed with this new-found maturity on her part.

About five minutes later, Carrie walked in our back door.  I was sitting at the kitchen table, with my back to the door, working on some type of schoolwork.  I heard Carrie say, "I need to talk to you," and the next thing I knew a very dented and scraped-up side view mirror was plopped down on the kitchen table as a conversation starter.  Turns out she had just sideswiped a parked car.  That's right, you heard me correctly... a PARKED car, and this side view mirror was just part of the damage she'd done to her car.  Don't even get me started on what she did to the other car!

Needless to say, after an evening of having to talk to the police, coming home to have her parents yell at her for being irresponsible, many tears (both hers and ours), and being grounded from driving for life (or so it seemed to her), her ACT retake scores had nowhere to go but down. 

As always, thanks to Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Challenge!

Publishing Party - Slice of Life Challenge

Today's slice is short, but sweet.  Last week was the end of the trimester in our school district, and I have been totally wrapped up with grading final writing pieces.  But, as I was grading this weekend, I kept flashing back to the celebration that took place in our classroom last Thursday and Friday.  Students published pieces of their choice, and almost every person chose to do a hardback book.  There were some that wanted to do spiral binding, and a very few that wanted to watercolor and mount their piece on that.

To honor everyone's wishes, I pulled out the watercolors, stickers, fun scissors, sticker letters, scrapbook paper, and other odds and ends that might work as they put the finishing touches on their bound book.  It was so fun to see boys and girls alike digging into the tubs of goodies to decorate their book "just so".   And most importantly, they were so proud of their published work.

After this successful attempt at a big publishing, I found myself wondering why we didn't do it more often; it is so simple.  I'm not a crafty person at all, but I know I will always have sticker letters, tag board, colorful duct tape, gel pens, scrapbook paper, and fun scissors available so, in the future, writers can publish when they are ready, not when I'm ready.

To wrap up, I'm leaving you with these pictures that tell the story of our celebration:

As always, thanks to Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Challenge!

Read Aloud Magic - Slice of Life Challenge

Everyday I read aloud with my students, some kind of magic happens within our class, but on Tuesday there was an extra huge dose of magic.  I have been reading aloud Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt for about a month to my morning language arts class.

On Tuesday, for those of you who are familiar with the story, I read the part where Doug fills in at the last minute for Lil on Broadway.  Life was happy, life was good, and then I got to the last part of chapter 9, when Doug arrives home and is sharing what happened with his brothers, and they tell him about a phone call they received from Lil's parents (page 323 if you own the book and need to refresh your memory).

I had been reading for thirty minutes when I got to that point in the story, and had closed the book as it was also the end of the chapter.  I thought we would be able to finish the book together on Wednesday.  Little did I expect the uprising of the group as a whole!  The students were so invested in the characters after the time we had spent with them, and what was unfolding at that particular moment, they weren't going to accept that it was time to stop reading just because I arrived at the end of the chapter.

This group of students is very vocal on a daily basis, but their indignation at stopping the read aloud of Okay for Now at that point was quite something to behold.  I realized that was the magic of an amazing book - it had cast its spell on my students and they needed to see it how it all turned out.  Who was I, a mere mortal, to argue with that kind of magic?!!

So, read on we did... we read until the very end of the book, another forty-five minutes.  During that time, not a student complained about sitting for too long, not one student needed to go to the bathroom, not one student needed a drink of water.  There really was magic in the room.  All that mattered was knowing what would happen to these characters who meant so much to them.  There were audible sighs and gasps at several points during that last chapter, and I teared up several times,  but they were riveted on every word.

I gave up several other language arts learning opportunities for Tuesday, but I don't regret it at all.  I had to bow down to the power and the magic of a beautifully written story.  And in our classroom this morning, we were far more than "okay for now".


**If you didn't see my tweet yesterday or my comment at Two Writing Teachers, I'd just like to apologize to my online writing support group for #slice12 for not being able to reciprocate when it came to commenting these past few days.  The good news is my report cards were finished tonight, and I'll be back and visiting you at your blogs tomorrow.  Thanks for being so generous when you stop by here at Literate Lives.

As always, thanks to Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Challenge!

S & H Green Stamps - Slice of Life Challenge

I often hear stories from my forty-eight students of how generous their grandparents are with them when it comes to both items and time spent together.

Recently, I was reminiscing about those ideas and how they applied to my grandmother, my brother, and me.  My grandparents weren't dirt poor, but they most definitely were not wealthy, either.  Every summer of my entire childhood, we would travel out to Arizona or New Mexico (they moved around a bit) to see them.

It was the best feeling when we finally pulled into Nana and Papaw's driveway.  When Nana saw us, she would hug and kiss us, crying tears of joy all at the same time.  Papaw was slightly less demonstrative.  He was a tall, strong, quiet Swedish man, who let Nana get her loving in first, but always had a big bear hug waiting for us.

But after the hugs, the kisses, the unpacking of the car, Nana feeding the undernourished (in her opinion) occupants of the car, and cleaning the dishes, then out would come the S & H green stamps that she had been collecting since we had left the previous summer.  (I'm including an image for those of you not familiar with these stamps.  They were given with purchases at groceries, gas stations, drugstores, to name a few.  The stamps were then redeemable for merchandise.)

Nana would collect boxes and boxes of these stamps over the course of the year, and it was up to my brother and me to lick the stamps, put them into the booklets, and then count how many booklets we were able to fill with stamps.  Then, Nana would hand us the S & H Green Stamp catalog, and Randy and I would start to plan how we would divvy the wealth of the stamps to get items we wanted.

Like I said, my grandparents didn't have a lot of money, but when Nana gave us these stamps and booklets, we felt like the richest kids on earth.

S & H Green Stamps and booklets

As always, thanks to Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Challenge!