Weekly Wrap Up + Preview of Strategy Saturday!

It has been a whirlwind week and what a better way to reflect than Thoughts for Thursday. This week, I have been writing integrated literacy lessons for my district, which is one of my favorite things to do! It's very nerdy, but I love writing lesson plans - I love providing assistance to teachers who need more confidence in the classroom or to teacher who just want more - I love it. 

We were writing in a new lesson template, UBD - Universal by Design, which in layman's terms, is backwards design. By outlining transfer goals (what do you want them to do at 40 years old), understandings, knowledge (what do you want them to know), and skills (what do you want them to do) - you can better prepare for misconceptions or challenges your students may have. It also makes you plan the assessment first, which is just good teaching practice, but most people forget that essential step. If you know what the assessment will look like, you can better prepare your lessons, because you know the expectation. Planning your assessment first is for your benefit! If you don't have a clear picture or a clear set of expectations for your students to meet at the end, then your lessons will be poorly planned and executed. 

Okay - that's my soapbox for the day. (: 

This week, aside from being extremely busy in my professional life, I have had some not-so-busy moments in my personal life. It's been a slow summer for me - I haven't done a whole lot, I haven't hung out with a lot of people and it hit me this week. I've just been feeling very lonely and unfulfilled and while it's no one's job, but my own to make sure I am happy and fulfilled - we all have these moments. We all have moments where we wish our friends lived closer and reached out more. We all have moments where we wish we had all the money to travel all over. We all have those moments.  I had mine this week. 

Yes, I'm a positive Patty, but this week, I struggled to maintain it, but I am thankful for an amazing friend who reached out to me and got me to go to an amazing church service, where my heart was filled with Jesus and friend love. 

Little moments like that remind me to not be so hard on myself and the others around me - we are all going through silent struggles, and even if you're best friends, there might be things they aren't telling you, so it's your job (my job) to give people a little bit of grace and understanding throughout our journey through this life. 

So, as we put on our party hats and thank God and Ice Cube for Friday, remember to treat others with the same grace and understanding you give yourself. It goes a long way. 

ALSO: Strategy Saturday is tomorrow and the post will be focused on close reading in the content areas! Swoon - who doesn't love multiple reads and graphic organizers! 

Enjoy Friday, loves - until tomorrow, 
xo - Lucy 

Motivation Monday! [:

Photo credit: Pinterest

and we're back to our regularly scheduled program...

No, I don't mean we are back to shaping young minds - my summer can't be that short. (: I do mean we are back to encouraging and making sure that Monday doesn't get a bad rap or gets sold short. 

Everyone waits for the New Year, January 1st, for a second chance - a fresh start, but we get a second chance every week - every Monday is another opportunity to make what you want happen and to make yourself into the person you want to be. Monday gets the most awful rap for being the first day of the work week, when it should be viewed as another chance to have the best week ever! 

Some of you reading this could be thinking that I am too enthusiastic or naive to real world happenings, but friend, let me tell you - I used to be you. I used to hate Mondays - another week of my boring life, at my less than perfect job, with a less than perfect body, with they choose when they want to be my friend friends. 

But, I had to stop that negativity - cut it off like a dead flower and tell myself there's more to life than trudging through the mud and hoping something different happens. You have to make that change. One positive thought in the morning is life-changing. I promise. Do it. 

Monday should be a goal-setting, powerful day for everyone - a moment where you say 'This is what I am accomplishing this week, no matter the cost.' Our goals will be different, we are all in different places, and that's okay - the point is we set the week on fire and make it happen! 

I believe in accountability, even when it's difficult or hurts, so let someone know your goals - let someone be your cheerleader. Who doesn't love cheerleaders? Everyone knows in college, I loved them more than I did the athletes - why? Because they cheer for others' success, they cheer for others to win. Be a cheerleader and let others cheer for you. There are so many quotes about not letting others know your goals and dreams, because they will shoot them down. If that's your reality, you need to surround yourself with new people, boo. A true friend, a true cheerleader won't shoot anything down, but negative speech and actions. 

So, here's to Monday, here's to setting the week on fire and not letting flame go out, here's to carrying those imaginary pom-poms and waving them every chance you get - for others and for yourself. Here's to Monday, cupcakes - another chance to make all your dreams come true! 

Photo Credit: Myself 

Working Woman Wednesday!

Photo courtesy of Pinterest/Bluntcard 

Feeling frustrated? Waiting for greatness? Wishing for fame and fortune? 

Stop, pause, and enjoy #workingwomanwednesday! 

It's been a week since my last post, and while my job search has slowed and I haven't heard much from other schools, my life has still be a whirlwind. I've been having small moments, where I've been rethinking relocating or leaving my current school, and who knows why? My mind and my life are entities of their own. I can make plans, I can fill out applications and I can call and interview, but at the end of the day, if God and the world has another plan for me, then it all doesn't matter. I have had to come to terms with this lately, that there are times when things are legitimately out of my control. That sounds so stupid, especially since I am 24 - you would think I would have learned or observed that by now. I am an obnoxious control freak, bordering on the point of therapy, and up until now, everything I have wanted, at least in a professional sense, I have gotten. This is the first time I have ever had to slow down and wait. 

Realistically, that's neither here nor there, because I have a current job and current cupcakes, who need me and my undivided attention. We are preparing for EOGs and my students and I are preparing for our version of a championship. My students work so hard and are so very wonderful - I couldn't ask for a better class, and after seeing their Case 21 scores yesterday, they don't have such a bad teacher either. (: 

That brings me to my overall point on this halfway rainy, halfway to spring break Wednesday - today, praise yourself. Take a moment to stop and praise yourself. Don't wait for someone else to do it or someone else to notice - you will be waiting forever. Treat yourself kindly and love yourself. Your opinion matters more than anything else. 

This is so very important to me right now, because I am seeking to believe in myself internally as much as I appear believe in myself externally. I want you to do the same thing - make your inner voice match your outer voice. All of those things you want to hear from someone else, make yourself say them. Don't let others influence how you feel about yourself. You have one self - spend your life loving yourself, and what the world thinks won't matter. 

Photo courtesy of Pinterest 

Working Woman Wednesday!

Photo Credit: Kush and Wizdon

Wednesday - my favorite Addams family member, not quite my favorite day of the week, but I am a sucker for alliteration. (: 

There have been so many little moments in this week that have reminded me how grateful I am for my life and the people in it. My students, despite having mock EOGs three days this week, have kept positive spirits and handled it well. My mom has called me twice to wake up, since I forgot to set any alarm (Where do they do that at?) I haven't been to the beach since my senior year of college, so pretty much a million years ago, and my best friend and I planned a two day trip that I could not be more excited about. When you need reminding, your life will remind how much you have and how blessed you are and that's a beautiful thing.  

On the job front, since that was the main purpose for this endeavor, things have quieted. I could not afford to travel to California at such short notice for an interview, so they are working to schedule Skype interviews with me, and I have made a list of places I am interested in. As most in the educational field know, teachers hold onto jobs till the literal last moment, so right now, we are in a waiting game. We can definitely cross any place outside of the US off (for now.) Again, this is a journey - journeys aren't meant to a straight path or even a mapped course. You have to chart your own way. People can come if they want, but remember: success isn't an escalator, it's a staircase. 

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

My best friends are ten.

"I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. They answered me: 'Why should any one be frightened by a hat?'

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Then, I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained." courtesy of GoodReads 

The other day, I was speaking to my friend, my adult friend, and I caught myself saying, "My friend Jane..." My friend immediately stopped me and said, "Jane? Isn't she one of your students?" We laughed it off, and moved on to another topic, but the slip of my tongue gives a lot away about myself. 

My best friends are ten. My students are my friends. I spend more time in their presence than I do with anyone else. Everyone can save their "You shouldn't be their friend" crap for another poor soul, because the reality is that makes me a great teacher. The literature on best practices is exhaustive, literature on reaching students of special populations is equally represented, but very few people mention the fact that if your students don't like you or do not feel supported, they won't work for you, and they won't learn. I had a professor in college tell someone who checked on my references that I was too passionate - you can never be too passionate, you can never love your students enough. It's a strength, not a weakness. The world should be concerned when teachers lose their passion and their love for their students. My decision to relocate and seek other avenues for my life has nothing to do with my students, but it has everything to do with what they are teaching me. 

This post began with a quote from The Little Prince, one of my favorite stories (and I recommend that every single person read it multiple times), and I couldn't feel more true about it's sentiment. The narrator, an airplane pilot, had dreams of being an artist, but grown-ups criticized in the way grown-ups do, and dashed his dreams, calling his clearly dangerous boa constrictor a hat. He was afraid to draw again, because of others' opinions, and how true is that for all of us, all of us who have already had grown-ups tell us that no one would be afraid of a hat? My students show me every day don't be afraid and don't care what people think. Wear what you want, act how you want, and inevitably, you will find someone and somewhere in the world who appreciates that. My students are fearless, and that is a true lesson I have learned from them. They come in every day almost totally unaware of what we are going to do that day, but they meet each day with a smile and an undying passion to learn and live and have fun. It's that lesson that has comforted me in the thought of leaving and starting new. 

To my best friends - thanks for teaching me more than I could ever teach you. 

Photos courtesy of Google Images

The Boa Constrictor