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Friday, April 1, 2016

SPRING BREAK and Growth Mindset



I am so excited to be on SPRING BREAK!  This year is the first year we have two weeks (minus one day) for break and I think it will be wonderful! A much needed break for the children.... and teacher.  I am still doing a terrible job of remembering to take pictures of all of the neat things we are doing in the classroom but I promise you we have been doing fun things.  We had school on March 21 and with only one day we knew the kids would be excited and not want to sit still.  We did some of our regular routine but instead of doing Daily 5 in the morning we did centers, had an all grade movie (including 'Ice Pudding'!) in the afternoon and ended the day with an Easter egg hunt.  For the last day before spring break I would say it was very successful!



I'm now on my last day of break... my boys are napping and I'm finally getting to the things I wanted to. :) Better late than never.  We are working on some new programs for next year and I'm wanting to work on them. The first is working on implementing the 7 habits of highly effective people into our school and I personally am wanting to work on giving my kiddos (at home and school) a growth mindset.  

My littles all dressed up for Easter!


My husband reads everything, or listens to audio books of many different topics. He is interested in EVERYTHING.  Sometimes he wants to talk about what he has been reading or listening to and I pretend to listen, but this time it was different.  It made sense to me and I wanted to hear what he had to say.  The idea of a growth mindset got me excited for what I could do in my own life and in my classroom.  As a teacher I want kids to feel worthy and like they can accomplish anything. It's hard to make them feel that when I feel the pressure of getting them all to read by the end of the year it's hard to focus on the fact that they are 5 or 6 years old and I need to be giving them a positive start.  

The book he listened to was Mindset The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. 

Here are a couple of links to videos that give a brief explanation of it.




As a teacher, I just fell in love with the idea! I WANT my kids to love learning, and not shut down when things get tough! I WANT them to try new things and not take the easy way out! But I had no idea where to start... so this is it! I am going to work on adding the 7 habits into my classroom and working on a growth mindset.  I am VERY excited to get started and see what comes of it! 

I went to school over break and got somethings ready for the next couple of weeks! I've been working on creating somethings for word work and centers as well. Here are some sneak peeks into the next couple weeks!