Inspiration...

Good Evening fellow teachers!  Last night I was working on my computer (scrolling facebook) and there it appeared.  A fellow teacher friend of mine started a blog and she had posted about her goals and reasoning behind starting her blog.  It hit me...I have been failing at blogging lately.  I felt like I was just too busy and I reasoned that it probably didn't reach that many people anyhow.  In reflecting I realized I had lost my purpose.  Sometimes in teaching, we can get caught up in all the distractions and we can forget our purpose.  Our "WHY."   I am thankful to this friend for being a leader and trying new things because it caused me to reflect on my "why."  Today I encourage you in every decision and every "thing" you bring into your life to reflect on your "WHY" so that you can focus on what is important to you.  Why do I blog:  I do this to share my love of the classroom, hoping to inspire other teachers and help give ideas to make teaching exciting.  I do this because I want to share the ideas that make my students smile and love learning as much as I do. I do this because I want my parents to feel like they are a part of my classroom even though they don't get to join us.  I do this because every child's success and self-esteem matters deeply to me.   I do this because I want to work each day to make a difference in every life that I come in contact with and this allows me to extend my reach.  So today I encourage you to remember "WHY" you do the things you do.  The little tasks can have a huge impact. 

So let me catch you up on what's been happening in my classroom in the last month!  We have spent the month learning about volcanoes.  This is one of my favorite units.  I hope to soon bring your pictures of paper mache volcanoes, I am really debating on doing this because I think the students would love it!  A couple weeks ago we performed our investigation of Cone and Shield Volcanoes.  We experimented with thick and thin lava to try to figure out which lava comes from which volcano.  See the highlights below:

  

The second thing I want to highlight is the amount of fun we have been having with learning Math this year.  I am trying to incorporate a fun whole-class game once a week.  My students have loved this so much, they about lose their minds when I announce that it is game day.  There is nothing better as a teacher than to have a student say when Math is over, "Math is so much fun!  I love it!"  This has absolutely made all the planning and preparation worth it! If you haven't tried incorporating whole-class games and team-building, I would highly recommend it.  It's been a game changer this year!  You can see a few highlights below:

I hope this blog brings you inspiration.  As I close tonight I would just remind you to revisit your "why."  Make everyday count!  Have a TERRIFIC TUESDAY!