Just Because We Need To Celebrate Progress

Sometimes I find myself wanting to post something on my blog page "just because"....no special reason or explanation....just because.  This is one of those "just because" post.  It may be a little "cheesy" but I don't care.

My  27 3B students are wonderful and keep me on my toes.   We work hard, we laugh, we cry (yes we have already with some sad read alouds, mainly the teacher), we cheer each other on, we support one another, and we recognize when we have weaknesses or challenges.   Every day is not perfect...far from it.  We have our ups and downs just like everyone else.  But Friday, for a brief moment in the morning, I felt like it was a "perfect" moment in the world of education.

We had a busy week last week, lots of Skype sessions, lots of new learning in math, started guided reading groups, finishing up MAPs assessments, and so much more.  I don't ever expect a perfectly quiet classroom all day.  That is not what I want.  I want interaction and engagement, but I also want respect for one another as well.  We had taken a break from writing and worked on some language skills all week during our writing time.  I could see by Friday, the students were missing their time to just write.  Now this would be shocker to anyone who came in my room the beginning of the year and half my class disliked writing.  Thus....a moment of "we are making progress" instantly noted in my brain.

What happened next will only be appreciated by those of us who work with kids on a daily basis and know that things don't always go as smoothly as we work and new learning doesn't always show up right away in our students.  It takes time.  But all our lessons on where writers get ideas, writing together, and building our stamina showed the benefits last Friday.  My students got their notebooks and everyone, yes EVERYONE, wrote for 20 minutes.....nonstop....and they did not want to stop when I said we need to wrap it up and I asked for volunteers to share.  They even asked for more time!  Everyone of them!!!  My heart almost jumped out of my chest!

Yes it is the little things.....and we are making progress.....focus on the positive and celebrate!  Building the passion and "want to" is half the battle.....and we won this battle!  We are ALL writers!!