If I were to define the start of the last day of school, 2013, I’d say it would be… exhausted.
Yesterday was filled with intermittent rain, wind, and holiday performances. Our daily business was squeezed in between each show: vocabulary, performance, book shopping, performance, reading, performance, blogging, performance, pot luck luncheon for students and families, and genius hour. Whew!
Today, Friday. The rain cleared for our traditional fifth grade mile and the whole school came out to cheer us on. It was fun, no one was hurt, and we were… exhausted but pleased. Most ran their fasted mile ever. All finished.
But wait…before y’all collapse and head off to break….I want to talk about resolutions.
Whaaa…?
A resolution (student definition): when you decide you want to be better at something and you make a goal for yourself.
Sounds good.
I told them about nerdlution and how I challenged myself to blog every day. I explained how I wanted to write more and how I thought the blog would be a way to make myself accountable.
Hmm. The word nerdlution didn’t appeal to them, so they came up with their own names for their 21-day, 3-week challenge.
One room liked createlution. They felt that would involve all their goals. Everything they wanted to do involved creation.
The other room couldn’t decide on a group name, so they all had their own -lution names – geniuslution, musiclution, dolution, artlution, bloglution, readlution etc.
Each student then wrote personal challenges in their notebook and posted them on the wall.
“So what’s the homework for the break Mrs. Harmatz?”
“Look at what you just wrote,” I replied. “That and reading.”
Last day of school redefined: exhausted, pleased and maybe a bit hopeful about what might be accomplished.
Homework? Nope, Challenge yep.
Go #nerdlution, createlution, geniuslution, musiclution, dolution, artlution, bloglution, readlution etc.
To Read To Write To Be 