Celebrate: Fridays, Fresh and Clean, and a Bit of Nudging

A few quick celebrations today with Ruth Ayers and friends. Find more celebrations here.

1. Friday Netflix.

We don’t have television, only online streaming and videos. Shamefully, I love binging on a good series or several movies on a Friday night. I came home after a week of very long days and fell on the couch.  My husband is in charge of finding the entertainment. I watched/dozed through two dystopian movies and woke up for the romantic comedy.  A good way to end the night and start the weekend.

2. Clean car.

We had a smattering of rain recently. This combined with parking outside made for a very dirty car. I normally don’t notice or really care too much about this kind of thing, but when I am afraid to brush against it for fear of getting my clothes dirty, it’s time. Now it sits, bright and shinny in the garage.

3. Blue skies. See the blue reflecting in the window? Los Angeles is hot and desert-like these days. That is our reality. But sometimes we get very blue skies. Something to notice and celebrate.

4. New notebooks.

Our first semester ended yesterday.  The majority of students have almost filled the Reader’s Notebooks they got fifteen weeks ago. That in and of itself is worth celebrating. I used to give students new notebooks as they filled them, but this year so many are almost filled and most are really, really worn/torn, I figured let’s start out the new semester fresh with clean slates, new goals and beautiful notebooks.

5. Focused Genius Hour projects.

This is my second year of genius hour and I have learned a bit about nudging students in their work. Some students have problems finding ideas, others give up on ideas. While I don’t/can’t direct their work I try to steer it in ways I hope will work out for them. This year I wanted it to be passion based but directed at making the world a better place.  This has focused a lot of the work. When they come to me with their ideas I say, great. Now how will this help the world.  They have to think about that. How can their passion, be it video games, art, reading, or gymnastics, help someone other than themselves. Makes them think, research and plan.

Here’s one example of a group of Minecrafting students who are looking to teach us teachers how we can use it in our classrooms to help students learn. Really cool. Not sure what will come of it, but we all will be learning.

Happy weekend and to finding celebrations.