Tree of Joy

Christmas is my favorite season. I love the decorations and the music as well as the feeling of excitement. During this holiday season, I’m reminded of those who don’t celebrate the same holidays as I do. Yet, I want to include these students in my season of joy.

While watching an Arne & Carlos podcast, these knitwear designers are sharing their holiday traditions. Arne likes to look for Christmas ornaments all year long and may find something pretty that would make a nice ornament. It might not have anything to do with Christmas but he likes it.

This made me think that having a tree of joy would be a nce thing to have in the classroom. Students can bring an ornament that brings them joy and add it to the tree. This can be in the classroom all year long and students can add or take off any of their ornaments. When they add an ornament, they can share something about the item that brings them joy.

It helps to see things from a different perspective. Something that I might see as ordinary might bring joy to someone else. It would be good for students to see how different people can value different things.

Sometimes it is nice to remind ourselves that there are many things in our life that brings us joy. The bad things in the world can sometimes overshadow the good things. Having a Tree of Joy would be good to remind students not to forget the joyous things in their life.

What would you add to the Tree of Joy? Why? Please share.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Delight

In The Delight Project from Ideas and Thoughts, Dean Shareski shares, 

“So I want to think more about delight and I’m going to challenge myself to a delight project. I’m going to try and share something daily that brings me delight.”

Please check out his description of what delight is and the things that give him delight.

I don’t know how I missed this but he started this project five months ago and I thought it sounded like a wonderful project. I think this would be a great thing to do in the classroom. It seems like it is so much easier to find the negative things in the world or things that annoy us but it is much harder to find things that delight us and give us joy.

I am going to try to keep a journal and write down things each day that delight me and then share some of these things with you.

This would be a great writing project for students to do. Ask them to keep a journal and each day, write at least one thing that delighted them yesterday. Then once a week, have them write about one of the things. What happened that delighted them? Why did it delight them?

Maybe if we start looking at things that delight us and give us joy, we might find more happiness and hope in living each day. We might start smiling more. We might make being happier contagious.

What delights you and gives you joy? Please share. 

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Taking A Break

In Hello. In  Teach. Run. Write, Christina Torres shares,

“So, I am trying to take a break and invest in myself. I bought a new running watch. I invested in a coaching plan. I’m trying to worry less about my times at Honolulu and Bird Marathon and focus on a marathon in March. I’m hoping to change things up to try and rediscover joy.”

As some of you might know, I’m been busy writing.

I like to have schedules and following them, so I’ve assigned two hours every morning for writing. Yet, every morning I have a moment of fear that I don't know what to write. I start some instrumental soft music from Pandora radio and then I start writing. The hardest thing is to get started so I start writing whatever comes to mind. Once I get started, my mind starts going faster than my fingers can type!

So, for the past few weeks, I’ve been busy writing.

Then I realized that I forgot to add in a few break days. Any habit that you do without a break can become a boring rut!

One reason I know this has happened is that I’ve taken a few days to revise some of my writing.

As I’m revising my writing, I am amazed at how many new ideas are popping in my head!

I love knitting and spinning yarn, but sometimes I take a break from my fiber arts and do some envelope art that involves colored pencils and marker.

Sometimes I like to get out and go hiking or do some gardening.

I usually encourage teachers to follow routines and how it helps students. But I realize that sometimes a break is necessary. As long as the students know that I am adding a break into the routine, I think they won’t mind having a change.

This change may actually be more helpful than harmful.

By changing things up, it is easier to rediscover the joy that Christina mentions.

Do you take breaks from your routine? What do you do? Please share.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Enjoying Children

In Simple Advice: Enjoy the Kids from @DavidGeurin Blog, David Geurin shares,

“The quickest way to change another person's behavior is to change your behavior towards them. Kids are going to make mistakes. But if you make it a point to enjoy being with them, and treat them with great respect and care, there is almost no mistake you can't correct. They'll be far more open to your feedback when they feel that you like them and enjoy them.”

Whenever I get frustrated with students, I remember the success I had with a student when I changed my own behavior. When I realized it was impossible to change his behavior until I changed mine. I had to change how I reacted to his behavior. Once I did this, I was able to see more clearly what I needed to do to help the student change his behavior.

I am currently a volunteer at our state park and my husband and I lead second graders on nature hikes. Every time I do this, I get nervous because I don’t want to mess up. I want to make sure I give them the right information on life cycles. I want the teachers to be glad that I’m leading the hike. I want the children to enjoy the hike and the learning. I’m so caught up in what I want from their behavior that I have to make myself stop. I have to remind myself why I like doing this.

I like children. I like being around all of their energy and excitement. I like hearing the questions they ask and seeing the wonder in their eyes when they see something new. I love how they share their observations with each other.

I realized that once I relaxed and focused on enjoying the children, I had a much better time. I knew I was well prepared and I’ve done this many times so there is no reason I should have worried. I was focusing too much on myself instead of the children.

I think new teachers tend to worry too much about themselves. They need to take a less serious outlook on their newness. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be well prepared. They need to be well prepared but once know they are, they need to take a deep breath. It is time to enjoy the children!

When was the last time you enjoyed your students? Please share.

Living a Life of Joy

In What part of your life do you water with your words? From  Cool Cat Teacher Blog by coolcatteacher@gmail.com, Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher, asks,

“What part of your life do you water with your words? Do you grow gratitude or dissatisfaction? Do you grow friendships or fault-finding? Do you grow joy or anger?”

I tend to look at the positives. I guess I’m lucky though because there is rarely anything negative to say about my days. My life is usually without many problems and if they do happen, they are usually easily solved.

I have a loving husband and family and I know I’m loved. That above everything else makes me feel pretty blessed in life.

Financially we are able to pay all of our bills and get the things we need and even want. We don’t live above our means so we don’t have any debts.

We eat simply and now that we are retired, we really try to focus on eating healthy foods.

I have wonderful friends who are very positive people so I hope we all feed off of each other’s positive vibes. Whenever one of us is down or discouraged, there is always someone to help boost you up.

I face daily obstacles like not wanting to do tasks that I don’t like such as cleaning my house, weeding the flower beds, or decluttering. But I don’t see them as problems.

I realize as I write this up, what a great life I have. My life is pretty filled with love and joy which of course fills me with gratitude.

Photo: https://pixabay.com/en/woman-happiness-sunrise-silhouette-570883/