S2:E8 - Spread JOY and Teach Gratitude!

There's nothing like the feeling of spreading JOY and teaching gratitude! I can't wait to hear how these ideas bring YOU, your students, and the teachers in your building some joy this week, next week, and for years to come! Love, Annabelle

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Transcript

Welcome!

Welcome back to my podcast teaching la vida loca for season two. I'm Annabelle, your Maestra loca, and I am ready to kick off season two with even more enthusiasm, magic, and tips and tricks for your classroom. Get set for a ride of inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. On turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host and your cheerleader, and I am thrilled you're tuning in, buckle up, and let's do this. Let's tackle teaching lovey that look at together. Hi, there, welcome to episode eight of Teaching La Vida Loca. I'm so glad you're here. Today, I want to talk all about Teacher Appreciation Week, and it's quickly approaching. This year, it's officially the sixth through 10th of May.

Teacher Appreciation Week

My school is celebrating it a week early because we have to do state standardized testing, the week of Teacher Appreciation Week, yay, gross. Ha, I know so gross. Sorry to vomit in your ear, or in your car or wherever you're listening to this. But gross, any who. We're celebrating it a little early. But that reminded me, it actually prompted me, to record this podcast for you because I've been doing the prep work for Teacher Appreciation Week, earlier this year, because of that. And so, I thought, oh, I can record this podcast and give other teachers the ability to prep in advance for Teacher Appreciation. Now, if you're listening to this, and it’s already Teacher Appreciation Week, or teacher appreciation week has passed, does it mean that you can't do any of these things? No, you should still do them anyways, to honor and celebrate yourself and to celebrate the other educators in your building, who you were so grateful to work with. I am a big fan of Teacher Appreciation Week. And it's something that I've always kind of gone all out for. And I have a couple of blogs for you. In fact, I'm just going to pull them up now. So, I don't forget to share the links with you. That will help you get ideas and clarify what I'm talking about a little bit more, but I'll link those in the show notes.

Appreciating Other Teachers

This year, whether you go big or go small. I think that it's important to try something to celebrate the other educators in your building because the amount of joy you personally will experience by doing this is indescribable. It is why I go all out every year. I love how I feel when I'm able to recognize and help students recognize the teachers in my building. And it always makes me feel so good. It makes the teachers feel so good. And it helps build that important sense of gratitude in our students that we want them to learn so that as they get older, it's just natural for them to be grateful and thankful and to share their gratitude with others. So, the first thing I will share is something that I have blogged about, and you can easily find like step-by-step instructions on, and that is word clouds. So, I've been prepping with this with my pre-K students and my fifth-grade students. My fourth-grade students are not doing it this year because all of the fourth-grade teachers last year received this from me, because I taught third and fourth grade last year. This year I'm teaching fourth fifth and pre-K. So, to prep for this what I did with pre-K is I just sat down one day, and I asked them for one word to describe their teacher. And to help them with this, I provided them a sentence stem. I said Miss Boehner is blank. Miss Lagrange is blank. Ms. Terrio is blank. Ms. Weddell is blank to just help them. Or when I think of Ms. Weddell, I think of, because otherwise, you just have kids saying I love her and she hugs me, which is equally precious. But you really want them coming up with an adjective right? With my fifth graders, it's just a Google form. I give them a Google form. They write one word or if they want to, they can write two words to describe their homeroom teacher. And then later in the Google Form, I have their art teacher, their SEL teacher, there are other teachers listed. Although this year, they are not just including an adjective they're including an emoji for them. Because again, I'm just trying to do something a little bit different this year for the teachers that I already did this for last year, like the fourth-grade teacher and like the enrichment teachers. So, once you have all of those words, you just gather them, and you copy and paste them into a word cloud generator. There's a million of these out there. 

Word Clouds

My favorite is word art.com. But there's literally so many. So, if you go to word art.com, or a word cloud generator, you just plop all the adjectives in there. And the ones that are repeated the most are going to show up biggest in your word cloud. And then you can choose the colors, you can choose the shape that you want the word cloud in, and then boom, you hit print, and you have this beautiful word cloud, you can go the extra mile and spend $1 on frames at the dollar store and frame them for your teachers. If that's not the kind of money you have, you can just literally print it out and put it in their mailbox and say, this is what your students think of you. So that's the first one. And let me tell you, it turns out really, really beautifully. I do hope you check the link in the show notes because you can see exactly what this look like and exactly step-by-step directions on how to do it if that wasn't a good enough explanation, but that's what I'm doing for the pre-K teachers in fifth grade teachers this year. I'm excited about the emojis. I don't know how it's going to turn out this year, because honestly, I'm finishing it up on Monday and Tuesday. But I'm excited to see how that comes out. And I'm excited to see the emojis that kids select to describe different teachers. I think that'll be really fun. 

Mad Libs

We're also going to create Mad Libs stories as a class to describe this teacher. I got this idea from my own brain, which I love my brain sometimes, especially late at night when it should be shutting down. But hello, ADHD and pregnancy combined, it's just a blessing. But I got this idea of creating a Mad Libs story. And then we're going to just fill it in with different adjectives. And it's going to be really funny. So, we're going to frame that as well. 

Mini Canvases

For teachers, something else I've done in previous years is if you go to Michael's, you can buy like, mini canvases, and they're not really mini but they're small canvases. And you can buy them in bulk. So, packs of 10, or whatever. It depends on how many homeroom teachers you want to do this for whether you're spending money or not, you know, this may or may not work. And you may be able to find these at the dollar store. I don't know. I've never checked for canvases. But another thing I've done is I've had students... I have a craft closet at home. So, I always use my own craft stuff. But I bring in ink pads. And I have kids put their thumbprint on the ink pad and then put it on to the canvas in, I've already outlined to shape. So, for example, my friend who taught PE in the building I was working in a few years ago, she still has this on her desk, but like I had already drawn the shape of a basketball. And the kids were just putting their orange thumbprint inside the basketball. And then you can do some sort of cheesy message about, you know, thank you for leaving an imprint on a year or thank you for the impact you've had on a year or whatever. Or you don't have the cheesy phrase, and you just have this beautiful work of art with a whole bunch of student fingerprints on it. That's a really fun idea. I'm throwing a lot at you. 

Memory Jar

Another idea you can do is a memory jar. I've done this before, where you just get a whole bunch of ball jars, you can actually get these donated, sometimes you can pick them up off of Facebook marketplace, like people will, who typically do jarring and canning, will just put up a post and you can take a whole bunch of ball jars from Facebook marketplace, but you can have students on little pieces of paper write down their favorite memory of the year with their teacher. And then you just fold them up, put them in that little jar and then you can paint it you can write on it, call it the memory jar, and put a little bow on it. And that's also inexpensive special way to honor and celebrate teachers.

Two More Ideas

And two more ideas that are totally free. One takes a little bit more prep. And this is the one I wanted to do this year, but I honestly think I'm too tired and too pregnant and that's okay. And I'll just save it for the future. It's a gratitude tree. Most buildings have giant butcher paper rolls. So, the idea is you go and get a ton of brown butcher paper and you crinkle it up make a tree trunk at the base of a bulletin board and then like twist it and spiral it up and then have it and on the bulletin board and then make little branches branching out with more crinkled up rolled up pieces of that brown butcher paper as branches and then on leaves that students cut out. They write notes of gratitude words of gratitude for teachers. I think this could be really beautiful, very visually appealing and a beautiful way to honor and celebrate teachers in front of each other. Because obviously, as students add to the tree, it's just going to grow, and it'll be really beautiful. So that's another idea. I do take class time to do this. So, if you're wondering like, oh, how does she accomplish this? It is done during Spanish class. I take a whole day where students fill out the Google Form. And then the last thing they do in that same class, is my other free idea for you. 

More Gratitude

They take a piece of paper that I get from the teachers’ lounge, sometimes I am lucky enough to work at a school that has colored paper. Other times, we're out by this time of year. So, it really depends, but they grab some construction paper or some paper, and then they write at least one note of gratitude to a teacher. Now, here's the important part about this. If I notice that Mr. Popular, Mr. Tuttle, is getting a million cards. And there is another teacher who is wonderful, but is not a homeroom teacher and isn't getting as many, I might say, hey, you know, somebody who could use an extra card, if you're already finished, it's such and such person, so I can list a teacher who I think has a smaller pile of cards, or maybe just one or two, and I want them to have an extra card. I can name that. And then lo and behold, there's a few kids who are like, oh, I love that person. And they'll write more. So that's something to keep in mind. Because homeroom teachers, I never have a problem filling their inbox with cards. It's the enrichment teachers that I sometimes have to remind kids about. Another thing to keep in mind is that I encourage students to think about teachers they've had in previous years too, because receiving a card from a kid who you taught, you know, in sixth grade, and they're now in eighth grade, that's really special. So, I encourage them to write to any educator that they want to in the building. Occasionally, there's been a couple years where I have received my own card that the kids have just slipped into the piles. And then as I'm sorting them to distribute them, their wonderful words impact me to which is really special. And they say things like thank you for doing this. Thank you for taking time out of Spanish to make sure that teachers feel loved and celebrated and thanked for all that they do. 

Brain Break

Before we wrap this up, let's go ahead and do a brain break. I am 99% sure that I have not shared this brain break on the podcast before, but it's one I've been using a lot lately. We have been reading class novels. And each chapter that I introduced, I make sure that there isn't any, like brand new vocabulary. And if there is, then we enter that vocab with some personalization with a gesture, establish meaning, and then we jump into the chapter so that they're already familiar with it when they encounter it within the page. But one of the brain breaks I've been using because of it, is face off, which it's really nothing at all, but they feel like it's so competitive, which is great. Similar to maestra de se or Simon Says where they're acting it out with the gestures, right? Or the, the movement, the TPR. But instead, you just pair kids up so they're facing each other. You can do this by like getting them into rows, or in my bigger classes. It's four rows. You can also sorry, my dog is attacking the mailman, such as sweet puppy. You could also get the whole class in a circle and just pair them really quickly. Uno dos, uno dos. Pair them up, have them face their first partner and then randomly throughout the brain break, you can say turn around or look behind you. And now they're paired with a brand-new person. And the reason it's called face off, oh my gosh, my dog, please stop. (Barking in background). The reason it's called Face Off is you're just trying to get them to beat the other person in doing the gesture. So, for example, I use a lot of the words I use right now. So, I'm just yelling out those words that are encountered in our text and that we have just introduced, and the kids are trying to beat the person they're facing and doing the gesture. I don't know why it's so entertaining. I don't why they like it. Have I done this in elementary, middle, and high? Yes, all three. In fact, it's one of my oldest brain breaks that I ever started doing. But then I didn't call it a brain break. I just, I think did it. But now I actually call it a brain break. And then kids think it's fun. And they're also simultaneously staying in the target language. So, yay for that.

Appreciate Yourself!

The last thing I want to focus on this Teacher Appreciation episode is you. What are you doing to acknowledge the tremendously hard work that you've put in this year? What are you doing, to pat yourself on the back and remind yourself of how excellent and awesome you are? How are you honoring and celebrating yourself this Teacher Appreciation Week, and you can do these in simple ways that don't cost much money, or you can treat yourself in big ways too. The first simple way that I will say is, write yourself some affirmations on your bathroom mirror to remind yourself of how strong and how incredible you are. Teaching is not for the faint of heart. It has only been harder in the last five years. And while it is so rewarding, it's also exhausting. So how are you writing some affirmations to remind yourself at the beginning of the day, how special you are and how fortunate the students are to interact with you, and you are to interact with them on a day-to-day basis. So, affirmations on your mirror are a great one. Start a countdown for the end of the year. If you haven't already, well, why have you not? Start at countdown. How many days do you have left to the end of the year? And give yourself a little calendar you can mark down in your car, on the way to work or on your way home, something you can check off when you hang up your keys, something like that. Another thing that you can do that doesn't cost too much is buy yourself a coffee. Choose a day for Teacher Appreciation Week that you're going to get yourself a coffee or maybe buy yourself lunch. I know that we have been watching our money and our pennies lately. So, a Door Dash lunch feels like a really big treat for me. But you know if that sort of thing is a big treat for you, too, then yeah, it just gets yourself a special lunch one day. Another thing you can do is you can write words of gratitude at the end of your day. I've shared this on this podcast before. But you can write gratitudes at the end of your day on your whiteboard. So, the first thing you see when you come into school are three gratitudes from the day prior. It's just a really good way to end your day psychologically. And it's a really excellent way to start your day. Especially if you're a person like me who comes in and is like, oh, here we go. You know because I absolutely start the day like that. And I would be lying if I said I didn't. So those are my ideas for you. 

I Appreciate You!

I hope that you feel celebrated and loved this teacher appreciation. And I'm so grateful for you listen to this podcast, I published a post on Instagram that I'll link in the show notes as well. Recently, this week that had reviews of the podcast, I asked for reviews all the time, but I hit a kick where it had been a couple of months where anybody had said anything, so I stopped checking because I was so disheartened. And then I actually went on last week and saw several new ones and it lit my heart up. It was really special. So, thank you for taking the time to listen, thank you for taking the time to review the podcast. It really does help the views go up. It really helps Google recognize me. And I really do enjoy sharing this way. I'm sitting here and I am almost 37 weeks pregnant, two days away from 37 weeks pregnant. And I am just still so grateful that I get to do this. And to be a part of your teaching journey every week. So, thank you for supporting me, thank you for supporting this podcast. Don't forget to share it with somebody who you think might need some ideas for Teacher Appreciation Week. And let me know how Teacher Appreciation Week goes. I can't wait to hear what you do for teachers in your building and how it impacts both students, those teachers, and your joy. Take care and until next time, I'll be teaching la vida loca. So very pregnant. And I'll talk to you real soon. Take care teacher.