My #OneWord2024

Mary wrote about her experience with #OneWord each year, you can see all of her previous posts here: 

I’ve always felt that the #oneword movement was intriguing and worth pursuing, but never pushed myself beyond the observation aspect of the idea and into the action. This year, I’ve decided is my year. I’ve been pondering for a few weeks now what my #OneWord2024 should be, with Mary’s past posts guiding my way. 

Connect. 

It felt right for me for this year. 

Connect with my kids. With my spouse.

Connect with friends, old and new. 

Connect with community members. 

Connect with myself. 

Connect with my wants and needs.

Connect with the wants and needs of others. 

This year, I’ll be focusing my time and energy on connection instead of writing out my New Year’s resolutions. I can already tell it will be more productive and useful by using this method. 

What is your #OneWord2024? Still brainstorming? Here are a handful of ideas: 

Doing What is Best For the Child #TeacherMom

I was dead set on holding him back for kindergarten.

My “middle of August” baby born four years ago has forced me to have kindergarten on my mind since the day I knew his due date. I guess that’s a normal thought process after spending years working towards a teaching degree and years beyond that in multiple classrooms and schools. 

Knowing he was a boy with a very late summer birthday, I knew I wanted to hold him back. I’ve had this decision set in my mind for years now. 

But then his course of schooling took some unexpected turns.

We had the developmental preschool in our school district put him through their testing to see if he could qualify for their free preschool, which is an amazing resource to have! 

After three separate days of testing he was able to gain acceptance into their program under an IEP for speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy, all while under close observation for a pending ADHD diagnosis. 

Whew. We just went from a child with a few sensory issues that we were working through to a full-on IEP and in-school services weekly. 

It was a whirlwind taking it all in and seeing where he landed with all of his testing, while then sitting through my first-ever IEP meeting as a parent and going through each of his goals. 

And still, the kindergarten question loomed over me. 

Because legally, this is the last year he can attend this preschool and receive in-school therapies as a preschooler, since next year he will turn 5. Therapies and schooling can only continue if he is in kindergarten.

So without the ability of sending him to preschool again as a five-year-old like I was hoping for, it leaves us with two options. Send him to kindergarten as a very new five-year-old, or keep him home for a year so that we can send him back to public school as a very new six-year-old. 

I know in many cities there would be many other courses of action that can be taken, like charter schools or private preschools and therapies. 

But unfortunately for us in our small town, those are not options we have. Keeping him from kindergarten next year would mean a full-year lapse in therapies that he so desperately needs more than I realized. 

It means redoing all of his testing to place him back into these therapies when he does start school again because everything would lapse and we would be starting over from scratch. 

I was set on holding him back for kinder. I was ready to put him into the public school system as a six-year-old, more prepared and ready to take on the world with an extra year of playing outside in the sticks and mud instead of sitting at a desk. 

But what wins out over what I want, is what he needs. Yes, I want to hold him back a year and I can see the benefits tenfold of sending him to kindergarten later. But I can see the better, higher benefits of sending him earlier, despite my wishes. 

Because in the end, the best decision you can make is whatever is best for the child. Always. 

Cover Photo: Mallory Wilcox

A Worked For Perfect Score- The Spelling Test #TeacherMom

My daughter brought home her first list of spelling words a few weeks ago. There was a quick note from the teacher- “Please practice these spelling words with your children so they can be prepared for the test at the end of the week.” 

The remainder of the week looked like us working together to practice the spelling words, she is the type of student and child who needed to take the reins on her own homework and decide how much work and effort she was going to put in. And in true fashion, she put in all of the effort and work possible. 

She set up a time to type out the words on a computer to practice and asked us to quiz her once she felt like she had them down better. She practiced spelling them out loud and on paper and took the time to notice patterns within the different words. She worked really hard and put in a lot of effort to learn this new skill, and I was proud of her for this! She even worked extra hard on her bonus words, one of them being the word school, which is a tricky word to spell! 

The day of the spelling test she was a ball of nerves, completely anxious about what was ahead of her. We practiced a few affirmations. 

“I am more than my spelling test.”

“I am a smart kid.”

“I worked hard on my spelling words.” 

“I will do my best and that is good enough.” 

I knew all of the emotions she was feeling as memories of my high school AP literature test, my college statistics final, and many, many more instances came flooding back. The feeling that you just spent a lot of time and effort studying and not doing well on the test would be absolutely devastating and heartbreaking. 

The spelling test came and went, she came home from school and said that she felt really good about it but was still nervous to see her final score the next Monday. Again, I felt the same feelings with her, knowing that it’s out of her hands but the score is yet to come with the fear of the unknown. 

On Monday she came home from school with a spelling test in her backpack… And of course, she received 100%! She even spelled both bonus words correctly. 

That feeling of working hard and having it pay off was felt equally between us. 

There was also a big sense of pride I had in her knowing that this perfect score wasn’t something she easily obtained by natural smarts. It was something she set a plan and a goal for and worked hard to get there. To me, an easy perfect score is one thing, but putting in the time and effort for a good score is next level. 

Mary’s experience and advice with spelling tests:

Where We Draw the Line With Extracurriculars

My oldest is 5 years old and we are already deep in the trenches of managing extracurriculars. It’s mind-boggling that we would even be at this phase of life already when she’s only in kindergarten. Yet she comes home roughly every six weeks with a new flyer from our Recreation District about soccer signs up, t-ball the next time, and basketball the month after. And the discussion between friends always starts at school, “Are you playing soccer this year? I am, I want you to be on my team!”

While I am very impressed with our Rec District and happy they are providing these opportunities for our community, I’m also an overwhelmed parent that can’t keep up with practices and games and everything else that comes with each sport! So, we don’t

When do we finally call it quits? 

Well, there are a lot of factors to consider. I love Mary’s perspective on this topic. I’d also like to add that we live in a very small community and participating in extracurriculars and spending Saturdays on the soccer fields is a huge community event where we all know one another and have time to socialize. This factor plays in when making a decision! 

But my biggest selling point for this decision-making process is time for free play. Are my kids coming home from school, rushing to change clothes and eat a snack, just to get back in the car and head to soccer practice? Once in a while, that’s fine! One night a week we live this way so we can make it to a tumbling class, and it’s an overall benefit to our whole family. But the rest of the week they come home, have some downtime by themselves or with screens, and then spend the rest of the evening deep in play, sometimes inside, sometimes outside. Sometimes we involve friends and neighbors, sometimes we don’t! 

But play is the real work of childhood, not basketball. Not choir practice. So when all of these extracurricular activities start interfering with playtime, that’s where and when the line is drawn in our family. 

It’s always a tricky road to navigate, though! How do you decide which extracurriculars and how many your child can and will be involved in? 

Other helpful posts:

Dear Future Teacher Me

Dear Future Teacher Me, 

I know it’s been a few years since you graduated with your teaching degree and received your teaching license (OKAY it’s been more than a few.) But someday you’ll find yourself back in the classroom teaching again when it feels suitable for your family. Someday you will walk through those doors to set up your own classroom instead of walking your own to theirs. 

And someday when that day comes, there are things you need to remember to carry with you that you learned during your time as a parent in the school setting instead of a teacher. 

Remember that all you ever want is what’s best for your kids. So when it feels like a parent won’t get off your back about something, remember that really all they want is what’s best for their child. 

Remember that you’re doing the best you can to support your children’s teachers, but sometimes it’s hard to be as supportive as possible because your life is busy and there’s a lot going on. So someday when you feel like you’re not getting enough support in your classroom, remember that these parents have multiple children and jobs and responsibilities. Their time to volunteer may not be right now. 

Remember that every day you send your children to school and worry immensely about their safety, but also place a lot of trust in the teachers and staff of the school to do everything they can to keep them safe. Remember this, because someday parents will be sending their kids to you and expecting the same. 

Remember that you think so highly of your kid’s teachers and are constantly impressed by what they are able to create and do in their classrooms and that someday, parents will think the same of you. 

Remember that you often forget to convey your gratitude and appreciation for your kid’s teachers and that parents will forget just the same. But that doesn’t mean the gratitude and appreciation aren’t there. 

Most of all, remember that you love your own kids, but you’ll also love your students like they are your own kids, too. Someday, you’ll make a great teacher. You may not have been teaching in a classroom for the last several years, but you’ve done your fair share of teaching with the children in your home, and that experience will carry over to your classroom someday, too. 

You’ve got this. 

Can A Worksheet Do That? Teaching Social Studies in a Hands-On Way

We recently made the decision to pull my daughter from school and do “distance learning” for a short time because we had a new virus or sickness in our home every week and it wasn’t sustainable anymore (more on that story to come later). 

Luckily, the school was able to work with us to make her a “distance learner” because of Covid protocols still in place, instead of unenrolling and re-enrolling her when she’s ready to head back. 

She is in kindergarten, so the workload is fairly easy and somewhat hands-on. However, one worksheet for social studies looked like this: 

Photo: A group of neighbors with adults and children standing around, laughing, and talking. Food is being exchanged. 

Text on photo: Talk About It: Essential Question. Who are your neighbors? 

Text: Talk about how these people are being good neighbors. Draw and write about one way you can be a good neighbor. 

Writing prompt: I can be a good neighbor by 

I am sure this worksheet sparks great conversations in classrooms and it gives the students a chance to draw and write about what they’re talking about. 

The only requirement for my daughter was to do everything this page said. Talk about it, write about it, and draw a picture. Then she would have been done with the assignment and moved on. 

But what did she learn from that interaction? 

Are we really learning social studies with this worksheet, or are we learning conversation skills, writing, and drawing? 

How can we do this… better? 

We started with a picture book.

Good Morning Neighbor by Davide Cali and Maria Dek 

I highly recommend keeping this one in your personal library, it’s a good one with many applications. 

After reading the book, the discussion started.

Who are our neighbors? What nice things have they done for us? What nice things have we done for them? Why is it important to be a good neighbor? 

And then we took it one step further, what can we do for one of our neighbors today?

This led us to making and delivering dinner and cookies for a neighbor that we knew was sick. We also stopped next door to an elderly widow and chatted with her for a while, asking her if she needed anything. On our way out, we quickly shoveled her driveway and cleared her car of snow and ice. 

On our walk home, we noticed that another neighbor near us had some rugs left outside on their doorstep that had blown into the yard from the high winds. We spent a few minutes gathering them up and stacking them on the doorstep since they were not home to take them inside. 

Once we were finally home, we pulled out the worksheet, and my daughter felt like she was ready to write a whole paper on ways she could be a good neighbor. She wanted to give the full story of everything we accomplished in our afternoon of service. Instead, we settled on a simple few-word sentence, and then she was able to tell her teacher the whole story the next time we went into the school to bring back her finished schoolwork. 

Looking at it overall, how much would she have taken away if we would have had the discussion and written the sentence? She would have practice in writing, that’s for sure. But the whole point was to focus on social studies. What did she take away from a social studies standpoint? 

She would probably know that she needs to be a good neighbor. And maybe have some ideas on how she can be that will stick around in her mind for a few weeks, maybe up to a month. Nothing would stick around long-term. 

But after spending an hour serving our own neighbors, the lesson will engrain itself in her mind more than a light discussion and sentence writing ever would. 

Now I know delivering dinner and sitting down to an afternoon chat with everyone’s neighbor isn’t doable in a full classroom. So what can we do in a classroom of 25+ students to give them a similar experience? 

Talk about neighbors within the classroom. Our neighbors in a classroom are our friends sitting by us, but all together, we are a full community. Discuss ways we can be a good neighbor within our own classroom. 

Give them opportunities to draw pictures or notes for their neighbors. Maybe create crafts or pick treats for their neighbors. Let them practice helping their neighbor when zipping up coats to go outside, or picking up trash around their desk during messy play. 

If you’re creating an uplifting, teamwork environment in the small community of your classroom, it will eventually translate itself into their daily life and show in small ways around the school and in their neighborhoods.

Can filling out a worksheet accomplish that? 

Photo by Katerina Holmes

Kids Need Outside Time, Even in the Dark.

I am a firm believer in spending time with kids outside in the winter. But one problem that comes up repeatedly is the daylight hours lessening as winter pushes on. During the summer months, the days are long and the sunlight is plentiful, we’re typically outside by 7 am and the dark doesn’t force us inside until 9 or 10 pm. In the winter where we are, typically the sun starts setting by 5 pm. With school in session as well, this only leaves us roughly an hour of outside time during daylight hours, which is the busiest hour of our day as well, so finding the capacity to get outside can be hard.

But. If we make some changes and get outside even after the sun has gone down, it opens up so much time! It also proves to have its benefits as well. Simply changing up the lighting in which kids play, changes the way they have to think and problem solve. While riding their bike in the daylight hours eventually becomes a mindless activity to them, riding it during the dark forces them to pay extra attention to their surroundings and their bike, and use their intuition and senses to help guide them. Something that was once a mundane, everyday sport turns into an elaborate thinking process for them. 

Our tips for getting outside during the dark hours:

A little bit of risky play while we set up our Christmas lights

Wear the right clothing. The warmer you are, the longer you’ll last. You can read more about clothing here. 

Bring the light with you! Flashlights, lanterns, and glow sticks all work wonderfully. We like to buy our glowsticks on Amazon in bulk, making them more affordable. We’ve invested in LED light beanies also found on Amazon. We keep a handful of Dollar Store flashlights around for use as well as a few bigger, nicer ones that put off more light when needed. Pro tip: attach a glowstick to your child’s coat so you can always spot them. Flashlights are great for them to use, but can be easily dropped. Having something more secure that doesn’t require being held can be immensely helpful. 

Bringing light to the night!

Get creative with the light. Add in Christmas lights, brighter LED porch lights, or bust open spotlights used for working on cars. Our set typically stays up close to the garage door in the winter so it’s easy to access for when we need them. 

Have a set activity when you head outside. I talked about this before in my post about getting outside in the cold, but it’s relevant for the dark, too. Since it’s harder and takes a more active choice to go outside in the dark, choosing your activity before going outside can help. 

Visit well-lit areas. Window shop downtown, take walks around college campuses if they’re available in your area, or visit well-lit parks. 

Do you try to get your kids outside when it’s dark out? What tips would you add? 

Photo by Tobi