Why do we, Christians, celebrate Lent?

As we head into Lent, it's good to reflect and teach our students what these days before Easter are really about. Let's face it, sometimes kids get focused on "giving up" something and that's as far as they go in their thinking. They have no idea why they are doing it.

So what is the point of Lent? Put simply, Lent is a time we give things up that distract us from God. Filling that time back up with focus on God helps us as we lean on God to get us through our "desert". 

Lent is about... 

• preparing our hearts for Easter

• Imitating Jesus in his 40 days in the desert

• developing self-mastery and self-control

• re-aligning our lives and our plans with God's plan

• making more room for God in our everyday lives

• prayer + fasting + almsgiving

• forgiveness

• penance or making amends

• reflection

• evangelizing

• and much more

Making Room for God

Here's a simple way to teach younger students to make more room for God in...

Do you ever think of leaving teaching? 

When we have one of THOSE DAYS (or weeks), it's easy slide into negative thinking. Let's face it, we all have thought about leaving teaching at one time or another. Teaching is HARD. No one tells you how hard it is. Not really. They can try, but when we are just starting out we are going to change the world. We have no ears for the warnings. But...

Teaching is hard, so we have to have a bigger reason to keep doing it.

Don't get me wrong, There is a lot of joy and intrinsic reward in teaching. But when we are having a tough day, week or even year, it's easy to forget our WHY. Why do we teach? Why did we choose this profession in the first place? Why do we keep on choosing it every day? 

When we lose our why, we lose our way. Are you lost?

Mother Theresa said, " Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

So if you have only today as a teacher, what will you do with it? Here's the deal. We get so...

I was chatting with a colleague about the values of vulnerability in our teaching and with our teams when the conversation took a surprising turn. It got me wondering... how many teachers don't feel safe enough to share their mess-ups, errors or faults (being vulnerable) at their schools?

There is a lot of talk about vulnerability across all industries these days. We know what it is, but do we practice it in education? Do we make it safe for our teachers to be real with each other and their students? Is it possible in education to regularly make ourselves vulnerable? It depends.

Here's the deal....

Vulnerability can be liberating. It's wonderful to be honest and admit we don't have all the answers. It's good for our students to see we make mistakes every day and how we handle that. But sometimes and in some situations, vulnerability can feel really unsafe.  In some instances, it can expose us to ridicule or threaten our jobs.

There are teachers who work in...

Routines are time savers. They us create good habits and be more efficient.

Starting off our day feeling together and ending on the right foot makes all the difference in getting and staying organized.

As teachers, we often live and work at 100 mph. By the end of our school day, we are left feeling worn to the bone. It's so easy to just pack up a few things and head home. However, leaving items to be put away in the morning or prep for tomorrow undone until that morning is like leaving the dinner dishes in the sink over night. It sets us up for a hurried morning where we start out feeling behind.

Take 30 minutes to tidy up, decompress and get set for tomorrow. Create a checklist of items you want to take care of each day for your shutdown routine. Then, create a morning routine to get you going. It will change your whole perspective and set you up for success each day.

Here's mine. 

AM

Check mailbox. Quick hellos. Hydrate, pray, organize all the materials I will need for...

Conquering your inbox may seem like a pipe dream, but it's totally do-able.

Remember when "You've got mail" was a good thing?! Not so much anymore.

Is your inbox stressing your out? Are you drowning in emails? Before getting your classroom ready, get your inbox under control.

First of all, how many inboxes do you have?

Decide how you plan to keep tabs on them- when and how often. Consolidate what you can and get rid of any extra email addresses you don't really use anymore.

Next, deal with your email backlog.

Choose a set amount of time to deal with the backlog every day until your inbox is to 0. What?! Zero? That's not possible, right?! Wrong. Totally possible and do-able.

Check your email a couple times a day. That means quickly flip through it and deal with anything that is URGENT. Leave the rest.

Once a day, set aside time to deal with your new emails.

This is when you will do something with every NEW email for that day- read, file, respond, delete, something to get it taken...

As I was getting my planning done for 2018, I took the time to create a theme for the year. This is something new for me. But, I thought I'd give it a go. 

My theme is Doing More with Less: Calm, Simple and High Impact

It's so easy to let life and work get complicated. The teachers I am working with right now are all asking for ways to simplify and create calm but still have high impact teaching. Music to my ears! 

Here's a good place to start. Get rid of the clutter. 

Physical clutter often becomes brain clutter. What do I mean? Well, our brains can only focus on one thing at a time. Yes, multi-taking is total bunk. I've heard it called switch-tasking, a much more accurate term. When we live and work in cluttered spaces, our brains are less efficient because they are distracted (in varying degrees) by all the stuff. Staying focused and concentrating in cluttered spaces is difficult for our brains. The seconds and minutes that are lost as our brains focus, switch...

Are you limiting your students thinking and learning?

Sometimes we put our students in a box and close the lid on their potential without realizing it. Let me explain.

Imagine, if you will, two classrooms with the same book and similar lessons.

In the first classroom Teacher 1 reads The Relatives Came to the class. She has a few cute worksheets she has created for her students to complete around the book.

1. Students will fill in the meaning of some of the phrases printed on the worksheet from the text. There are boxes with lines for each one. Everyone shares their thoughts once the class finishes.

2. On the second worksheet there are 3 sections with lines, one each for beginning, middle and end of the story. The transition words first, next and last are filled in to get the students started. There is a picture at the top of the page that students can color, if they have time.

3. The third worksheet has a venn diagram. Students are to fill in what one of their visits with their...

Habits and rituals rule our days whether we want them to or not.

No matter our personality type, we all have habits and rituals even if we don't know it. If we are intentional in creating our habits and rituals, then we are in charge of our time. But... more often than not, we develop default habits that steal our time and contribute to our overwhelm. 

Overwhelmed? Yeah, I get it. I've been there. Here's the deal. As you head into Christmas break, you have time to start fresh with intentional habits and rituals. Take charge of your day. Use these 2 habits of ultra productive people - Morning and Evening Rituals.

Start with a planner or notebook of some sort.

Create morning and evening rituals or habits. A morning ritual will get you moving and ready on time in the morning without stress. An evening ritual will get you to bed on time so you wake refreshed and ready. These two small changes will change your life, I promise! 

Sleep is the most important thing you can do for...

Raise your hand if you stress out over school at the end of your Christmas Break. We all know it's coming- the January Back-to-School craziness. Let's prepare for it now, so you can enjoy a true break. That's crazy talk, right?! No, it's your new normal.

After the break, things start to really move fast in school. We have standardized testing, Valentine's Day, Black History Month, the general retraining of our students and ourselves and much more. Let's face it. As lovely and necessary as it is to have a break, it's a lot of work to get back in the swing of things. In fact, it's nuts! 

So, prepare now. Have your first week back (at least) planned and ready before you leave for Christmas Break. This means:

• Lessons planned (~ 2 hours)

• Copies made (30 minutes or less)

• Extra items for activities, demonstrations or experiments purchased or gathered (~ 1 hour)

• Lesson Materials organized and ready to go (last day ~ 20 minutes)

• Assessment Materials: Create, adjust...

I love gingerbread. I can't get enough of it.

Every year my family and I make gingerbread cookie ornaments for our Christmas tree, gingerbread St. Nicholas cookies for St. Nicholas' Day, make gingerbread houses and read gingerbread stories during Advent. 

Gingerbread stories abound.The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School, The Gingerbread Cowboy and The Baker's Dozen: A St. Nicholas Tale are just a few.

Let's face it. Once December hits, we are all a little antsy. So...

Keep your students engaged and learning until the last minute before break with gingerbread. 

Start by having some fun with gingerbread stories. Pick a few different versions to read. Then, decide on some lessons. 

Here's a few ideas:

• Compare and contrast them.

• Students can practice their persuasive writing skills by "selling" a favorite version with a commercial or radio ad.

• Make gingerbread or have some cookies to share, decorate...