If Only it Could Always Be This Way!

Just wanted to share a little bit of my excitement from today. It started out as a difficult day (close to tears at one point and reminding myself that God called me to be a teacher for a reason), but by the end of the day my overall attitude was positive for the following two reasons:

1. I assigned what I think is an awesome persuasive writing project! I'm having the kids invent products and design models from common household items. They are also given a product category (health and beauty, sports and fitness, games and toys, etc.) and a target market (students, homeowners, men, women, etc.). They then have to design an ad campaign for the product and write a persuasive letter to a company/store convincing them to carry the product. I think it has the potential of being a ton of fun, and I would say that most of   many  some of my students agree.

2. Today was the first day of creative writing club. It was AMAZING to work with a group of students who is excited about writing and excited about stretching themselves and learning new writing techniques and skills. It's amazing how much just the environment and situation change attitudes. Students who give me attitude during a writing assignment were excited about this one because it was not required! And this club included more than just middle schoolers so it gave me a taste of the younger grades which was really neat. To see developing third grade writers, thrilled about writing (one actually fell out of her seat when the reminder about the club was announced this morning-- or so I was told), is so exciting!

All in all, these things were exactly what I needed as I'm to the point that I'm counting down the days until the last day of school.