The Principal's new clothes

This year I am trying to be in the classrooms more.  I am not just sitting in the classrooms watching, but being a part of the classroom.  In my #leadwild chat group, one of the members, Kathy Melton, (@kathyamelton)  talked about how she reads the book "The Principal's new clothes" to her students and then she had them draw "new clothes" on a picture of her.

So, this year my colleagues and I are trying something new.  We are reading books to our students about the monthly character trait.  The book we picked for the students was not really appropriate for the Kindergarten students.  So, I needed a book... and then I remembered Kathy's conversation.

I got the book that Kathy recommended.  It is so old that I took me looking for it online for a while before I found it.

I prepped for this reading like I did when I was a teacher.  I read the book, created the worksheet (Left), re-read the book, prepped questions to ask while reading, and then was ready.  I sent all my teachers a link to a google calendar sign up to me to come in and read.


My 1st grade teacher agreed to let me come in first.  The students came to the carpet and I began reading the story. The kids were interacting with the story.  They were predicting, noticing detail, reflecting, and seeing the moral of the story. We had a great time.



After the story, they got to color me a new outfit. That was so fun for them!

Apparently, I need more rainbow in my wardrobe based on the drawings.

After teaching all morning and running an assembly in the afternoon, I realized I was out of "teaching" shape.  

This is helping with my new goal from George Couros (@gcouros), get into every classroom, every day.

Plan, Plan and then Plan some more.

Staff meetings... we have all seen these Memes

I remember back to teaching, we all dreaded that Wednesday meeting.  Two hours of being talked to, getting information I could have read in a memo.  Sitting in a chair thinking about all the things we could be doing instead of this.

I also get it, the principal's job is busy.  To organize a staff meeting correctly, you need to plan.  Just like a great teachers plan for amazing lessons.  It is hard work and takes time.

I set a goal for myself this year, to plan awesome (hopefully) staff meetings.  I don't want to waste people times.  I want staff to value the time, learn together, build community and have fun.

I had my first staff meeting last Wednesday.  I spent 3 hours planning for 1 and 1/2 hours.  One thing that works for me is having a presentation to show.  It helps me stay on time and kept us moving.  Here is the one I used at my last staff meeting.

We started the meeting with writing postcards to students.  Each teacher wrote at least 2 students a "great work" postcard.  After the meeting, I spent 30 minutes addressing and stamping all the postcard.

Next was a district presentation.  It was boring, but I could not do anything about it.  So, I followed it up with a game.  I used Popsicle sticks to make groups for my staff.  After grouping the staff and passing out paper, I told them the rules.  "Here are the rules, there is only one.  Figure out the game and you have 5 minutes."  They flipped over the paper and started the YouTube timer video. They were collaborating.  They were using tech to look up things.  They were inferring information based on a picture.  They were laughing and building relationships.

After we played the game, I set the tone with a quote.

Rotations were next.  We had some information to gather and new people for them to meet.  I hit play on the time YouTube video and I was able to move around/listen to conversations.  The video would beep after 5 minutes and the staff would rotate.

Next was some quick announcements by staff for staff.

We end with this amazing Ted Talk by Rita Pierson: Every Kid needs a Champion.  It is a funny and very uplifting video.  

Of course, we needed a new staff picture.  So, we took care of that too.  What a hard working, great looking, fun group of colleagues!!!

Spread kindness like confetti!!!

Glitter and confetti can drive me nuts.  It sticks to you, you find it everywhere and in the weirdest places. When I am around glitter, I always seem to find it on my face, in my shoes, on the steering wheel of my car.  It is crazy how it gets everywhere!

However, I love how shiny, sparkly and fun it is.  I love how kids' faces light up when they see confetti or glitter.   I have a colleague, @Mrsfadeji (Amy Fadeji) is the glitter/confetti queen.  When I see things that have glitter or confetti on them, I always think of her.  Amy's personality can be described by the word, Glitter!!  I wish I had a little more of this in me.

While scanning Pinterest the other night, I came across this picture.

My first thought was to share this with Amy.  Then, I got to thinking that it would be a great poster for my school's office.  I was so excited.

The next day I was directing traffic in front of the school.  A Mom with her 1st grader and Kindergartner pulled up.  I could tell that this Mom did not feel well and it had been a hard morning.  I opened the door and helped get the kids out of the car so she would not have to.  Her Kindergartner  was crying, he wanted to stay with mom.  I held his hand and we walked into the school,  waving goodbye.  As mom drove away, I saw tears coming down her cheek.

Of course, as soon as mom left, the kindergartner was fine.  So, I took a quick video of him reading and sent it to mom.  Here is the text stream. 

Unbeknownst to me, this mom had posted something on Facebook about the morning.  When a parent showed it to me, I started to tear up.  I am so grateful that parents share their students with us every day and that I get the opportunity to learn and grow from of these students.

A few days later, we had a PTA meet and greet.  One of the PTA Mom's came up to me and said she had seen me with the little kindergartner a few days ago.  PTA Mom said that she was watching me patiently walk with the crying student and my words were so sweet.  I was touched by her words.  The PTA mom went on to say that she thought it was so kind of me to send the Mom a video of her son.  I questioned how she knew that.  The PTA Mom said that the Kindergarten Mom posted on Facebook that I had sent her a video.  How sweet is that?

I guess kindness really is like confetti and glitter.  It lands up in the weirdest places, where you are not expecting to find it.  I also have some glitter in me, I just need to work on making it a little more shiny and bright!