The Sunrise Story

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .  I spent some time yesterday reviewing and reflecting on my blog posts from the past year.  I am grateful that I write. Writing helps me work things out in the moment. Writing communicates with others. And now writing gives me a place to reflect! As I read through 2014, I noted the good and the bad! I realized how much I'd forgotten and I noticed patterns in my writing.  There was loss. My papa died. My dog Leo died.  There were changes. I adopted Bella! A friend moved away. I took a painting class. I started learning how to play the ukulele. There were new experiences. I helped lead the woman's retreat at my church. I led the woman's retreat at a friend's church. I started using technology in the classroom. I presented at c...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .  In school, I'm known as Ms. Haseltine. When I am home with my family, I'm Auntie Chelle. It's so much fun being Auntie Chelle! I get to be silly and laugh. I have interesting conversations. I make silly faces. I play games. I go on adventures! I act as a jungle gym. Monday night I got to take a car ride and see Christmas lights! I was flabbergasted with the amazing lighting displays! After, we stopped at a family favorite, The Pizza Shop, for a cheesy concoction! Mmmm!! While we waited for our food, we practiced our writing... Jack is writing in my notebook. "See what I wrote, Auntie Chelle?" Jillian can write words too! Here are some of the words that Jack knows already!  Today Jillian and...

Thank you to Ruth for the opportunity to celebrate every week! Today I am celebrating taking a break. Life moves so quickly, it's important to stop and look around. That begins today. I may blog, but I am giving myself permission to take a break. Wishing all of you rest and relaxation and a blessed Christmas!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .  Our county has a new superintendent. His name is Dr. Eric Williams . A big initiative that he's brought to our county is One to the World. Dr. Williams comes to our county as a blogger and very active on twitter. He models what he wants to see in classrooms, which is connecting our students to the world...the real world.  Last week he shared this initiative with the school board. I attended the small informational meeting. In this presentation Dr. Williams and Dr. Breeden, Dr. Contartesi and Mr. Flynn all presented about One to the World and BYOT.  Dr. Breeden shared three examples of schools and students that were already demonstrating the ideas of One to the World. My students and I were one of those three examples. That was quite an honor...

Thank you to Margaret Simon for starting DigiLit Sundays. Join us here ! This past Friday, I asked my students to blog (write) for five minutes...and ONLY five minutes. Like so many good ideas, I borrowed this from someone else. One Friday about a month ago, I noticed the post on Ruth Ayres' blog was tagged, Five Minute Friday. I clicked the link and found Kate Motaung's blog . I tried Five Minute Friday myself  and enjoyed it. The idea stuck in my head until this week...I shared it with my students. I wanted to make it meaningful for my sixth graders. While reflecting about including this in my plans, I thought back so many years ago to the summer I participated in the Northern Virginia Summer Writing Institute. While watching presentations from these talented and creative teachers, they would ask the participants to write. "For the next seven minutes, write..." Every time this happened, I FROZE. I can still remember hearing pencils scratching furiously o...

I love celebrating on Saturday mornings! Thank you to Ruth for providing a place to celebrate. Join us here .  This week I celebrate Christmas socks. Wearing Christmas socks makes me happy...they put me in the holiday mood. I celebrate finding just the right gift for my family and friends. Inspiration came late this year, but I feel like I've found some meaningful and fun gifts for those I love.  I celebrate Bella and her new bed. I finally found one that she likes.  I celebrate slowing down as much as I can. This month can get chaotic and crazy, but I'm working hard on staying focused on being calm and thoughtful.  I celebrate a new One Little Word. I think I may have a new word picked out, but I am open to suggestions. Past words include:  mettle, engage, embrace, build,  author,  and risk. For more information about One Little Word, click here .  What are your celebrations today?

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .  I need my brain to slow down. It's on auto-pilot during the day. Teaching, meeting, making decisions, conferencing, listening. All of these things are happening in my classroom. When I sit down to write, to read, to grade, I can't. The neurons in my brain continue to zoom around there like a hummingbird and I can't concentrate. I can't focus. This is a problem.  Today during my final block of the day, we wrote brain dumps. A brain dump is a free write, but brain dump is more fun to say. This is where you keep your hand moving for the entire writing time...seven minutes today...and you write continuously. Brain dumps get the stuff out of your head that's blocking the really good stuff. It gives you, the writer, a place to put all of...

Thanks to Margaret Simon for the Digital Literacy link up every Sunday! Join us at her blog ! Loving the site Thinglink ! It's a free site where you can add links and text to photos. I'd played around with it last year, but I discovered it was blocked at school. Bummer! Last week I found out that it's now available at school. Woo Hoo! I used it to show links to fellow class blogs... Here's one I made about myself last year... I can't wait to let my students loose on this site and see what they create! I'd love to hear ideas for other potential uses in the classroom. 

Thanks to everyone who commented last week when I was struggling to celebrate...each comment helped so much. Thanks to Ruth for hosting this amazing community where we focus on the good in life. Please join us at Ruth's blog .  Celebrations this week... Monday brought me back to the classroom after NCTE and ALAN. I missed my students so much and returning with piles of books was amazing.  Watching my students pour over the new books made my return even sweeter. We spent our day catching up, talking about books and authors and getting back to our normal.  Tuesday brought my new ukelele.  At ALAN I heard Mary Amato speak about music and writing. I'd read Guitar Notes and I loved it! She talked about how she learned to play guitar when she was 45 years old.  She played ten minutes a day...badly. In a few months, she saw progress. It made me think that I could do that. (I took lessons in the fourth grade for a few months before I quit and I al...

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I love having a specific word to inspire my writing each week. Thank you Holly! Join us sharing our Spiritual Journeys over at Holly's blog each Thursday.  ADVENT. I've been thinking about this word for the past few days. I feel like this week's topic inspired a poem... Advent Be still  Light the candles Pray with wonder Listen Listen Listen Listen Advent Slow down Prepare yourself Invite hope inside Watch Watch Watch Watch Advent Pay attention Be purposeful Do all things in love Pray Pray Pray Pray Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord  would fulfill His promises to her! (Luke 1:45) Advent is a time of preparation, prayer, hopeful anticipation and so often I find myself forgetting about it. Not paying attention. Getting lost in the busy-ness! December is a time of rushing and planning and baking and parties and wrapping and traveling. Advent gets lost in the chaos. This past Su...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers .  Why is everyone so angry? I've thought this so much these past few weeks. Every time I turn on the news or any tv show for that matter, I see anger and blame and rage. I see it on the road, in my short five mile commute to work. I read about it online. Last week, I experienced it first hand.  I'd been away for six days and I was on my way to pick up Bella, my dog, from the kennel. I was so excited to bring her home! On my drive there, the kennel is only about three miles away from home, I called a friend. It was a quick conversation. We were discussing upcoming plans and catching up on the last few days.   During the drive, I noticed that a white SUV behind me was way too close. I tapped on my breaks. She moved back for a moment and then she w...

Our November Twitter chat was a roaring success. Thank you to all who participated! This month we will be discussing student engagement. We can't wait to hear all of the amazing things you are already doing with your students to engage them in their learning. Come ready to share and ready to learn! Can't wait to see you on Twitter at 8pm on December 4th! What does student engagement look like in today’s classroom? How can we leverage technology to promote student engagement? How do we light the fire of learning within our students? Join fellow LCPS educators as we examine and explore the ways to change what happens inside LCPS schools and classrooms. Have a cool activity or tip that you would like to share, be sure to check out the Twitter chat on December 4, 2014 . When : December 4 th , 2014 at 8pm EST How: Login to Twitter and simply search the hashtag #LCPSedchat Where : Twitter (You may want to use twubs.com or tweetchat.com to follow the chat) Hashtag : #lcp...