RR English Times with Mrs. M

Raising Competent Adults

hallway-pic

A colleague of mine shared this blog link with me, and it is ringing so true. I, as a parent, will be working on making my children competent adults. I’ll start with laundry this week, today in fact, as it is piling up. I have been patting myself on the back for only checking my son’s grades just before midterms, and by Traigh pulling them up in Skyward himself. This has not always been the case for me as a parent, and to the teachers who’ve had my littles, I’m sorry. I do feel like children need to make mistakes and learn from them. So, please be hard on my children, as I will be hard on yours inside and outside of class with my expectations. We are only making sure our community of kids are successful and competent later on in their lives, when it is of the upmost importance.

I believe in this shared blog’s post so much so, that I am contemplating handing copies of this post out to parents who come in for parent-teacher conferences and/or sharing it with parents who email me with questions regarding their student and his or her grades. Just think, your junior or senior will be an adult here, very shortly. They will be able to buy lottery tickets, parent (yikes…too soon?), and make right and wrong decisions that could (and I hope this would never happen) land them in prison. Don’t you think it is time to stop enabling our children? I’m in, are you???

Brace yourselves for the hard truth:

http://amycarney.com/blog/walk-away-from-doing-these-8-things-for-your-teen-this-school-year/

October 5, 2016 0

Shakespeare Field Trip

spring-green-wisconsin-pic

With the help of the PTO, sophomores and seniors are taking a field trip to see Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors at the American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin tomorrow, September 22nd, 2016. We leave at 7:45am and will return when school is normally dismissed. It is an outdoor theater, so dress appropriately. We are providing lunch:)

To prepare for the Shakespearean comedy, please view the below youtube Folger Library video.

September 21, 2016 0

6 Word Memoirs

6 word memoirs.jpg

Following in Ernest Hemingway’s footsteps, we wrote 6 word memoirs about yesterday. They follow in the comments.

September 20, 2016 72

People who…

people-who-read-books-pic

How does this make you feel? Do you agree, disagree, somewhat agree/disagree? Thoughts?

September 8, 2016 0

30 Day Challenge, 12 Days In

not going to be easy quote

Today is the 12th day of our challenge. Hopefully everyone is keeping up with their documentation. Are challenges going well, any positives, negatives, etc. that you could share with us? Let us know where you stand! Encourage other challengers as they continue on their 30 day journey!

September 2, 2016 150

This is it…Day 2

Well, this is it! This is the start of our blog, day 2 of the school year. We hope to bring RR news, deep conversations, and student writing to our readers. Please follow along on our 2016-2017 school journey! While we’re at it, let’s add a little humor to this blog…

I, Mrs. M, twinsied with a student on the first day of school. Oops!

twinsie

August 18, 2016 0

It is a new year and a new challenge! A 30 Day Challenge!

As I was pinning my life away on Pinterest, looking for ways to begin my school year- I am always changing my classroom- I stumbled across the idea for challenging students to a 30 Day Challenge. It was inspired by Matt Cutts’s TED talk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNP03fDSj1U, to challenge yourself and others to improving one’s self.

I decided this would be a great way for myself and my students to start out on the right foot. Thus, I’ve assigned it to all my students. The ideas are endless and some are even simple. For instance, could you give a compliment to someone everyday for 30 days? I could, but I probably don’t. Do you drink enough water? Raina, pictured above, is challenging herself to drink one gallon of water a day. She researched a healthy amount of water and has set it as her goal for the next 30 days.

What seemingly easy challenges, and ones that have many benefits for you and for others?!

For me personally, I am going to spend 30 minutes a day doing something fun with my kids. Seems silly, but we do the mundane everyday, and I don’t know if what we do is actually fun. Will we enjoy each other more at the end of the 30 days??? The second challenge, because I’m naturally an overachiever, is to spend 30 minutes a day outside, whether that be walking, gardening, etc. I need the fresh air and sunshine. It honestly affects my mood, and so I think it would be beneficial to see how much better I feel at the end of 30 days.

We will be documenting as we go. Depending upon what you choose to do for 30 days, you may need to jot down times, distances, compliments and to whom, etc. Keep it simple, use the calendar (August 22nd-September 30th makes 30 days) to document, keep a journal, etc. The ideas and options are endless. Below is a screen shot of an app that Mr. Wurster is using to track his distance and time for his 30 Day Challenge.

So, community members, parents, and guardians, are you up for the challenge? Pipe in with a comment if you are willing to start today! We’ll be sharing progress, via this blog, as we tackle the next 30 days!