Therapeutic Thursday!

Where to begin?!  

Every teacher becomes a professional un-winder (is that a word?) and it doesn't ALWAYS take alcohol to loosen us up, but that never hurts...

Don't you like how my drink came with 2 miniature men in it?
They cleaned out my car after I finished my drink.

....never on school nights, of course, what kind of people do you think we are!

My favorite teacher therapy is probably vodka a nice spa pedicure (primary teachers hardly ever get to sit)!  I thought about posting a picture of my back to school pedicure (China Glaze: Flip Flop Fantasy) but posting pictures of feet is weird.  

Unless you post pictures of your feet.

Then, I guess it's not that weird.

Don't read into it.

I also love to hit the water with my Mom.  Yes, you read that right, I hang out with my Mom on the regular.  She's that awesome.  It's ok to be jealous...of our awesome kayaks!

Her backyard is kind of amazing, she has trouble getting rid of me!

You might not know this about me....I really don't put it out there...but I'm kind of into Pinterest.  Sometimes my new kitten likes to get her 'pin' on!

I think Meela was pointing out the adult beverage to the left.

This is my new kitten Meela, she's such a lady.  She also has really bad gas and steals food right off of your plate, while you're eating.  She's a keeper...

Finally, I'm a big reader, I enjoy reading before bed every night.  Right now I'm reading The Book Thief on my Kindle.  It's a Holocaust novel about an illiterate girl, told from the perspective of the Grimm Reaper.  I'm only about 23% into the book (that's Kindle-code for there are no page numbers on a Kindle).  It sounds like a downer and I may not have tried it if I'd known what it was about but it's one of the most beautifully written stories I've ever read.  I'll be reading more Markus Zusak books as soon as I get closer to 99% complete.  He's an amazing author.

I also just started reading Teach Like A Champion because my work BFF told me to.  I've only read 2 of the techniques...

...because I took Benadryl yesterday and slept for 11 hours,

...because I got attacked by an anaconda in the jungle formerly known as our playground.  It bit my foot, which immediately swelled up.  I had to take Benadryl.  Then I had to sleep for 11 hours.  So I couldn't learn anymore techniques.

By the way, what's a girl gotta do to get the grass mowed?

Out of the 2 techniques I've learned I really like "Right is right."  It basically says that you can't tell a kid they have the correct answer when they are only half right.  I know I have a tendency to say "right" as a praise for participation and then complete the rest of the answer for them.  An example from the book is something like this:

Teacher: Can you tell me what the definition for a noun is?
Student: A person, place or thing.
Teacher:  Right!  A noun is a person, place, thing or idea.

The student isn't right because they didn't get it 100% right.  We should hold out for 100% right so that students don't neglect pertinent information.

Good cues would be:

"That's great but there's another part, do you know what it is?"

"Can you develop that a bit further?"

"We're almost there, can you find that last piece?"

If you're looking for some good professional development reading you should check it out, because my work BFF told us to :).

So that's how I relax, how do you unwind?!