The stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas (Or if we're being really honest with ourselves, the stretch between Halloween and Christmas) is a tough time in the life of a second grader when it comes to fully paying attention. There are so many outside influences trying to temp their attention away. Candy! Parties! Gifts! Visits from friends and family! More gifts! More candy! All of these things make it really easy for young minds to wander during class. This week we read the book What Does it Mean to be Present? by Rana DiOrio and shared our text to self connections. We talked about listening with our whole bodies and really making sure that our brains were focused on what we were learning about at that moment. This is a great book because it talks about how just being in the classroom isn't enough, but that you actually have to be thinking about your learning and be engaged with the task at hand. This is something that we will be focusing on in the coming weeks as the noise of those holiday distractions becomes louder and louder in our minds.
There were lots of awesome examples of students being fully present in their learning and friendships this week. I saw the whole class work together to write an incredible story about a snowman adventure (Be sure to check it out on the bulletin board across from our classroom if you're in the school this month!). I saw creativity shine as students created snowmen out of glue and shaving cream to go along with that story. There were students who put their heads together to solve a challenging math problem and others who noticed an error in that same problem and sat down with a friend to figure out where their computation went wrong. (Their excitement when they found and fixed their error was incredible!) There were kind friends who noticed a classmate having a bad day and took the time to write them an encouraging letter or to give them a pat on the back and invite them to play at recess. Everywhere you look in our school there are great examples of students being fully present and engaged in their learning. There are examples of students who are incredible friends and cheerleaders for their classmates. On any given day in our classroom and in our school there are lots of students who are fully present in the learning that they are doing, both academically and socially, and that, is simply amazing.
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