​CLASSROOM PICK ME UP: TEXTBOOKS FOR AFRICA1/14/2017
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Have you ever had that class that just seemed longer(or crazier!) than all the others? It becomes a continuous downer which means you and your class need a pick-me-up! Something new to try out that may or may not change how that class works. In the parts of our blog labeled “Classroom Pick Me Up”, we’ll share about one of those types of classes and a strategy we used to turn it around. 

We were in a unique situation in Joplin after the tornado my first year teaching. Our high school was split into two separate buildings: the 9/10 building and the 11/12 building. I taught Pre-Algebra and Geometry in the 9/10 building and while my Geometry class was full of either advanced freshmen or “on-track” sophomores, my Pre-Algebra class culture was very different. When conferencing with these students, many of them identified themselves as “bad at math” or “in the dumb class”. It was heartbreaking. 

I struggled throughout my first semester to get buy-in and effort from many of these students who had accepted that they were just never going to succeed in math. Many would do their practice problems and get them right and then fail tests with the explanation that they were the dumb kids and I just needed to accept that. Having spent time in schools in 3rd world countries where kids sat three to a desk and had very limited resources but still worked so hard to do well in school, it honestly made me a little angry that these students in a 1:1 school with internet and all kinds of resources were giving up so easily. There was no way I was going to have a repeat of this overwhelming discouraging semester. 

I tried to break down the issue over Christmas break. These kids were continuously telling themselves that they were stupid and incapable of doing well in math, that they were in the dumb class. If I could reframe that mindset, maybe these kids might start to feel success. I tried to think of a day when I had seen this class be motivated or focused. If I could determine what it was that motivated them and give them that feeling every day, class may be different.

Then I remembered a guest speaker I had brought into class. She was from a local non-profit and she told of her experience using art therapy in Thailand to aid children rescued from slavery. The kids were so into it! They had asked questions and showed more enthusiasm that day than I had seen during any other guest speaker or math activity. These kids cared about helping others, so I needed to make math about helping others.

When the students came back to school in January they were no longer going to be traditionally learning Pre-Algebra. They were going to be using the class time to create textbooks for kids in Africa who didn’t have any resources. I showed off a new area in my classroom decorated with pictures and souvenirs from my trips to Africa to be used ONLY in my Pre-Algebra classes. I bought a composition notebook for each student to use. 
  
We would start all the way back at the beginning of the school year with the content in order to be sure what we delivered to the classes in Africa had a complete text. It would be up to each student to make sure their textbook was complete with instructions (notes we would take in class), practice problems with solutions (I provided examples of practice problems while they provided the worked out solutions), and tests (made completely by students). They would also need to add their own flair to the notebooks - drawings, hints or general studying tips, encouraging notes, and more. 
I didn’t know if they would really buy into the idea or not until I posted the first section of notes to copy into the “textbook”. The class was silent. They were all intent on copying everything and making sure it was legible. They asked questions so that they could make sure they put everything possible into the book to help the kids in Africa. 

After each lesson I took a picture of one notebook. It had to be neat and include all the notes and practice problems and contain correct solutions. I posted these pictures online so that students who were absent could catch up.

I used a rubric to grade each section in the notebook and then the students were tested with the same unit tests that all the other Pre-Algebra classes in the building gave. Their test scores went up and I believe it is largely due to their new mindset. They weren’t in the dumb class anymore. They were in the class that was creating textbooks for kids who didn’t have them. We still had to take tests but those were just one day that they had to take off from making the textbooks. It was a necessary thing required by the school and they were fine with it so long as they could get back to doing work that would impact others.
  






The whole process made class so much better both for my students and myself! And it got about a million times better when we received pictures from the textbook recipients!

Maybe something like this works for you! Maybe it doesn’t…(sorry!) Regardless, remember that you are not alone with your classroom struggles! Keep pushing through and trying something new! ​​

As this semester draws to a close, it is natural to begin to evaluate it for its successes and challenges. I start thinking about the changes I want to make to next semester and what I wish I had done differently and reviewing new tools that I have found over the past months. 

I feel like this is a natural process that all teachers go through as we approach the ending of semester or school year. Being reflective is something that is ingrained in us by our desire to do better for the students and any teaching program I have ever heard of. We recognize the importance of being reflective and intuitively practice it. 

My semester has been one of challenges to be frank. I have had personal challenges and professional challenges that have really highlighted the need to be purposeful in the classroom, my reflections, and reactions to my reflections. 

I feel like this year I fell into the trap of reflecting but not acting. I was thinking a lot about what was happening in my classroom, but not taking the time to process my reflections and create an action plan around them. Those last two steps are really important to being purposeful as a teacher and reflective professional.  The failure of not processing and acting on my reflections is one of the reasons, I continued to struggle.
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THE IMPACT THIS HAD ON MY CLASSROOM

1. More Chaotic than Normal. As you all know I am pretty dedicated to student-directed learning. I feel it allows me to differentiate more and meet the needs of students easier. This semester though my classes felt much more chaotic and stressful, because even though I was noticing students struggling and myself struggling with certain aspects of the content or the classroom, I wasn’t able to turn my observations and reflections into change fast enough. I think a part of me felt that I needed to let things play out and see where they went or I thought that there wasn’t anything I could really do in the middle of a semester and would have to wait till the typical end of the semester to reflect and make changes.
2. Increase of Classroom Management Issues. This is really tied to the chaos one as well, but I did have more issues with classroom management this year than I had in last two semesters doing the self-paced, student-directed learning. I feel that this stems again from students not feeling as secure in their learning and my inaction. 
3. Students not reaching Content Mastery. This is the one that really hurts the most. I don’t feel like my students this semester are really gaining a mastery of the content like they have in semesters past. My students this semester struggled in a way that I did not really anticipate and because I was not purposeful in my reflection, process, and action, the learning I feel suffered. This does not take responsibility away from the student-learner because they are also part of the equation but as the teacher I needed to be more proactive.

​Reading this, it probably seems like I am being really hard on myself and that it could just be one of the groups of students that struggle and no matter what I did in the classroom, those students were going to struggle. That could very well be true, but I also feel like this semester was a humbling, challenge that reminded me of two very important things about teaching.

1. Be present, reflective, purposeful, and proactive. I will admit to coming into this semester with a feeling of “I’ve got this”. I can handle anything because I am amazing and I don’t struggle with little things anymore. Well that is not the case. Just because I am senior teacher in my building and have a successful track record doesn’t mean that I will not struggle with things like classroom management and low-achieving students. This semester my students needed me to be more firm and more hands-on than I was prepared for in my student-directed system and I didn’t act as quickly as I should have to get them where I wanted them to be. If you find yourself struggling, a teacher needs to be proactive and take the time to reflect, process, and form an action to help alleviate the problem. This could require assistance from your teacher tribe and that is definitely O.K. I would actually encourage it. My teacher tribe is what has helped me the most this semester in figuring out what to do in my classes.
2. Keep Learning. As teachers we have to recognize that there is always something new to learn or sometimes relearn. I realized in the middle of this semester that it had been awhile since I had brushed up on my classroom management techniques and philosophy. I had not taken time to really read any interesting articles on teaching practices. I didn’t take time to bring up those issues in my PLC or with my other teacher colleagues. Teachers are learners. We need to keep learning to keep our skills sharp and focused on the best practices we know about and looking for new ones to add to our tool belt.  ​

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MY PLAN MOVING FORWARDI do not want to make the same mistakes I made this semester, so I have reflected, processed, and developed this action plan for next semester to make sure that I am being the best reflective and purposeful teacher I can be. 

1. Schedule time to reflect and process before I leave school everyday. This is going to be a big thing for me. Often I am running out the school door when the bell rings because I have automatically shifted to wife and mom mode. I have discovered this doesn’t work for me because I need to take at least 5-10 minutes at the end of the day and jot down my thoughts on the day. This should help me remember things that I need to focus on for the next day and add to my game plan. I typically do my best planning in the morning and I get to school pretty early because I realize that this works for me. The only problem is I don’t always remember exactly what my thoughts were at the end of the day by the next morning.
2. Schedule Work Time and Home Time. All teachers know that it is virtually impossible to 100% keep your school work at school and not bring it home. I know this, but what I plan to work on is being more thoughtful about my time. I need to schedule those days with my family if I know that I need to spend one or two saturdays a month on school work to keep myself ahead of the game. Then I that should free me up to really enjoy the time I have scheduled with my family and friends. I won’t be stressing about the work that I need to do or the problem that I need to solve at work. Finding a balance is difficult, and as a person that needs structure, I need to create my structure.
3. Don’t Wait to ask for help. This semester, I sat alone in my bubble for way too long and did not call on my teacher tribe. I know that they are there for me and I need to ask them for assistance. I am actually going to have as many people as possible observe me next semester and look for the key things that I am going to work to change in my class. This way I will have a bunch of people to talk to about my class and what I want to do. This has included all of our building administrators as well. I want their input.
4. Keep learning. I dragged my co-blogger Becca in on this one. We are going to start reading education and teaching practice books to review for ourselves and for our readers. We want everyone to keep learning. I am also planning to be more active on Twitter for edchats and reading new articles instead of just bookmarking them. ​

​Teaching is hard, but it is also amazing, fulfilling, and incredibly important. I want to be the best I possibly can be for my students and I think that doing these things will help me do that. I hope that you take away from this post that it is O.K. to struggle, because when we struggle we learn things about ourselves. That when you find yourself struggling at school take time to reflect on what is happening, but don’t just stop there. Take the next steps. Process your reflections and develop an action to help or celebrate if needed. Lastly, don’t forget to keep learning. Learning is essential to great teaching!

​It's no secret that I'm pretty competitive. I also love logic games. Brain teasers are my fave. When I heard about escape rooms, I was so pumped. WHAT IS AN ESCAPE ROOM?An escape room is an activity where participants are put through a search and find like challenge that include puzzles and locks. There is usually a given scenario to help engage participants such as: you are the survivors of a zombie apocolypse but you've all been contaminated. You are locked in a laboratory where they were creating an antidote. Find the antidote within an hour and save yourselves!....You can see how decorating and creating a story helps engage you in the game! Clues can be out in the open or hard to find (invisible ink, random numbers on the wall, etc.). Participants "win" if they can unlock all of the boxes - usually one is containing whatever you are trying to find (example: the antidote). When you find that box, you win!

There are a lot of scenarios where I would use an escape room! This blog explores a couple of times that I used (or would suggest using) an escape room!
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THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL Day one - I introduced myself and did a welcome activity. 
Day two - I showed the syllabus and the classroom rules/expectations.
Day three - I gave a pretest (yuck)
Day four - BREAKOUT EDU!!!!!
First of all, pretests are not fun but for my class, they are necessary. Because we are on a three track system, it helps me to be sure students are in the right class and allows me to gauge the right starting point for the following week. After three days, they know a little bit about me and my classroom but now I want to know about them. Other than their academic work, I want to know their personalities - enter Breakout Edu. 
Breakout Edu has a lot of team building pre-made escape rooms. I had ordered their breakout box (you can also make your own!), picked a scenario, and set up my room. That first Friday, students came into the room and I simply introduced them to the scenario (you need to unlock the box within 40 minutes in order to get the prize!), and started the timer. There were a million questions. But that was my plan all along! I answered some basic structure questions but didn't answer anything that would help them solve the puzzles included with the escape room. I was looking for 

• Who spoke up
• Who took the lead
• Who knew the answer but didn't say anything
• Who tried to open the locks by trying a million different combination and not doing any of the actual work
• Who tried to disengage
• Who was incredibly motivated by competition and the game based activity etc.

This escape room helped me to learn who my kids were in 40 minutes in a way I haven't been able to accomplish before. It also gave us a jumping board for relationships. They definitely remember doing that first escape room and how much it frustrated them! How do I know they loved it? Because they asked to make their own as projects!
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As I've said in previous posts, I ask students to choose a project that shows they know the material. They have to present (or in this case facilitate) the project for the class. My Geometry class loved creating escape rooms for their congruent triangles unit. Even more helpful, it ended up creating a couple of days of review for my students before the unit test! They loved watching their classmates struggle through problems and they loved being sneaky about creating it. I definitely saw more engagement for this project choice than any other I've done so far!
Lucky for us, Breakout Edu provides a template for teachers to create their own escape rooms. It walks you through the process so nicely that of course my students can figure it out! 
I highly encourage you to have your students create escape rooms. Something I will be trying during my next unit will be splitting the class into two groups and having them create escape rooms for each other to try. That should amp up the competition! :)
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THE NEW BREAKOUT EDU OR 
​"CAN'T I JUST MAKE MY OWN?"Breakout Edu has recently changed their website/cost. It is now a subscription service. When I first began doing escape rooms, I definitely thought the cost was worth it. Now that I have the hang of it as well as the template for myself and students to use, I'm not sure how much I will go back to the site for more game scenarios. It really depends on your experience and how much work you are wanting to put into it. Getting the scenario from Breakout Edu takes almost no work. They have everything completed for you (including a Youtube video that walks you through the story and how to set up the room!). If you are willing to put in some more time (or give your students time to work on it!) you may be just fine creating your own!
Either way, you should definitely try an escape classroom! Competition, team building, content review and more can be gained from it! AND IT'S SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

Teaching is really, really hard. When you take your college classes and visit classrooms for observations, you really don’t appreciate how difficult it really is. Then you start your teaching career and assume the responsibility of applying all of your knowledge from college as well as worrying about how to make the lives of students better while trying teach them your content. Reality sets in and you realize how hard it is to balance everything that comes with your job. 

Every teacher is going to have a rough week. Some years, you may have more rough weeks than easy ones. I am personally coming off one of those rough weeks. I have obsessed over the events and struggled with it to the point where I didn’t want to see my students. How do we come back from those types of weeks and keep our love for teaching and students? I can’t speak for everyone, but these are the things that I need to do when I have a week like this past one.

1. Cry. I am not going to lie, crying helps me release my anger, frustration, and sometimes hurt. I try not to do it in front of my students, but there have been times where my students have seen me emotional about their behavior or interactions that occurred. I think that it can be good for students to see that we have serious emotions about them and that they affect us. I know that many of the things students do in the classroom are not personal and typically have nothing to do with us, but they also tend to think that their actions do not impact us either. 
   1. A couple of years ago in my advisory class, I had a student that struggled in school. He was always in trouble and I was one of the few people that he respected and would work with. There was a time though when he started to abuse that relationship and began lying to me about what was going on with his classes. I was so frustrated with him and his behavior to the point of tears and I finally let him see that emotion and frustration. That to him was a wake up call that his behavior mattered to me and that the relationship worked two ways. 
2. Check out from school. No matter how much work I need to do when I have a bad week, I try to take time to completely check out from school when I get home. I do something with my family or friends and try to spend some time by myself. This week my choice was to have a family movie night in bed and take a long bath watching old Will and Grace episodes. It was what I needed to keep myself from obsessing and to recharge my batteries. I think we all need something outside of work to be passionate about or love to do. This helps us fight burnout and gives us a release from our work stress. We all need to find things to do outside of the classroom. It can be exercise, reading, a hobby, a sport. Really anything that takes us out of the teacher role and into just be a person. Along with this take time to be social. Try to go out with your significant other, friends, or both and connect with people outside of school. 
3. Talk it out. One of the most essential tools in your teaching toolbox is a group of fellow teacher-friends that you can talk to about what is going on without judgement. You need a group that supports you and helps you see the successes when you only see failure, that help you problem-solve and understand you as a person and teacher. This group doesn’t always need to be teachers, but I can tell you that no one is really going to understand what is happening in the classroom than another teacher. 
4. Personal Day. In extreme situations I have taken a personal health day. I know that it is something that can be hard for teachers, because it is typically harder to be gone than show up for school but if I am seriously struggling with my work/life balance I have to take care of myself. If I don’t make an attempt to take care of myself then I struggle even more in the classroom. When I do take a personal health day, what normally happens is a complete day of nothing. I do the things I never have time for that only focus on me. I have found that this helps me center myself and then I can properly address any specific issues I am having in the classroom and the balance of my work and personal life. 

I have been teaching 10 years and the process of taking care of myself so that I can be the best I possibly can be at my job is something I am continuously working on. I don’t know anyone that is perfect at finding a balance between being a good teacher and being a person. It is something that I will continue to strive for. So far doing some combination of the things above have helped me come back year after year to teaching and allow me to gives kids a fresh start every week. I don’t wish any of these rough weeks on anyone, but the reality is that we all have them and it is nice to have a plan of attack for those days, weeks, months, or years. Hopefully some of these strategies are helpful to you when you go through those times, too. And for me, writing about all of it was one more release! 

What ways do you intentionally de-stress after a long week? I am open to any suggestions! 
I hope you have a fantastic week! And if you don’t, try a few of these steps and don’t forget that you get a fresh start next week. 
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Testing season is upon us for some or has just passed for others. It is always a time of stress and anxiety for the subjects that are tested. Even those of us that are not tested feel some of the strain. I am not one of those teachers that has to directly deal with testing and am usually at war with myself about my feelings on testing. I am relieved that I do not have the testing stress that other teachers have, but at the same time I feel like my subject has been slighted and diminished to a subject that is not as important. 

I teach social studies in Missouri at the secondary level and have never experienced what it is like to be a tested subject. In Missouri the only thing that is tested in my content is government which is taken by seniors at my school. There really isn't much pressure on me as teacher except to do some things that support government so that when students get to government, they will hopefully have some foundation. 

When I taught middle school there was even less pressure on me as my only experience dealing with testing was an encouragement to support English teachers by having activities that included reading and writing. Honestly I would do that anyway because I think it a good practice and skill for any person and especially as a social scientist. 

Many of my co-workers have told me that I should feel lucky that I don't have to worry about the stress of jumping through the testing hoops. Honestly I am happy that I don't have to worry about it. I don't agree with testing and I don't really feel that the tests that have been created really tell us if they are learning, but it is what we use so we have to deal with it. However, even though I’m not an advocate for state testing I have always been bothered by the fact that they don't test social studies because of the message it sends to schools, parents, students, and communities. It sends the message that social science and social studies is not as important as the other subjects. 

In my career I have had the conversation with students and parents about why it matters for them to take history classes when they aren't tested. I recognize that this is a subject that I love dearly and am probably biased when it comes to its level of importance in every single person's daily life, but I have come to realize in our current society that we have lost what it means to be a citizen... I don't mean the legal requirements of being a citizen but the knowledge required to participate in our society and understand the significance and meaning behind it. Dealing with the big issues of our day are all relevant and many are connected to the social sciences. The lack of testing just reinforces the sense that this subject isn't as important as its counterparts. 

I realize that I am probably overreacting and to be honest I do enjoy the freedom that is allowed to me as teacher that doesn't have to teach a very specific curriculum for the test. I have the freedom to evaluate my standards and create learning experiences wrapped around needs that I see in my different classes. I also realize that I am not alone in teaching a subject that seems to be undervalued or that as teacher we all recognize that the learning experience is more important than the test, but we are all stuck in this give and take of balancing learning and testing. I am not even sure that I would want social studies to be more heavily tested because I don't like testing, but I am frustrated as a teacher that wants her subject to be valued and understood. I think that is really what it boils down to. I want all of us in education to be taken seriously and valued like we should be. 

I guess my message in this post is this: teachers that are not tested are both envious and relieved at the prospect of not being tested. We love the freedom but wish to be taken more seriously. My hope for the future of education is that we come together as an education community and show our country and community how important all our subjects are and how they work together to create a citizen that can participate in our society. 

Spring break is either happening or coming up soon for most of us. What are you doing with your time off? Hopefully you are doing at least one of these things. 
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1. A fun craft or recipe  
Do something that is totally you! Make one of those pinterest recipes or crafts you saved back in August and haven't had time to do. You have time for this week and then probably not any more until May. Use this time to accomplish something just for you- and it doesn't need to be something for your classroom, feel free to save those for June!
  

2. Binge watch that show you've heard so much about.
I love hearing from others about shows they've found on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. that are binge-worthy. Now is the time to try one out! Find a comfy spot and relax!
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3. Read a book.
​ There are plenty of great educational books you can read if you're looking for some ideas to try when you head back to school but you could also spend some time reading something completely unrelated to your job. It's Spring BREAK! I plan on reading a few books and only ONE of them is school related. I know, such a #Rebel. 

4. Spend time with friends or family. 
Teaching takes a lot out of you and sometimes our friends and family don't get the attention we'd like to give them. We have a few days off this week to not think about school. Take that time and give at least some of it to your friends and family. Invite a friend over for that binge-watch session or take them/your spouse lunch if they don't have spring break. Do a craft with your kids or plan a date night. You have time this week, use it on the people you love!
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5.  Travel.
Some of use won't be able to resist the urge to use Spring Break to go work on our classroom and break goes by way too fast. ​If you have the opportunity, get out of the area! Out of sight, out of mind!  I have a couple of friends who started planning a Florida trip back in November and I am so glad they did! We will only be gone for a couple of days out of Spring Break but I know that those days are already dedicated to friends and relaxation. It forces the much needed break on those of us who may not use it otherwise. 

6. Stay up late!
Teaching is EXHAUSTING. My husband if always making fun of how early I go to bed but almost all of the teachers I know are heading to bed around the same time. We're tired from the day and we know we have to be up and on for the kids tomorrow...not the case on Spring Break! This is the week to stay up with your friends, kids, or spouse and live it up! You can sleep in tomorrow! 
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7.  Sleep in!
​Get some extra rest this week. Sleep in or take a nap - we don't get to do this normally. This is the week to stock up on sleep before we hit that crazy 4th quarter!
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8.  Get some alone time.
We are around people a lot. Whether you teach Kindergarten or Seniors, it can sometimes feel like we are at the beck and call of 30-180 students. Even if you are a mom with little ones to play with over break, take some time for just you. Spring Break marks the 3/4 mark in the school year for most of us and sometimes that last quarter is the craziest. Take some time for yourself before you head back into the chaos. 
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9. Do something you can't do during the school year. 
​Yes, we have the summer but that is still 2-3 months away! And that is a long freaking time when you are trying to teach 20-180 students who are itching for summer break themselves. Find something you're looking forward to for summer and have a little taste of it this week.
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10. Get outside and get active!
Hopefully the weather is nice for break...regardless, find something active to do for at least one day of the break. Enjoy some sun if possible and get moving no matter what! Even a 5 minute dance party would work! Just move. Don't let your break fly by without DOING something or you'll go back to school more tired than you were before!

I'm at a new school this year and I was looking for a way to get more involved. I was lucky enough to meet the Student Council sponsor who was very open to letting me help out. Student Council programs are different at every building so a lot of it was really new to me.  I helped out at Halloween and Christmas events for the community where there were activities, decorations, and prizes for families and children to do. It was so cool to see the community show up in the school building. This last week however was one of my favorite events and after having a bad week (I read this post about a million times!) it was exactly what I needed. AND it would be pretty easy to replicate at your school if you wanted to!

Every year my school hosts the Love Bug Ball, a Valentine's dance for the students in the special education program. It started with just one or two teachers setting up a dance in their classroom for 4-6 students. They eventually reserved the commons area of the school and invited the special education programs from the local schools. A few years ago Student Council offered to do the set up and I am so thankful they did because it meant I got to help out!

Student Council students were out of class for 5 of their 7 classes Friday but it was time well spent. During 1st and 2nd hour we set up the room. With decorated tables, a photo booth, a DJ table, and a snack area, it definitely looked like any other high school dance I'd been to. A couple of students volunteered to be the photographers and write down the names of students and which school they attended so we could send their photos over. We had a playlist created on Spotify and borrowed some speakers from another teacher to set the mood.  A few of the students parked themselves next to the snack table to keep it clean and the water/lemonade stocked. Each of the StuCo students were dressed up for the dance and at 9:15 just as 2nd hour was ending, we saw other dressed up students coming down the hallway! For the next two hours we all danced together! I loved seeing Student Council, Best Buddies, and 100+ students from local schools all dancing together. 

  After songs from Frozen, Annie, Michael Jackson, and more, the dance was over. We cleaned up and went back to class for 6th and 7th hours but I couldn't stop thinking about how great my morning was. 
If you are wanting to do something like this at your school, first of all, I highly recommend it! The cost was minimal, mainly because we had so many re-useable decorations. Your first year may cost a bit more but if it's something you know you want to do next year, consider going through Valentine's Day clearance this week. We also partnered with Best Buddies who bought some of the snacks for the dance. We bought plastic table cloths, lemonade, balloons, and some more decorations for the photo center. Basically, do it. I am so thankful that I was included in helping with this event. It is definitely what I needed. It will easily become your favorite event of the year and who doesn't need something amazing like this to look forward to in February!?