Did I tell you about the other day? My student teacher planned to plan a little during lunch.

So with 10 minutes left before the kids came back, I asked him if he wanted to look at the lesson.

He said he would in just a bit. “Sometimes I need to prioritize my sanity,” he said. Which is I think is the new lingo for self care. And then he started to add something to his explanation that has now become my favorite quote of the year.

“Sometimes I need to prioritize my sanity, which is something I know you …” his voiced trailed off a bit, and I started laughing as he continued “is something I know you don’t always do…”

Point taken.

Writing workshop time has started, and I have a few kids who have decided they’d like to work at my table. It’s my favorite, actually, this choice small group time. It feels like a luxury, as my student teacher is doing the heavy lifting of the mini lesson and the management.

“Ms. Gabriel, her coach’s name is Mr. Pickles,” One writer tells me. She’s writing about Lucy, who daydreams about swimming lessons, but she isn’t allowed to take them.

“Oh my goodness,” I say. “I hope you labeled that somewhere so you remember. It’s perfect!”

In front of me another writer, often reluctant, is writing up a storm. She pauses and says to me, “I’m writing some words big, but you won’t know why until the end.” Then she keeps writing. She wants me to start a timer to see how much she can write in ten minutes. Another student lets me know that sometimes timers distract her. We put the timer facing just the student who needs it.

“Is the Ms. Gabriel table open?” Someone asks

One of the writers already at the table answers for me, “Yes. And it isn’t any dollars today.”

Another writer walks up to the table and asks, “Ms. Gabriel, how do you spell screaming?”

“Screaming?” I ask. “Is this going to be a very very scary story? Too scary for me to read?”

She laughs and tells me, “No. She is going to open a present and scream because she’s so excited.”

I ask her to try writing the word on a sticky note and then I will check it. She gets it almost right, and we talk about the r sound in there, and also how the vowel team is an ea.

“Ms. Gabriel, can I have a sticky note?” a writer asks me. I tell her the sticky notes are in our student teacher’s hands. He’s standing right by and hands her a sticky note.

We talk for a minute, my student teacher and I, about what we should do next. How much time do the kids need for finishing this part of building their stories? He’s wondering about the kids who aren’t done with the part we did yesterday. I tell him that this is the amount of difference that I would expect in our workshop.

“As long as you think that the amount of people who are still working is okay —-“ he says.

“Absolutely.” I say, and we plan to keep working on Friday and next week, adding in dialogue details on Tuesday.

The writer’s timer goes off, and she looks down at how much she has written.

“You’ve written so much!” I say. “And class isn’t even over yet. You still have more time.”

Somehow, a few more students have joined the table and we have to do a little problem solving to fit everyone in.

My student teacher gives a heads up about the time we have left. I give a compliment to all the writers in the room. It’s my favorite kind of mid workshop teaching point. “I see so many writers labeling, adding details, using all kinds of sticky notes. . . What an amazing writing time! You should be feeling very proud.” Not only have I complimented some specific things, but I’ve also sneaky-style given some ideas for those writers who have forgotten the goals of the day.

My para, from her table across the room says, “We agree over at this table!” Students start writing again.

One of the writers who recently sat at my table, gives me some advice about my own story about a clumsy rock skipper. “If he gets a prize for doing the rock skipping, he’s going to drop that too!”

I’m so excited about his idea, the whole table is.

So now I have another teaching point.

“Now as a writer, what should I do? I am not at the end yet” I say, pointing to my sticky note story building. “How can I remember this?”

It’s unanimous. The writers at my table tell me I’m going to need to write that down — on a sticky note.

Last week we needed to reset our expectations a bit. Thursday we talked about what “Act Safely” meant, and of course I pulled out one of my old favorite books: Officer Buckle and Gloria. So many of my students hadn’t ever read it before, which was a pleasant surprise, but also made me realize how old the book is, and in turn, how old I am.

But, whatever. It’s a fun book, and I stand by my choice.

On Friday, we wrote our own safety tips to add to a poster we are making.

Today I went to school and glued the safety tips to the poster.

And I think it’s amazing.

Some of my second-graders stuck to the plan – safety tips for school:
No running in the hallways.
Never stand on a chair.
Call when someone needs help.

Some got right to the dramatic point:
Do not fight.
Do not throw sharp stuff at someone’s eye.

Some were very detailed:
Do not share food.
Never put your hands in your mouth and your fingers in your nose.

Some were more big picture:
Listen to stay safe.
Always work together.
Never hit someone’s heart. You can’t do that ever. Never. Ever.

And a few…A few widened their lens to outside of school:
Never cross the road without looking left and right.
Don’t run out in the road when a car is coming.

And of course, “Safety Tip 100,000,”
never jump off a cliff.

I feel safer already.

Once I was on a committee. We met a lot.

These were the old days. So, sometimes our meetings were in huge conference rooms at the Ramada. Sometimes we met in an old room of an old building that was once a school, and now is, I don’t know – nothing?

We met in big groups, we met in smaller groups. We unpacked standards and literally cut them up to tape them on big posters to help us understand what they meant. We created big umbrella understandings and essential questions. We learned so much. We learned about the standards, about understanding by design, about learning, about curriculum, about teaching, about collaboration…

We didn’t always agree. We even argued. I mean sometimes it got intense.

Have you ever been in a room full of teachers who are passionate about their craft?

Oh, we spoke our minds.

Out loud.

Out loud.

At the end of the year an administrator came to our classrooms in all our different buildings and thanked us in front of our students for taking the time to serve the district, even though it meant writing sub plans, and being out of our classroom. Our students clapped for us.

Then the next year, and for something like a decade more, we met, we worked, we disagreed, we learned. I used to joke that we were really practicing the speaking and listening standards that we were unpacking.

You might laugh at me, but once, in the old days, I was on a committee. We met a lot. We spoke our minds. We learned so much.

The other day we were listening to two books for March Book Madness. One of them was called “The Book that Almost Rhymed,” and my students looked at me excitedly.

“You are going to LOVE this!” One of my kids told me, brightly smiling.

See, my kids know that I love rhyming. In fact, they think I might be the world’s best rhymer. (Shhh… it’s okay if they keep thinking that. I’m fine with that. . . ) They cheer for me when they hear any rhymes. This actually makes sense, because I do like to collect fun rhymes.

By “collect,” I mean I like to smile or laugh, repeat the rhyme a few times, and then accidentally forget it forever more.

We started to get ready to listen to the book, and we heard the title again, “The Book that Almost Rhymed,”

That same bright smiling student shook her head with empathy. She looked at me and said, “I wish it would — for you Ms. Gabriel.”