the impact of italy.

If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you.

From Minneapolis.

To Italy.

New friends.

Breath-taking scenery.

New friends becoming old friends.

Holidays away from home.

Exploring Europe.

December.

The most incredible four months of my life.

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Mental Health Awareness Month Resources and Reflections

General Mental Health Awareness Resources (linked below): National Institute of Mental Health Mental Health America Brain and Behavior Research Foundation National Alliance on Mental Illness National Eating Disorders Association Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Donor Drive (in honor of Ryan P. Johnson) Myths v. Facts of OCD: International OCD Foundation

mood-o-meter

One of my main goals for my classroom this year is to teach my students how to communicate their emotions and use productive and healthy coping mechanisms. So, I introduce to Miss Forster's first grade class... ....DRUMROLL PLEASE..... The mood-o-meter!! Here's an example of a mood meter that I found online: Basically, here's how it works/how I want to use it. The colors can represent different types of feelings on the spectrum. Blue: low energy/unpleasant=sad, depressed, sulky, tired, etc. Green: low energy/pleasant=happy, content, peaceful, calm, etc. Yellow: high energy/pleasant=excited, surprised, enthusiastic, etc. Red: high energy/unpleasant=angry, frustrated, annoyed, etc. In our classroom this year, we are going to start the year off by learning about this spectrum of emotions-->the mood meter. We'll discuss what the different colors represent, what someone looks like when they're feeling each emotion, what you feel like doing whe

werk ur body

My beautiful and wonderful friend Anna Ayers Looby sent me a link today that really got me thinking. Here's the link: http://sspw.dpi.wi.gov/sspw_physicaled Basically it gave me the flashing reminder that my students NEED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY in their daily lives. Everyone should have a total of 60 minutes of some sort of physical activity every single day. Since my students only get P.E. twice a week, most of them just want to eat their snack instead of run around at recess, and the rest of their 8 hour day is spent sitting....majority of those minutes depend on me. Now, when your school and state have a deathly fear of failing and standards, objectives, mastery, and test scores are at the core of everything you do, it's easy to forget about the importance of educating well-rounded children. If you'd asked me to add physical activity to my classroom during my first year of teaching, I probably would have started crying (ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME I CAN HARDLY GET ALL THE

"What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation." -Glenn Close

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