Creating Culture in a Cafeteria Classroom

“Reel” Life Lessons for OST Success When I was a little girl, my Poppa wanted to teach me the virtues inherent in fishing as a hobby; patience, perseverance, and pride. He took me out to the local lake as soon as he thought I was ready. I remember very specific parts of this day vividly. […]

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SEL Series – Responding to Students’ Behaviors

Tips to Identify Behaviors and Linking them to Social and Emotional Needs I recently brought my daughter to the hospital and we encountered a doctor with the worst bedside manner. He spoke to us in a condescending tone; his responses were abrupt, coarse, rude, and uncompassionate. I hated everything about his interaction with my daughter. […]

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The 4 Burners Theory

I belong to a cloud app called “pocket”.  It allows me to download interesting articles to save and/or read later; it also suggests interesting reads on my google page. I was intrigued when I came across one article called “The Downlside of Work Life Balance”.  Hmmm, the work-life balance.  We all struggle with that one. […]

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Creating Culture in a Cafeteria Classroom

The Allegory of the Oxygen Mask I have been flying on airplanes since I was a very young child.  Spending my mid-80s childhood-summers in Kansas, I would often fly alone to and from the Midwest; armed with a chapter book, a stuffed animal, and a super-secret safety word to ward off questionable strangers. I witnessed […]

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SEL Series – What is SEL?

AHA! I recently had an aha moment – I have written several blogs about Social Emotional Learning (SEL), but I have not clearly defined what it is. So just what is social-emotional learning and why do we need it? In the next few blogs, I will provide you with a crash course of the five […]

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SEL Series: 55 Positive Things to Say to your Children

“Opportunities don’t happen; you create them.” –Chris Grosser Here are positive things to say to your children to create opportunities to help them feel confident and loved! As parents, most of us speak to our children, in the ways, our parents talked to us during childhood. Our parents did the best, but we can so […]

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SEL Series: SEL at Home, Tips for Parents

5 Awesome tips that will improve trips to the grocery store with your children Many of us have dropped our jaws while witnessing distressed parents address their tearful kid(s) screaming their brains out in the grocery store. I never wanted to be that parent with “that kid.”  To my surprise, my daughter taught me no […]

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SEL Series: Words are Powerful

Your words are powerful use them wisely- Over the Christmas holiday, I received a lesson in how much words can hurt. My dear old granny had some not-so-nice-comments about my weight. Yep, her words felt like a surprise punch to the gut. It may be silly, but her words cut me like me a knife. […]

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SEL Series: Sorry

Apologies When you ask a young person to apologize, they often scowl at you with an attitude. They may glare at you and roughly say,” Why should I apologize, I didn’t do anything wrong”. We all know that owning our mistakes is not only a challenge for children but for adults as well. Apprehension to […]

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Video Games Aren’t All Bad

We all understand that video games can cause problems, we hear that every day.  I won’t even go into the many ways that some of these games can create antisocial and apathetic behaviors.  I want to talk about the video games that teach empathy, better human connection and understanding. Like a good storyteller, a video […]

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