Author: Van Am Gram

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Wednesday Wrapups…

Our Miller Bell news staff received a special visit today from our own mayor, mayorvisitMr. Bill Houston.  The students were abuzz to interview him on “hot topics” around the town for an upcoming edition of The Miller Bell (in a week).  Be watching for their article and his responses to their challenging questions.

In other news today, congratulations go out to our own music teacher, Ms. Amber Grant, who recently graduated with her Masters of Music degree!  We are proud of you, Ms. Grant!

We practiced our Shelter-in-Place response this morning.  With our thoughts weighing so heavily for our Oklahoma friends and families, this is especially important as we learn better strategies and actions for this type of crisis response.  I am pleased to report everyone did a wonderful job by acting swiftly and appropriately throughout the process.  Continued reminders and practice are critical to knowing what and how to react in a real emergency situation.

Finally, if you haven’t taken a moment to complete our LME parent survey for this year, please do so.  We value your input, your suggestions, and your perspective for future improvements.  Thanks for taking valuable time to provide this important feedback!

It’s a Monday on a Wednesday of a short week for us here…With only 11 days to go now, you need to catch your breath to believe it!  Stay safe!  🙂

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A letter to my child…

While enJOYing the buzz of meaningful conversation during the Educational Showcase last night, a young learner gingerly tugged on my arm and this dialogue followed:

  • Child:  Just exactly why were you not at Miller Rally or at school on Friday?
  • Me:  I flew with Mr. Van to California to see our daughter graduate from college again.
  • Child:  Why is she graduating again?
  • Me:  Because she wanted more school time for the work she plans to do in her future.
  • Child:  Well, I missed you and you should have just written her a letter instead of going out there.  🙂

Of course, this had me thinking about what I might say in a letter to my daughter today.  Just like her lunchbox in elementary school, she’s accustomed to receiving little notes and funny cards (with monetary surprises at times) in her mailbox on a fairly regular basis (we are “note” people in our house).  She has heard me say (at least a thousand times) to “plan your work; work your plan; autograph your work with personal excellence.”  As an educator’s child, she has endured countless school programs and events, parent conferences in the grocery store, and some of the funniest supper and story time conversation imaginable.  Rachel knows her dad and I only ask and accept her personal best, no matter the endeavor…she never disappoints either.

Here’s the part you don’t fully synthesize when you meet your child for the first time:  All children enter this life free of time or worry, carrying great hope for JOY, celebration, and unconditional love.  Their delicate beginning reminds us how rich and fragile life is, that beauty is everywhere, and every personal connection has profound meaning.  Children bring great JOY and sometimes sorrow; good days and not-so-good days, but they live up to what we believe of them!  It’s true; the days of raising children are long but the years are sadly short.rva2

So here’s hoping you write a letter to your child occasionally.  Talk about the successes, hopes, and dreams; talk about growth and lessons learned…just remember to talk!

For now, congratulations, Rachel, on completing your Master’s degree with highest honors at USC in LA (Fight on!)…oh, and your letter’s in the mail!  xoxo  🙂

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Educational Showcase Time!

AchievementWordle

It’s the annual Midlothian ISD Educational Showcase tonight (May 20th) from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Midlothian High School.  Our LaRue Miller Elementary learners will display and discuss some of their most meaningful, engaging work from this year in the core subjects.  Come see and hear our students in action from PK – 5th grades in math, science, social studies, reading, writing, art, and more.

You won’t be disappointed and chances are strong you will learn something new indeed!  See you there!

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Show us your talent!

Fourth and fifth grade friends are invited to audition and participate in our annual talentshow2LME Talent Show sponsored by the PTO.  Participants are limited to students currently enrolled at Miller in 4th and 5th grade.  Acts may consist of solos, ensembles, and larger groups who sing, dance, play instruments, or perform other creative talents.  The show will be held on Friday, May 31st with two performances:  Grades K-2 @ 8:15 and Grades 3-5 @ 9:15 in the Miller Cafe.  For additional show rules or more information, please contact the school office at 972-775-4497.  Come on; show us your talent!

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Organized vs. Disorganized, Part VIII

Note:  This is the final installment in a series from the book Organizing the Disorganized Child:  Simple Strategies to Succeed in School by Martin L. Kutscher and Marcella Moran.  Thanks for your positive feedback on this series!

Describe your morning and evening routines with your child.  Do you have to repeatedly organizingcall the child’s name to get her up?  Is he wasting time looking for items in the morning?  Does she get everything set for the next day at night?  Does he have a hard time getting to sleep at night or tends to stay up too late?

Chaos occurs for the disorganized child when there are no strategies in place for the morning and nighttime routines.  Organizational strategies like the ones previously suggested can extend to all waking hours.  Set routines truly help establish a structured pattern to follow everyday.  As always, ask lots of questions (and really listen to the answers) to determine exactly what part of the morning or night routine (or both) needs help so you can work together to seek win-win solutions for all.  This will result in your child feeling more confident and responsible as well as less stressed, and you too!  Consider the following suggestions in both areas:

Morning Routine — Frustration need not start the moment eyes open to a new day; everyone deserves to start off the day stress free and ready to move forward.

  • Begin the wake up process 30 minutes earlier.
  • Use an effective alarm clock (one that is annoying or hard to turn off).
  • Establish morning routines with lists; picture charts work well for young ones.
  • Once the child leaves her room, she should not go back in there.
  • Have a list or picture chart in the kitchen area for reminders, chores, or other morning details before school.
  • If breakfast is an issue, consider having the child “eat on the run” or while getting dressed (like a protein shake, breakfast bar, bowl of oatmeal, etc.).

Nighttime Routine — This routine should start after homework and supper are completed.

  • Prepare the backpack with tomorrow’s necessary papers and books.  Put all the work going back to school into the proper folder or place (discussed earlier).
  • Prepare the backpack (the black hole) with all of tomorrow’s supplies (gym clothes or shoes, anyone?).  A written or visual list of special supplies for each day of the week posted in a general area may be quite helpful.
  • Choose outfits and clothing the night before (with my youngest daughter, we laid out two complete outfits–this way she still had a choice when she got up, but only between the two outfits).
  • Try bathing at night and then sponge-bathing in the morning if showering is a time issue.

While all these things are negotiable depending on your household routines, just remember to always develop strategies WITH your child because it’s all about listening and compromising in the end!

Final Thoughts on this series:  As with most ideas, children in particular are more willing to try something new if they are asked to consider doing it during a “trial” period (adults too, for that matter).  Often times, children will come up with their own best solutions when we work with them on it in an open, patient manner.  Start now to adopt the attitude “so, it doesn’t meet my idea of organization but it’s working which makes it fine by me!”  🙂  Keep your sense of humor and continue asking lots of questions.  Baby steps, mom and dad!  Teaching and supervising simple organizational skills doesn’t occur overnight.  Some children are simply shown and they’re running well.  Others may be waiting for the frontal lobe of the brain to kick into gear.  Finally, others may simply be on a 50-year plan.  🙂  Gratitude, self-worth, and contentment come from achieving a common goal together.  Just remember that you don’t sprint an entire marathon; you pace yourself (and your child) to make steady progress along the winding journey.  Here’s hoping you find these many strategies useful for school and life success…now let’s get organized!  🙂

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Momma’s Day!

During morning walk-about, a young friend stopped to share this conversation:momsday

  • Child:  Hey, Mrs. Van!  I have something to say!
  • Me:  I’m ready; say it!
  • Child:  We’ve been thanking our teacher and the nurse all week, but now it’s time to thank my momma.  Look at my QR code card I made to share with her!  She can scan it and then hear my beautiful voice!
  • Me:  This is amazing!  WOW!  So what’s the best thing about your momma?
  • Child:  Well, she makes me fries with cheese, cuts my apples for my lunch, and tucks my brother into bed each night.
  • Me:  Does she tuck you in too?
  • Child:  I’m too big for that now, silly!  But she does tuck her momma into bed now and helps her do other stuff which means I’ll have to help her like that someday too.  She says to her, “I just don’t know how you did it, momma.”  Really, everyday is momma’s day at our house…   🙂

Three generations living in one home sharing and caring and making memories for the future…what a blessing!  So for all you moms out there, just know that in a small yet powerful way, every day is Momma’s Day for you!  🙂  Celebrate and enJOY!

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School Bells!

Our school’s namesake, Mrs. LaRue Miller, has many beautiful reminders of her 50+ schoolbell2years in the classrooms of Midlothian ISD, one being a stunning collection of bells.  During the architectural phase of creating and building our campus, it became apparent a bell tower would grace the front door complete with a bell and an active carillon system in place.  Once the name was chosen for our school, Mrs. Miller shared her great fondness for school bells (especially the one pictured here) and this clever poem with me:

School Bells!  School Bells!  All the small children and big ones as well;

Pulling their stockings up, snatching their hats, cheeking and running and giving back-chats;

Laughing and quarreling, dropping their things, some at a snail’s pace and others on wings;

Lagging behind a bit or running ahead, waiting at corners for lights to turn red;

Some of them scurrying and others not worrying, carelessly and anxiously hurrying;

All through the streets they are coming pell-mell at the school bell, school bell, school bell!

LMEbadgeMrs. Miller walked to school in MISD until her high school days (when she rode a bus to Waxahachie).  Hearing the school bell was the way to begin “back in the day.”  🙂

When she became a teacher in MISD, ringing the school bell each morning was her way of celebrating her past while successfully focusing on a new school day.  Her students today still talk about the privilege of ringing the bell each morning in her class.  Lucky for us, at LME, we hear School Bell, School Bells every morning as well!  🙂

Note:  Please  join us tomorrow evening for PTO’s popular Denim and Diamonds Event starting @ 6:00 p.m.

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#thankateacher

#thanksA learner brought this poem by my office today; he found it on Twitter (I love learning from our digital natives everyday!):

Words cannot express our thanks for all you do on a daily basis,

Helping students realize they can reach much higher places.

Advocating, motivating, and educating is just part of what you do,

Teaching is an art and each student your canvas too.

It’s not a job just anyone can do and most people don’t understand,

The most crucial part of your job can’t be learned or even properly planned.

The parts of painting on the canvas cannot always be found in a book,

It’s embedded in your heart which is often overlooked.

So today we say “Thank You” ’cause you don’t hear it enough,

The picture your paint today, tomorrow may be worth a million bucks!

Thanks, JD, for sharing this find and reminding all of us to #thankateacher!  🙂

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Teaching with Heart

Thirty years ago on National Teacher Appreciation Day, a young learner gifted me with this precious sign.  teaching_heartHer name was Lydia and she (with the help of her momma) made this treasure with a small scrap of material from Lydia’s favorite shirt…she wanted me “to always have a piece of her as part of each class.”  I still wipe a tear just thinking about this precious memory.  When you turn it over, here’s what you can find written on an index card:

You have the HEART of a great teacher with your JOY (teaching how learning is fun and capturing teachable moments with a smile), your WISDOM (teaching truth, character, and integrity), your KINDNESS (teaching encouragement and how to add value to others), your COMPASSION (teaching how and why we need to reach out to others), your GENEROSITY (teaching and touching lives while always giving), your PATIENCE (teaching ways to find better solutions and never giving up), and your PURPOSE (teaching each child to find the treasures inside).  Thanks for sharing how teaching is a work of HEART this year, and every year.

Through the years, I’ve come to appreciate the fact there is definitely an art and a science to teaching; may we never forget to teach with heart!  Thanks to all the teachers from my past, my present, and my future who continuously plant seeds by teaching with heart!  🙂

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Thank a Teacher!

It’s National Teacher Appreciation Week and we celebrate big around here…well…we celebrate big around here all the time in fact.  In the midst of much celebration though, we pause to reflect on our profession and all thank-a-teacherthat it is today.  Each of us can look back with fondness at school years and find at least ONE teacher who always stands out for us.  Who is it for you?

It’s always our sincerest hope and highest expectation each child finds MORE than one teacher who makes a lifelong impact on them in our learning community.  As educators, we share a common goal:  To see growth and progress in our learners.  As my Granny B. pointed out to me years ago though, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”   Granny’s right!  Relationships are the key to this growth and progress everyday because learning is a process every single day…and great teachers have to be even better students during the learning process!

I was gifted not long ago with this cute block sign.  It reminds me daily why I do what I choose to do and who it will impact in the process.  We may be viewed in society as “the downstairs maid of all other professions,” (Frank McCourt), but no one, and I mean no one, could do what they do without at least ONE teacher laying a foundation and making an impact.  So, as you’re reading this, which teacher will you thank today?  🙂