celebrating brain growth

I told my kids if every single person grew in reading and math on the NWEA that we would have a party. Well, they did. So, we did.

First of all, we toasted red Kool-aid to all of their hard work. Then, while they were enjoying their pizza, cookies, and chips they spontaneously began a game of Cup (short for counting up, it is what it sounds like: someone shouts a number and then everyone calls out the next number). Without almost no facilitation from me, they took turns shouting numbers for the whole class, only occasionally making a number up ("80 one hundred thousand!"). As the game was winding down, and I was basking in the learning-related joy, someone asked me to please put on our math songs. We rocked out hard core to The Big Numbers Song, among others.

Finally, we sang the football chant, taught to me by the lovely Ms. Nash, my former grade-level partner and veteran teacher extraordinaire. Basically, everyone chants and then one person comes to the middle to dance. Texas did the robot, DuckDuck did the zombie, and I did the sprinkler. It was loud and blissful. At the end of the chant, we called N over from time out to "do your thing" and it was the only good moment of the day for him. I really needed to have such a good day with them.