Kid President Blog Post

I'm doing a little modeling for my classes today (two of them at least) and writing a blog as they do their first one of the school year.

Over the summer, I began to read Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome.  I thought it would be kind of neat to have my students read and respond to some of the vignettes in the book.  Today, with my 11th graders, I began that journey.

On Sunday, I went to four Barnes and Noble bookstores to get eight paperback copies of the book (one for each group in class).  Yesterday, I started the 11th graders on their blogs.  I helped them get their blogs set up and a draft post for their first blog post, which they are doing right now.

It was really cool to walk around the room and hear the students reading "The True Story of Kid President" to each other.  I'm really hoping they get something out of this.

They can write about whatever the story made them think or feel, but if my 11 years of teaching have taught me anything, it's that you need to have prompts anyways.  So, I came up with two to help those that need a little push:

1. What reason can you find to dance?
2. What could you stop complaining about? What could you start celebrating?

Source: WikiMedia

The fact that I had students reading to one another, and reflecting (in writing) during the first week of school without much push back is definitely a reason to dance. I'm kind of known for doing happy dances anyways. When students seem to take to something I took a lot of time to plan out for them, and it seems to go well, it is definitely dance time. I sometimes do it in front of the students too. Other times, I do it in my head.


I could probably stop complaining about how tired I always feel. I should probably go to the doctor and see if there is anything I can do to get a better night's sleep. That would probably help a lot. I could also work up my stamina again and do more walking. That's supposed to help sleep, or so I hear.
I am celebrating, on a small level, the fact that I did pretty well in maintaining my weight loss over the summer. I didn't really lose any more weight, but I was able to keep myself from really gaining any either. I might have even gained some muscle since many people are commenting that it looks like I lost more weight. I could also celebrate the fact that I was born without any debilitating disorders like Kid President was. I had a student a few years ago with "Brittle Bone Disease". I loved his laugh. It was infectious.