Top Three of the Day

Well, two good things for today--actually, three.
1. It was NOT a terrible day. Yesterday, I felt like instead of teaching six year olds, I was actually teaching tiny monsters whose only mission in life was to turn me into a big monster. Not so today. Angels! I loved it. I kept asking them how learning was feeling, and they kept telling me "good, because...it was quiet, people were talking about math, it wasn't crazy, I got a lot of work done, I was working hard, etc." not bad self-reflection for first graders, huh?
2. I officially put up my first bulletin board...at least, the first that was mine from conception, to student work, to display. The kids have been working on Chinese New Year projects, and today I taught them how to do Tangrams (thanks, Janet!). They actually turned out pretty good, so I changed our "Spotlight Our World" hall display to Chinese Tangram Art. Since I am not so excited about bulletin boarding, I considered this a big deal.
3. I managed to teach an ENTIRE 20 minutes without saying a word. We were doing calendar, and I just decided not to talk. I pointed to things, wrote things on the board for the students to echo (which helped their reading, too!), wrote math equations and pulled name sticks, and pantomined the expected behavior. It was hysterical, the kids were totally engaged (not always the case during calendar), I had fun, and all WITHOUT TALKING!!! Good stuff.

Hope everyone had a good day, as well!