Five of the Most Important Things I Do

 

This was written for and posted on The Dock for Learning.

We had a wonderful day at school today. Not only was it a hot lunch day, but we had interesting discussions in our ethics and Anabaptist history classes. There were also just a few occurrences that made me reflect and be thankful that I’m a teacher and glad that I have the students that I am blessed to have. Here’s my list:

Take the time to ask good questions and give your students time to answer.

Today I specifically asked my students a few casual questions like “What are you looking forward to this weekend?” But I also asked them questions such as “Why were the Catholic priests and monks frustrated with the Anabaptists?” “Why did the Anabaptists stick so vehemently to their convictions?” It’s safe to make an educated guess in my class, too. That sometimes gives us more ideas that lead to analyzing a situation. (Bloom’s taxonomy, anyone?)  Spending good time discussing the Bible and doctrinal issues ranks at the top of important things teachers should do.

Stop and take an extra class period to go over a quiz or test that students didn’t do as well on as they should have. 

Let them see what they did wrong and then give them another clean copy of it (or type a new worksheet for them with just the questions or problems that most of them got wrong), and teach them how to be “good test takers” as I call it. Model the techniques they need to learn to be more successful next time and have them actually do it on the paper so that they completely understand it.

For us today, it was to make a “secret code”—a visual for every direction that they are supposed to do. That way they won’t leave out one of the tasks in a section.

They also were taught how not to “pounce” on grammar tasks. If the quiz asks the student to find the adverbs or the prepositional phrases, then I teach them not to “pounce” on just the adverbs and prepositional phrases. First, we find and underline the subjects and the verbs and look for complements and mark them. Next, we cross off all the adjectives that describe the subject or the complements. Then, we mark all of the prepositional phrases. Finally, whatever words are leftover are probably adverbs, but we check those too. How did he speak? He spoke softly. “Softly” tells how he spoke, so it adds to the verb, so it’s an adverb. Doing that will get students much better results than pouncing on just one item. The arrow we drew by the directions will remind us to draw an arrow to the verb that the adverb modifies.

Sidenote: The grades that they earned on that quiz are the grades that go in the gradebook. Although they were required to learn what they did wrong and how to fix it, that did not change their grades. Hopefully, they learned well and will do much better next time.

Take time to notice and appreciate the unusual.

Stop and observe the baby toads climbing up the classroom window (and take a few minutes to go outside to see them), as well as the white butterflies and the monarchs flying out in the ballfield during PE and praise your students when they find a bizarre orange fungus growing by second base and bring it to you to show you.  

Students shouldn’t just sit at their desks all day plodding along with paper and pencil. That is important, but there is so much more to education—music, art, and PE, and finding gross fungi in the ballfield.

Laugh in the rain.

As we were lined up to come in from recess, singing our Bible memory verse (every single student in grades 3rd and up got a 100, by the way, and we are really picky and take off 1 point for every wrong word), the clouds suddenly broke loose a torrential downpour on us. We laughed and ran singing up the stairs and into the building. Sometimes things just happen. It’s fun to laugh and enjoy the unusualness of the situation and then begin anatomy class with a good poster of the skeletal system.

Send them off with a smile.

By the end of the week, we teachers are usually exhausted after pushing ourselves to do a great job while we are on duty all week. And so, even though I am exhausted by the end of the week, things just don’t seem right unless I stand on the porch by the door, dismissing the students, waving at their parents as they drive past, and telling my students that I hope they have a wonderful weekend, because I really do.

It's Time for Tea

I've been wanting to do this for over a year, and I decided that if we didn't just do it, we possibly never would.  So, we did.  The ladies in grades seven through eleven helped prepare the food and set the table.  

After our history class, the gentlemen moved a table for us and headed out to P.E.  The ladies and I spent the next thirty minutes getting ready.  Because it is September, our theme centered around apples.  We made the sandwiches, set the table, welcomed the mothers, and headed off to music class.  

Menu 

Assorted hot teas

Apple cider cold tea 

Apple streusel muffins

Cucumber mini sandwiches

Turkey cheese apple mini sandwiches

Fruit kabobs 

Nuts

Chocolates

     The decorations included apples, a silver pitcher and coffee pot (thrift store finds), tea cups (an assorted collection--some from my great aunt's stash), hydrangeas from my garden, and silver spoons, also from my great aunt's collection.  

Note:  Although I did leave Conrad Grebel's photo in the background, I did remove the authentic cow jaw bone and dog skull from the table and hid them behind my desk.  Those types of things are conducive to our anatomy class, but not the ladies' tea party.  

 

Journal Beginnings 2026

      We have a goal this year to have our students write (or do something creative) in their journals every single day.  Now, keep in mind that I respect my students' privacy and won't share their writing here.  But, thus far this year they have written about what they learned during church sermons, what they appreciated about the Waldensians (yay Anabaptist history!), strange happenings during storms, getting locked out of their houses, and what they are looking forward to this year, among other things.  However, once a week we have a creative art journaling day, and I can share their artistic endeavors.  Here are some of my favorites.  

     We always decorate our journal covers during some of the first art classes of the year.  We evidently have some music lovers in this group.  

Perforations!  We passed around hole punchers and embroidery thread.  

Assignment: fold a page anyway you'd like to.  One had messages I could read depending on how I folded it, and another was folded and cut into neat symmetrical designs.   

Assignment:  trace your foot and decorate it.  

 

The 2026 Lancaster Music Camp

We had an absolutely WONDERFUL week at the Lancaster music camp and are already planning for next year's camp.  If you are interested in attending, please email us at office@musiccamp.info and we will be happy to send you more information.

The mass choir was directed by Brandon Mullet.  

Lots of hard work went on behind the scenes. 

Classes included rudiments, sight singing, class voice, leading group singing, elementary education, children's musical skills classes, and private voice lessons.  

And of course, we had choirs.  The children's choir was directed by Kristin Nolt. 

The Mass Choir was directed by Brandon Mullet.  

The Youth Choir was directed by Jeff Swanson.

Lee Weaver directed the adult mixed choir. 

And, we had a fabulous time.  Scroll to the bottom to see the results of the last event at our after party, the Amish vs. Mennonite volleyball game. 

The Amish defeated the Mennonites in this game, but we will have a rematch next year.  

If you would like more information on any of the Shenandoah Christian Music Camps, please visit musiccamp.info, or email us at office@musiccamp.info.

 

Styrofoam Block Prints

These were soooooo neat, but it was near the end of school and I didn't get enough photos.  So, here's how we did it.  I collected styrofoam trays from vegetables I had bought at the store.  These are usually a little thicker and work better than the thinner styrofoam dinner plates.  Then I made a slideshow (I share these if anyone is interested) to give the students lots of different ideas.  They sketched the one or two they chose onto paper.  

Next, they sketched them onto the styrofoam (after we had cut off the edges to make sure that it would lay flat), using a ballpoint pen.  The indentations are the white spaces that make the design.  (See the two examples below.)

The top one is different, though. The trick with this one was that after the student had made his sketch, he indented everything but the sketch, making it stick out from the styrofoam.  The result is really neat.  

After making a few trial runs, the students made repeated prints with their styrofoam blocks, blotting them on sponges brushed with acrylic paint.  

 

More Ideas for Your Art Classes

     This summer I'm also looking forward to Teachers Week at Faith Builders.  It's one of my favorite weeks of the year.  Last summer we completed the following projects in the art class.

* watercolor leaves with white crayon background patterns (we used real leaves - see photo #4) 

* mini wooden painted houses (made out of wood scraps I gleaned from a cabinet shop)

* Iris paper folding 

* 3D black popsicle geometric shapes 

*  bold, bright and colorful names (gleaned from Cassie Stevens)