Flexibility and Improvising

As teachers, we all know that things rarely go according to plan. In my personal life, I used to HATE to be flexible. However, my job forces me to. So in the last few years, I've learned to "go with the flow" both in my personal and professional life. I always have to think on my feet, change what I had planned, and come up with something on the fly.

Today was one of those days.

Since it's Earth Day, I had planned to get my kiddos outside and moving! We were going to do a Nature Walk outside, make observations about what we could see, hear, smell, and feel, and then pick up trash around the school. My students were super excited, and got their papers and clipboards ready. We put on jackets and headed out to the back door of the school...only to find out that it was sleeting! (We have no windows in our classroom, so I had no idea.) I took one look at their disappointed faces, and knew I had to improvise.

So I had all the kids sit down on the floor right by the door. We completed the "I See" part of the observation. Then we got ready for the "I Feel" part. I asked if they were ready...and then I opened the door. They got blasted in the face with cold wind and sleet! (Good thing we had jackets, huh?) We did the same thing for "I Hear" and "I Smell."

It certainly wasn't the picture-perfect Earth Day activity I had pictured.

But it ended up being a teachable moment (which are awesome, by the way!) When we got back to the classroom we sat down and talked about how sometimes things don't work out the way we planned, and "ya gotta do what ya gotta do" to make it work. We talked about other times plans have changed in our lives. It was good for me to be able to model flexibility for them, and for them to deal with their disappointment in appropriate ways.

**I DID promise that we'd do this activity again when the weather isn't nasty!