PPBF: Remarkably YOU

Today I'm excited because our PPBF pick celebrates YOU.

The you that needs to hear that you are special.

The you that needs to hear that you are beautiful.

The you that needs to hear that you are enough.

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Out-Of-The-Box Thinking

Wendy wears a box because that's what people in Boxville do. The boxes are labeled by what the person does for a job. Even the dog has a box! But when it's time for Wendy to choose the box (ie. career) that she's going to stay in, the dreamer in her doesn't want to be boxed in by just one thing.  Wendy's reluctant to select a one-size-fits-all career box because she wants to keep her options opened. Not only does Wendy break out of her standard-issue question-mark box and refuse to put on a pre-fab job box, but she also convinces her family to do the same and they flee out of Boxville to a brighter future in Freedomland. 


Is this book kind of cliche? Sure. Is it sort of predictable? Yep! A little preachy, even?  Maybe. But it's so adorable that I'm going to share it with my students to kick off a discussion about post-secondary options. If you've looked, then you know that there aren’t a lot of rich college-and-career-readiness resources for elementary school students, so that's why this little gem caught my eye. 


Use Wendy’s story as a springboard to spur on thinking about what your personality has to do with your career path choice. Download this VERY informal Shapes Personality Inventory (loosely adapted from Dellinger's work) that we took at a workshop to share with your students (and staff!). The directions are simple; basically, you ask your audience to draw one of these four shapes: a square, a circle, a triangle, a squiggly line. Then, sort students by the shape they selected and either give them a list of their descriptors to share in their small group or read them aloud for everyone to hear.


See if they agree that the shape they've selected describes them. Then have them discuss things like this:  In what ways does their personality match the description? How is it different? What other shapes have descriptors that match who they are? Is it possible to be a triangle AND a square, for example? And just what does personality have to do with the career they'll pursue? Find out if anyone has a box already picked out for them. For example, does Joshua's family have a pre-selected engineer box for him because he's good at math and science and his dad works at NASA?  I think you'll be intrigued by their responses. 


You can keep the shapes concept alive all year by using it to small group your students. (Today, I need you to work with a square if you're a square.  Or: Today, squiggles can work with circles, etc.)  I can see this little treasure spawning all sorts of valuable discussions with individuals, in small groups, and with whole-class guidance. I can't wait to give it a shot. How do you see yourself using it?

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Love Languages

I've been waiting for this for a very long time (ever since I first read the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman), a book that delves into a child's world to explain how the love languages apply to and show up in our littlest learners. Without giving too much away, do you know who your kids are whose love language is Acts of Service?  Gifts?  Quality Time?  Words of Affirmation?  Physical Touch?  Check out this book and get in touch with how children express their affection and love.

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Treasuring Their Personality

One of the most important things you can do with kids is to connect with them, help connect them to one another, and help them learn to make connections into the world around them. A way that I found to help me do that is encouraging them get to know themselves and each other better. Enter The Treasure Tree by John Trent and Gary Smalley, a jewel that finds four friends - a lion, a beaver, a golden retriever, and an otter - on a treasure hunt. How they each approach the task is the amazing part of this masterpiece because it sheds light on the differences in each of us and the role that our personality plays in how we operate from day to day at work and at play. Take the little personality inventory and figure out which animal each student is, then use personality type to group them throughout the year.  What happens when you group all of the lions together?  All otters?  Is there a type that does work best with its own kind? See how well golden retrievers and otters get along or what it takes for a lion and a beaver to really end up creating quality work, provided that's even possible. Happy hunting! 

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