Everything is HARD.... (and KPM Doodles Giveaway reminder)

Everything is HARD... until it is easy.

This and the Staples Easy Button are not my idea. I heard it several years ago at our local regional reading conference. I do not remember specifically who it came from, but I do not want to take credit for it when I know better. :P

I have a discussion with my students that goes something like this. "Everything is hard... until it is easy. Almost everything we do is difficult until we learn about it and practice it. Then it becomes easier. Then with more practice, over time you don't even think about how to do it anymore. It is automatic for us... it is easy. When we were little babies, we didn't know how to walk. We learned how, we practiced a lot, and we don't think about it anymore because it is easy for us. The same thing is true for almost everything we know how to do well." We talk about many other things, about how things that are easy for me used to be hard to do, and about the learning they are going to do in first grade. I also encourage them with the idea that just like all the other things that are "easy" for them to do now, hard concepts for them can be learned and with practice and time can become easy.

Enter the Staples Easy Button.

I choose a concept that I want to encourage the students with and when they reach a certain level of mastery, they get to push the Easy Button.

The class loves to hear as the button proclaims, "That was easy."

Also... the giveaway looks like it is going to have very great odds for the few people that have signed up so far! Oh... and that collective 100 followers between Over the 1st Grade Rainbow and my blog has become a success! (We only needed one more.) Now onward to whatever the future may bring!