Today’s Word 🫖 (#sol23 Day 22/31)

We had our usual class wellness time together, with all 33 kiddos, on this snowy Wednesday morning. We’ve been going the bibliotherapy route lately since we taught all 12 of the Toolbox Tools last semester, and now we’re seeing how deeply and to which levels of relevance and connection our class conversations about feelings and emotions can actually go.

Today’s book guide was a new favorite: Luli and the Language of Tea by Andrea Wang. Have you read this beautiful and powerful gem yet? Oh, you must. What a catalyst for discussion!

While Luli is a story that I would love to share with you, this particular post of mine is geared towards what happened after our initial movie read of the book.

Students were sharing their observations and inferences, they were referencing pages to support their claims, they were voicing their wonderings and realizations, and then…

This little first grade hand shot straight up into the air.

“I think… that Luli… was really using her empaty tool in that book.”

As his classmates looked around with confusion across their faces, he started to backtrack and explain how he’d forgotten to put the “h” in at the end of the word empathy but I stopped him.

“Wait a second. Did you know that you just came up with the perfect word for this book?!”

He looked at me with doubt in his eyes. “I did?”

As his classmates began to put the pieces together, this light appeared across his face with a big ol’ smile as he realized his poignant creation. “Ha! I did! EmpaTEA, not empaTHY! It’s because she shared her TEA!”

And that, my friends, is the short version of how empaTEA became today’s most perfect word.

PS: Go read this book!!!!!