For many kids, teachers, and librarians, the school is coming (or has just come) to a close. And what a strange school year it was. Especially the last quarter of it. None of us could’ve foreseen that we’d be told to cancel all our plans, to stay at home — and to figure out how to teach a country full of kids remotely.

Last week, Amy Holmes — an educator from Waterford, Michigan — reached out to ask me whether I was planning to create some sort of “end of the school year” activity sheet. I hadn’t been, but thought it was a great idea. I figured both kids AND adults could benefit from some solid reflection after the past few months.

And so, I created this activity sheet:

My hope is that the prompts are broad and open enough to get anyone’s brain churning, and that they lead to some positive, productive thinking. You can download a free, printable version of the activity sheet by clicking HERE. You can also find it at my ACTIVITIES page along with all my other activities.

Here’s hoping next school year is as “normal” as it safely can be. And here’s to never again taking for granted the time we get to spend teaching (and learning from!) kids in schools and the wonderful spaces — the classrooms, libraries, hallways, and fields — that they contain.

~ Jarrett

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week. I strongly believe that teachers deserve more appreciation and support all year round — and that’s in normal times. But these past six weeks or so have been far from normal. The demands on teachers — already enormous, and of enormous importance — have increased exponentially, ever since they were forced to figure out pretty much overnight how to teach their students remotely.

And so, if any time is a good time to show a teacher a little extra appreciation, now is an especially good time. Which is why I created this Thank Your Teacher activity sheet.

I hope the activity causes kids and adults alike to reflect on all the time and energy that teachers devote to their work, and all the compassion and creativity with which they do it. I hope it also helps those same kids and adults brighten some teachers’ days.

Click HERE to download this activity sheet, or find it on my ACTIVITIES page along with all my other activity sheets.

And lastly, a big heartfelt THANK YOU from me to all the teachers out there who do what they do every day and deserve all the appreciation they can get — and then some!

~ Jarrett

The other day, my pal Amy Janjgava shared with me something that she’d heard on the radio: “If you got it, a truck brought it.” I’d already been working on an activity sheet to thank truck drivers for the work they do, and I thought this statement was the perfect thing to center the sheet around.

It’s a great quote. It reminds us just how much we rely on truck drivers ALL the time — and now more than ever.

You can download the sheet above by clicking HERE, or by heading over to my ACTIVITIES page. You can print it, complete it, and share it with a truck driver you know, or simply complete it as an exercise in acknowledging these unseen, often unsung individuals who keep our lives running as they do.

~ Jarrett