I was asked to run a professional development session on the Tuesday before winter break. We all know how fun that sounds! NOT. There is no tired like a teacher before winter break during the week of midterms tired.

Luckily - I had some creative ideas up my sleeve and a supportive administration who also understands the need for stress relief and community building.

I titled the session - Feliz NaviDATA and my principal even added to her weekly newsletter that we would be looking at data in our meeting. I had some super fun activities planned but I enjoyed making everyone think we were actually going to go over data on the Tuesday before break! (And if you are ever thinking this might be a good idea. Just stop.)

So I enlisted the help of my amazingly talented sister who also works at the school. We used the funds we got to plan the PD to donate to the club who runs the coffee stand at school and got them to provide free coffee for the teachers that morning. (Teachers love free stuff. Teachers run on coffee. Win - Win.)

We also created stations. There was a coloring station to help relieve stress for the teachers who just wanted to sit back and relax with their coffee. There was a photobooth with an iPad and clicker to take some group shots of you and your colleauges with some fun props, and a game area for groups to have fun and relieve stress.

But the main attraction was the DATA. We created 4 pinatas and filled them with candy and random teacher stuff. We got to look at data and then beat the crap out of it! Teachers and admin who wanted to hit the pinatas wrote down their names and they were put into a hat. We pulled a few names for each pinata an laughed hysterically when the principal did a stretch before giving it a whack and when the dean of students tried to jump kick it.

It was so much fun and a great stress reliever. Hopefully we will continue this tradition again next year and if you want some of the supplies we used like the table signs for the stations, click HERE! Use the password from the subscribe form to access them!

Did you know you get a FREE teacher account on canva? It is a super powerful online design software that I use ALL of the time! And my students get their own full accounts as part of my class!