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"As a parent and an educator I strive to invite joy into my classroom and my home everyday. Joy is much more than happiness. Joy is a process in and of itself where we creatively learn to embrace all our emotions including disappointment and failure. Here I offer 5 entry points based upon the influential work of Marta Davidovich Ockuly (2015) and Catherine Camden-Pratt (2008), where we may foster and cultivate JOY in our own lives and the lives of those we influence."

"In the documentary Mission: Joy - Finding Happiness in Troubled Times, the Dalai Lama and retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died in 2021, share two lifetimes' worth of wisdom on how to live with joy in troubled times. When writing The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, they asked co-author Doug Abrams to investigate the science of happiness.  "They said, 'This shouldn't be a Buddhist dialogue or a Christian dialogue. This should be about the nature of being human,'" Abrams recalled in the documentary. "They asked me to find out whether what they were saying was confirmed or contradicted by science.""

"He also argues that in our standards-focused world, we need to take time for joy within the curriculum, and because it is a great thing to do even if it is not part of required learning. He shares five pieces of advice: 1) Be mindful 2) Create something 3) Commit regular random acts of kindness 4) Turn pseudo learning into real learning 5) Be silly and laugh everyday"

"Watch children, youth, and even adults when they are immersed in learning something of interest of them, and you will see often complete engagement and personal joy. When education is done "right", learners often feel and experience the following in their both formal and informal educational environments: Joy Engaged Excited Wonderment Intrinsically Motivated Creative Accomplishment and Pride (in themselves and in their work) Connected (to the content, to other learners, to experts) Purposeful Important Valued All of these feelings described above are often experienced as part of a FLOW state. The characteristics of "Flow" according to its originator and researcher, Czikszentmihalyi, are: Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored Sense of serenity Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces "flow" becomes its own reward."

"Piano Mania is a new iPad app from Joy Tunes. Joy Tunes previously offered practice games to help students learn to play the piano. The new Piano Mania app offers lessons on playing the piano. Students place their iPads on their pianos or electronic keyboards to view the lesson as they play along. The app offers challenges of varying difficulty from simple one-hand lessons to complex lessons requiring the use of both hands. The video below offers a brief look at the app."

"Using your child's interests, strengths, and talents you can connect them to reading they enjoy as they simultaneously builds their reading skills. Their increased reading skill will result in more satisfying reading experiences. In short, as literacy levels increase, so does the pleasure of reading. But this can go the other way as well; celebrating reading and making progress visible can also improve ability, perseverance, and curiosity. If we can think of from multiple perspectives-using joy to promote literacy, or using literacy to create joy-we can see that it can go both ways. This can be thought of as the Reading-Pleasure Cycle. Using the reading/pleasure cycle intentionally, a lifelong love of literacy can be developed."

"Do you remember the joy that you felt as a student when you saw the teacher roll the TV into the classroom? Your students can experience the same joy when you show a film in your own classroom - and it won't be because it's a perceived distraction. In her recent Guardian.com blog post, Sarah Marsh outlines 12 ways to use film creatively in the classroom. Building on concepts from that piece, we'll focus on three key themes here: film immersion, cultural immersion, and student activity."

"This post was motivated by my return to the north and the frigid temps. I realized on the second leg of my travels that no one was even remotely happy about anything. They were all connected to another world with a pair of headphones or earbuds, tuned out and removed. I love to fly and it used to be a very social activity and rather than be disappointed I threw myself into a happy app kind of mood and this is the result. My other intention was to point anyone with children toward exceptional downloads laden with abundant and diverse content for their children. Not just to keep them sharp when away from school and traveling, but go-to apps that are always an educational delight! Here is my list of 12 developers whose apps make for HAPPY learning; they are sure to develop your child's/student's sense of joy and wonder."

Joyful learning can flourish in school-if you give joy a chance.

"You read that correctly: Zombie-Based Learning. When I started learning about it, my inner geek squealed with joy. I've always loved zombies. I've watched all the movies and even read the original Walking Dead Comics before it became a hit series in the classroom. "

"Skype is an instructional tool that provides boundlessopportunities for authentic teaching and learning.  It allows us to explore beyond the four walls of our classrooms.  As elementary teachers, we sometimes battle to hold our students' short attention spans. Integrating Skype lessons brings the curriculum to life in ways never before possible.  You know that special moment when you announce a class activity, and it's greeted with claps, screams, and cheers?  That's Skype.  It brings pure joy, wonder, and intrigue to your students. Here's a list of ten ways to utilize it in the elementary setting, followed by some logistical tips for success."

For Halloween 2016, I did a version of Halloween Wars (a Food Network show) with my two classes of gifted elementary learners. I am sharing this lesson through my blog post as it reinforces how I approach lesson planning and teaching. Background Information Principles that drive my instructional approach. regardless of theme, include: Instructional challenges are hands-on and naturally engaging for learners. There is a game-like atmosphere. There are elements of play, leveling up, and a sense of mastery or achievement during the instructional activities. The challenges are designed to be novel and create excitement and joy for learners. There is a healthy competition where the kids have to compete against one another. Learners don't need to be graded about their performances as built-in consequences are natural. There is a natural building of social emotional skills - tolerance for frustration, expression of needs, working as a team. Lessons are interdisciplinary (like life) where multiple, cross-curricular content areas are integrated into the instructional activities."

"December is one of the most exhausting months of the year for teachers. The days are shorter. The weather grows colder and (at least here in Oregon) wetter. Students are anxious - whether it's a buzzing excitement for vacation or a sense of dread that some kids feel in homes that are unsafe during the holidays. And teachers are tired. They're tired of redirecting behaviors and tired of the mid-year pressure of the test and simply tired of the sheer energy it takes to be a teacher. It's no wonder that so many teachers begin playing holiday movies around this time of year. They want to create a sense of fun and escape and enjoyment, and a motion picture promises exactly that. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's a part of creating a culture of joy. But for me, movies always fell flat. For my first few years, I showed a movie the day before the winter break. However, within minutes, kids were disengaged. They were passive. It wasn't special. My students could go home and watch a movie whenever they felt like it. It had me wondering . . . was there something that they could do in my class that they couldn't do anywhere else? Was this actually the chance to do something epic and make something memorable?"

"Remember how you felt when you first looked at the night sky through a telescope? All those stars, those distant planets - celestial bodies that form poetry in the blackness of deep space. A little help from technology can let you rediscover that child-like joy. Now, there are already programs like Stellarium to learn about the night sky from your computer. But we're going to be looking at sites and apps that accompany real-life star-gazers who need to know what to look at up above, and when to head out of town to capture breath-taking vistas."

"In "The Beauty and Joy of Computing," the course he helped conceive for nonmajors at the University of California, Berkeley, Daniel Garcia explains an all-important concept in computer science - abstraction - in terms of milkshakes."

"To all the mothers reading this post let me wish you a very happy Mother's Day and a life full of happiness and joy. I was thinking hard about what to share with you on this special occasion and I landed on this wonderful playlist compiled by the folks in TED. These TED talks speak to the complexities of parenthood, offering unusual insights and hard-won advice."

"I'm not usually the type of person who tells other teachers what they MUST and MUST NOT do. This post is pushier than usual, because I'm more passionate about this topic than usual. Being a connected educator has transformed my teaching and added so much joy to my life that I want every discouraged and overwhelmed teacher to know: You can become energized once again. You can love your job! Being a connected educator means creating a personal learning network or community (often called a PLN or PLC.) The people in your personal learning community are those you connect with to share ideas and encourage each other. Some teachers have a lot of people like that in their own schools, but many teachers don't, and they reach out to like-minded individuals online. Through Twitter or Facebook or blogs or whatever medium they choose, the build a community of people they can share success and failures with and enjoy growing together."

I am a huge proponent of using hands-on, interactive learning activities to explore ill-defined problems as a way of teaching for all age groups. Given the spontaneity and uncertainty of these types of active learning environments, I believe educators should observe, reflect on, and analyze how learners interact with the materials, the content, the educator, and the other learners. This practice is in line with the teacher as ethnographer. In my role as a teacher as ethnographer, I made some initial observations during my first two weeks of teaching maker education for elementary age students. With half the kids under 7, I learned a bunch about young makers. Young makers are more capable than what people typically believe. Young makers need to be given more time, resources, strategies to learn how to solve more ambiguous and ill-defined problems (i.e., ones that don't have THE correct answer). Too many don't know how to approach such problems. If a project doesn't "work" during the first trial, they way too often say "I can't do this." They have a low tolerance for frustration; for not getting the answer quickly. Young makers often celebrate loudly and with extreme joy when making something work. Young makers like to work together but lack skills or desire to peer tutor one another. Young makers usually like to stand while working. Young makers are more capable than what people (adults) typically believe. During our maker education summer camp, the young makers made LED projects, circuit crafts, and simple robotics. Looking at the instructions for similar activities, the recommended ages were usually 8 and above. Yet, my group of 14 kids contained half under that age. The kids of all ages struggled a bit - as is common with making type activities but all were successful to some degree with all of the activities.