Tag: Mr. Quigley's Keys

Precious September Moments

Barbara Gruener

As September comes to a close, a few memories have my heart.

The most recent is the opportunity to put together this basket of goodies for donation to a FUNdraiser for The Birthday Joy Program, a non-profit that has my friend Kim’s heart. She reached out and offered to buy all of my books, if I’d sign them and throw in an author visit for an upcoming event. I’d love that, I told her, and I’m happy to fill the basket with other goodies, like Word Searches for the three picture books, Scented Flairs to use for finding the words, some stickers, a set of antique keys, and a fun pair of heart-shaped respectacles.

I’m typically not too crafty when it comes to putting gift baskets together, but this one seemed to come together on its own!

A second indelible memory comes from the Kindness Kickoff in Wisconsin mid-month. I loved connecting with the kids and teaching them a few ASL signs.

Photo credit: Howard-Suamico School District

I thought that their Book Walk idea was super creative; just look how they lined the path with the pages of Mr. Quigley’s Keys. It felt so honoring to walk this nature trail while reading my words of empathy and connection.

And at every outdoor station, a chance to connect with a caregiver; my character cam caught this young gardener and her Dad planting this succulent to take home.

All of this, including the cute gardening gloves, paid for by a Donor’s Choose grant. Brilliant!

September also brought me to my Dad’s doctor, where I saw this sign.

It’s true, you know. Just a drop of empathy can go a really long way, because change ripples!

Take my sticker girl, Daisy, for example. Read what her empathy did for her StuCo campaign.

Her empathy for the other candidates told her that they needed buttons, too. Just a drop sent ripples straight to the hearts of her opponents.

I’m not even sure if she won a spot on the Student Council that day, but empathy wins every day.

Then, last week, an incredible Ted Lasso clip that not only talks about empathy, and holding space, and co-regulating, but actually uses precious air time to show how empathy looks, sounds, feels. Disclaimer: There’s a lot of adult language in the Ted Lasso series, but not in this powerful September scene, so isolate it and share it far and wide, then discuss what’s happening to make empathy memories of your own.

Next up? I’m working on two presentations for a group of about 200 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Then I get to return to Wisconsin, where I’ll not only help my Dad out post-op but get a chance to return to the grade school where I attended back in the 70’s and talk with the learners about being an author. October promises to bring memories of its own, including some color as the seasons bring about foliage change.

We were about a week too early to catch the Autumn colors, but I did manage to find one branch of one tree starting the transition, an over-achiever, I surmised; that said, I was able to collect some of nature’s treasures and bring them back to a few Texas students, who thought they were pretend and not real.

Their teachers gave them a whiff of Autumn, then planned to sort them by shape and color …

do leaf rubbings and make leaf monsters,

then let them each their favorite one home.

One the right, the real Frances, from Knit Back Together; look at how gingerly she’s caring for her leaf.

When Mrs. Mirón asked her kindergarten students what they should do for me to show their appreciation, she got these sweet answers:

1. Buy her a beautiful dress with glitter and bows on it. 🥹

2. Give her a matching bow for her hair and pajamas and a shirt and a matching dress and matching shoes so Miss Barbara and Mrs. Mirón and me match. 🥰

3. Get her a robot that cleans the house and does everything so she doesn’t have to pick up her things and be tired going back and forth from the couch to the fridge. And the robot can also put her to bed. 😊

Yes, please, to all of them. More empathy with gratitude on top.

So many precious September moments; thank you for stopping by to keep the ripple alive.

A Kindness KickOff

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m excited because I’m planning for this Kindness Kickoff next week.

So off to Wisconsin I go with a renewed spring in my step hoping to enjoy Autumn colors there.

I created this KEY sticker using their four tenets that support their theme for this year that I’m excited to give away, to help them remember.

Be friendly: Plant your seeds in rich soil.

Offer help: Enrich the soil with fertilizer.

Reach out: Care for the seeds by watering.

Show appreciation: Be the light your seeds need.

Of course, keeping the weeds out can also help, so we’ll talk a bit about hurdles, setbacks and resilience.

The school family has planned a nature walk for their families, with the pages os Mr. Quigley’s Keys posted along the path and four coordinating stations to support each of these focus habits.

Click this quote page to see the original posting and other #kindness quotes.

In the end, they’ll each take home a succulent, a sticker, and hopefully a lot of fun memories.

The next day in school, they’ll all get an antique key on a string, to wear as a reminder that planting seeds of kindness is KEY to connection.

I’m so grateful for opportunities like these, to support schools as they work with intention to plant seeds of kindness, compassion, connection, and love.

IMPACT Summer Summit

Barbara Gruener

Mark your calendars; I’m so honored and excited to share that I’ll be presenting at this Summer Summit.

Here’s my opening slide, to introduce my topic and myself.

These pictures from years ago at one of our Pinwheels for Peace beautifully bring to life the idea of moving from me to WE. Just look at my little friend on the left planting his family pinwheel. By itself, it can whirl one family’s message out into the world. Cool, right?

Now imagine the strength of those sentiments when our school sends the peaceful thoughts of 1000 family pinwheels out into our community and beyond. It’s even more incredible than it looks, when all of these hand-made pinwheels are spinning as one, in unity.

That’s the power of moving from me to WE as we elevate empathy, embrace compassion, and practice kindness in our character building.

Our friends at Bright Futures Counseling are excited to host this Summer’s IMPACT Summit on June 30 and July 1; admission is free with an IMPACT membership. Click {here} for more details.

If this virtual event is calling your name, I sure hope that you can attend.

Oh, and if you’re looking for a growth session like this one, let’s connect and get it on the calendar.

March Wellness

Barbara Gruener

You’ve undoubtedly heard of March Madness, but today I’m thinking about March Wellness after flying to Wisconsin to co-present a WellBEing growth session at the LACCS Character Conference.

Wait, is taking in a sunrise over Texas an act of self-care? I’m going with yes on that one, because it certainly fed my soul to watch this beauty unfold out of my window of that early-morning Southwest flight to Milwaukee.

We started our session with an improv in character from the movie Inside Out 2; here, I’m warming up to play the role of Anger, who’s mad because she can’t find her bodyguard, Sadness.

It was great fun to engage our audience in this way! Next, we went through some activities and tools to add to the self-compassion and wellness arsenal of these passionate educators.

Who needs a head hug?

Finally, we invited participants to take a look at what’s on their plate, literally and figuratively, as we created self-care wheels complete with strategies that will nourish us mind, body, and spirit.

I continue to delight in opportunities like this one to plant seeds of inspiration and love in the hearts and souls of leaders who are still in the schoolhouse doing the holy work day after day, shaping the hearts and minds of our true national treasure, our kids.

Click {here} if you’d like to read more reflections about my March trip home.

In another news, my favorite laptop turned one and is she ever a little sponge!

Need another wellness idea? Grab your favorite toddler and ask her to bring you a book, then savor the silliness and pure, unadulterated joy of reading in tandum.

It might just be more happiness (and wellness!) than your heart can stand.

Meaningful Author Connections

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m feeling called to talk about connections, sparked by this Amazon review.

Just a few days into the new year, while I was at my childhood home caring for my Stepmom as she was dying, I received an email from a reader. Here’s a part of it.

Hello, how are you? My name is Michelle … I am a teacher in NJ. I have been teaching in the same town & school for 22 years … I absolutely love Mr. Quigley’s Keys … I am currently teaching 3rd grade and I LOVE reading to my class. We read 1-2 stories a day and I feel they are picking up a stronger passion for reading. Every month the students pick their favorite read aloud that I have read over the entire month to find the winner for our classroom. We call it “Bookflix” of the month.  Every March, I do the same thing but we make it like a tournament of books and each book battles another to make it through to the next bracket. We do this to celebrate March Madness with the NCAA basketball.

Well, being a relatively new basketball fan because of Caitlin Clark‘s days at Iowa, I think it’s soooooo cool to imagine Mr. Quigley’s Keys in a March Madness bracket. As you might imagine, it gave me great pleasure to send her class family a signed copy of Keys. I’ve also offered a virtual author visit, so, who knows? I might even get to meet them. Eeeeeeeek!

Michelle ended her letter with this: I look forward to hearing  from you if you have any time. I love telling my class I spoke to a REAL author. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Now here’s the thing: I will never forget the day that Phillip Hoose of Hey, Little Ant fame first emailed me. He’d enjoyed a blog post that I wrote about his rhyming “to squish or not to squish” treasure, and he invited me to write an article and submit it to Teaching Tolerance Magazine. I did, and it was not only accepted, but it was my first payment for a piece I’d scribed. My first author gig, if you will. Oh sure, I’d been writing for as long as I can remember, but getting paid for my words felt like next level, for sure.

Our friends Tricycle Press decided to put an excerpt from that article on the back of the hardback books 8th edition and beyond, and it felt so dreamy. Download a teachers’ guide from the publisher {here}.

Then when we invited Phil to come to Friendswood from the East Coast and lead a Family Character Night we hoped to call “Picnic With The Author Of Ant,” we were over-the-moon with delight that he agreed. Families brought their dinners to our gym, spread out their picnic blankets, and ate dinner while Phil lead a good old-fashioned Sing Along and then a read aloud of his blockbuster book.

So, Michelle, I can still feel what it feels like to hear back from an author, and I, for one, am grateful that you followed your heart and made this meaningful connection with me. Oh, and not that I’m uber competitive or anything, but I do so hope that Keys does well in your 3rd-grade March Madness bracket. 🔑💜🗝️

Leaning Into #Leadership

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m excited because this podcast episode with my publisher dropped first thing this morning. What a fun way to kick off the week of Christmas 2024.

It can be a little daunting to record a visit without knowing the questions ahead of time, but that’s exactly what I did with my Character Speaks podcast, to keep it fresh. I loved the authenticity and vulnerability of the on-the-spot responses that always came straight from the heart. Our visit is about 45 minutes long, so lace up your walking shoes and listen in on what we have to say about our leadership practices, habits and recommendations.

Spoiler alert: Darrin does get a little emotional at the end, a podcast first for this leadership guru!

Speaking of emotional, I just returned from WI, where I had not only a lovely early Christmas with my extended family, but also a chance to visit with two first-grade class families and then two second-grade classes. At the first school, I got to read Mr. Quigley’s Keys.

I left them each with an empaKEY on a red string, to remind them that they hold the key to unlock hearts by listening and loving, sharing compassion and kindness.

The teacher realized that she’d forgotten to order one; thankfully I always carry extras!

After the visit, I received this kind affirmation from her:

Hello Barbara,

Your presentation was absolutely wonderful! I thorughly enjoyed it and the kids were so engaged! You have such a gift. Thank you for sharing it with us! I look forward to seeing your future books … maybe about Winthrop … maybe a whole series! 😉 The kids adored him!

Thank you again for sharing your holiday time with us. Have a very blessed Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

In His Service, Deanne

Who’s Winthrop, you ask?

He’s the bird that helps me set the stage for my empathy explanation since that’s one of the themes of Birdie & Mipps. Don’t you just love how the two girls on the left are responding to him? Perhaps he does need a book of his own … hmmmmm.

In the middle of our read-aloud, one of the boys wondered aloud: “Hey, is this a personal narrative?” Then he added, “Wait, are you the girl?”

I gave this group each a sticker with a cardinal on it and we talked about what the American male cardinal is said to represent.

On his way to recess, one boy showed his teacher his sticker and said, “I’ll use this to remember my dad.” Be still my soul.

So many text-to-self connections that morning; you just never know how each reader will engage and respond, and what they will take away and remember from the story and the visit.

And that’s how I’ve been leaning into leadership lately.

Thank you for visiting my blog today; do let me know if ever I can visit the superheroes in your class family either in person or via Zoom.

Extension Activities

Barbara Gruener

Happy December; to celebrate the holiday season, I’m making enrichment resources for my books. Click {here} to download this Birdie & Mipps word search and look to find most of the words are vertical or horizontal.

I used to make my word puzzles by hand, when I first taught Spanish in the 1980s. I really thought it was a great way to get in some vocabulary repetitions, seeing and searching for those words in both languages. Now there are many freebie worksheet generators online, and I’m grateful.

Click {here} to download the Mr. Quigley’s Keys word search and look for this one to have a diagonal word or two as well as vertical and horizontal ones.

As always, the natural next thing is to ask your learners to create their own word searches, either by hand or using a worksheet maker like this one.

If you’d like to gift a signed copy of any of my three books, I’ve now got them all in stock and would be happy to send them your way.

Before you go, check out my reflections on The Cost of Kindness at Character.org. I scored a 83 on the KQ (Kindness Quotient) questionnaire.

What’s your KQ?

Kindness Knows No Calendar

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m grateful for the invitation to write a guest post at The Kind Voice blog. In the piece, called Because Kindness Knows No Calendar, I detail why it’s important to model and teach empathy before we jump to “be kind.”

Empathy is the theme of both of my picture books, and it’s got a chapter in What’s Under Your Cape as well. It’s a glorious virtue that I think the world could use more of, especially in our schools. Want more integration ideas? Check out Empathy In A {Shoe} Box, Happy ShoesDay, Empowering Empathy, and Sesame Street’s Empathy clip with Mark Ruffalo and Murray.

Speaking of Sesame Street, the most-recent Elmo clip deals with grief, which has an underlying empathy message; watch Andrew Garfield and Elmo {here}.

Need some empathy titles for your #SEL shelves?

By the way, when empathy goes up, guess what goes down? That’s right, anxiety! Talk about your win-win.

Happy November, dear reader; thank you for checking in with me periodically. If I can ever help you in your character building, please reach out and let me know how.

Quilting the Personal Narrative

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m grateful for my mid-week visit to talk with these first graders about the process of writing. I used this t-shirt quilt as a hook, to illustrate how a personal narrative is all about capturing a bunch of magical moments and putting them into a mosaic like this patchwork throw of all of the character Ts that I wore during my 14 years working at their school alongside their teacher, Mrs. Quigley.

Listen in as these budding authors helped me out; their voices melt my heart.

What a booster shot of energy and joy help them on hooking their readers, whetting their appetites, and leaving them wanting more.

I also brought along my Pack rat puppet (see his tale sticking out of the bag?) to share how writing is basically spinning a tail, er, tale about what’s happening in our lives, how it looks, how it sounds, how it feels. We talked about getting playful with words and using them to shape your story, just like a potter creates with clay and they create with play-doh. They giggled and laughed, and it made my soul sing.

Then I read an essay that my son, Jacob, wrote at their age; they listened respectfully as I read his reflections on trustworthiness, then we worked together to help Jacob think of a stronger hook.

Do let me know if ever I can come to your class to inspire your learners.

What hook would you use to start YOUR personal narrative?

Belonging Matters

Barbara Gruener

Today I’ve been thinking about the gift of belonging after my friend Margaret texted me this picture of her school’s 2nd annual Literacy Night.

She shared this with me: “At our Literacy Night, each teacher was asked to pick their top five books parents should have in their homes for children to read. Your book made the pick for our second grade teacher.” Gosh it feels good to belong; just look at Mr. Quigley’s Keys next to Where The Wild Things Are. Be still my author’s soul.

But why does belonging matter so much? We are wired for connection; it’s a fundamental human need. We are social beings who thrive on interactions with one another. Just above our basic physical needs like food and shelter and our need for safety come love and belonging on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. It simply feels good to belong.

So, by extension, when we dig deep and write from the heart, it feels good that a teacher chooses our book to be included in her recommendations for parents to read at home. I’m honored and I’m grateful.

And for Margaret to share it with me? A bonus kindness that has sent my heart soaring. Thank you, my friend, for your thoughtfulness and love; I’m so blessed to belong in your circle.