I absolutely loved this post! It begins by talking about how teachers are often feeling a mental and physical burnout, but that is not what teaching should be. They reiterate that their goal is to turn teaching into something that teachers love and look forward to because it makes them happy. With this, they provide listeners with many tools to make their jobs easier on themselves so that they are able to enjoy their career. In this specific podcast, they talk about spiraling activities throughout the year. They say that it is a good idea to begin the year with a narrative writing unit. This is an easy unit to start with for students, and it is fun to teach and allows teachers to learn more about their students! When I listened to this part, I recognized the times I began my semesters with a narrative piece based on a prompt. She then goes on to say that students will need multiple opportunities to master the core standards, and this is where the spiraling activity comes in. This activity takes a game that I have personally played when I was in elementary school, and it changes is so that students are able to write a narrative piece from it. The game is called MASH, and each letter stands for a different setting (magical kingdom, another planet, etc.) It then has three other sides, each of which will have a different category. One might be dialogue, and another might be conflict (internal, external, societal, etc.). The students will play this game and eliminate these one-by-one, according to the game, and will eventually be left with one topic per category. They will then have the opportunity to create a narrative that includes these topics! I think this is an amazing way to get students engaged as they meet core standards. It allows themselves to express themselves creatively and also challenge themselves within literature. This was my favorite episode because I can truly see myself having my future students participate in this activity!!