So as I cut pastel-colored paper into long strips this morning, Kalan taught a lesson about making connections using a book she created with her own students from Bernotas Middle School. We had the students write connections to the story on the strips of paper and the strips were then turned into a paper chain, the perfect symbol for connecting to text. As the chain hung in the back of the room, I stood there and wondered if the other teachers thought it was wasteful. Here we had perfectly good sheets of paper and I cut them to make a silly chain. The question “what’s important to us?” popped into my head. Kalan and I have been utilizing all of the teaching supplies we so carefully packed and feel the big paper for modeling has been useful, the sentence strips helpful, and the markers fun for the kids to use. But what’s important to us isn’t always what’s important to the teachers here at Shine. We love to showcase student work on the walls, but sticky tack and tape costs money, money teachers at Shine don’t have to spend. Yet, we all have the same common goal and that is to create successful and writers in these children.