“Daily Spark” Jars

In my last post, I shared how I've launched an Innovation Team made up of "Spark Starters" from each school in our district. I am incredibly excited about this magical team and the sparks that are already being ignited.

Building meaningful relationships from the beginning is really important to me. It was always a priority as a teacher, and I know it must be a priority in this role as well. Being the only Tech Integration Specialist in my district, I have a lot of area to cover since my Spark Starters are from 19 different schools covering a wide area. A dear friend and colleague of mine, Jenni Jones @jennijonestech, was chatting with me the other night about how we needed to collect our "greatest success" moments this year with all the new adventures we are beginning. That's when my friend Jenni had an idea to create a jar to collect them that we can reflect back on. I loved this idea so much that another lightbulb moment happened! What if I create jars for each of the "Spark Starters" to collect "Daily Spark" moments?! I could deliver them when I visit each of them this month at their schools!

DAILY SPARK JAR ASSEMBLY

With a plan developing in my head, my colleague and I hurried off to Walmart on the hunt for a few items for our jars:

Mason Jars
Colorful pens
Colorful Cardstock
​Tags
​Twine

Now for assembly. I cut the cardstock using a paper cutter into small rectangles and tied 30 pieces together with twine.  I wrote a message on cardstock with the following instructions:

If I was to do this again, I would type out these instructions and then print them to save time. Live and learn. On one side of the tags, I wrote "Daily Sparks" and on the other side I wrote a quote:

To put them together, I placed the cardstock bundle, pen, and instructions in each (threw in a Make Learning Magical sticker too). I screwed on the lid and tied the tag around the top with twine.  

VOILA'!
​DAILY SPARK JAR READY FOR DELIVERY!

The best part of this process was delivering them! I absolutely loved the adventure of driving to schools and finding each Spark Starter's classroom. It was a wonderful way to see them in their element and in many cases meet them for the first time. They were so sweet and appreciative and it brought so much joy to my heart to be able to give this gift of love and appreciation for accepting my invitation to be on our Innovation Team! I can’t wait for these jars to fill with “spark moments” as we ignite innovation this year!