Christmas Break

Christmas Break

     Tis the season to be Merry, fa la la la la la.  My 5th grade class is amazing but they were also excited to celebrate the holidays, their behavior told me so! Break started with me having 1 day to finish all by errands.  My family and I did some shopping and a little baking.

Then we headed for my brother's house in Park City, Utah. Mitch and Greg had just finished a bout of the flu and we worried we would not make it. On the day of departure we were all healthy and ready to go....

My children were so excited about the drive.

We made it there in about 8 hours and ready to ski, shop and visit with family. The best part about the trip was my nephew and niece. Aren't they cute?                          
                                                                 Declan

Sammie

Skiing and shopping was not an option for me when after just 12 hours of being in Park City I got the flu. Luckily it lasted only 24 hours but about the 15th hour, Kayla got it. On Christmas Day Declan and Sammie got it. Then their parents were sick with it and last but not least all 4 grandparents. We brought the gift from Colorado that just kept giving! I think they all wanted us to go home and were not very thankful of our gift.  We basically traveled to just visit as shopping and skiing were not happening.

All in all the most important part of Christmas was I got to spend time with my family, the best gift ever!! 

Celebration in a Tent

Novel Study Celebration in a TENT!!

        We have true  brilliant authors in our writing class! I am beyond thrilled at their level of character development and descriptive settings. All of us published our books however some of us only are sharing part one and are writing series to be continued. I can't wait to read some of their continued stories.
         In addition to our great novels the class had earned a reward for their great behavior over the last several weeks. They decided they wanted to build a tent. We tied our novel celebration together with our tent making party and WOW, best novel celebration to date.
         Students brought blankets and sheets and as it turned out we had a snowy indoor recess so everyone helped build. Then we got in our tent, Julie brought yummy snacks and most students brought flash lights and we sat and read everyones stories. We had a great quiet reading celebration in our tent.

 

 

Back To School=Meetings

The beginning of the school year can be stressful but I love it! It is exciting as you start with new ideas and a fresh start. The first week back for my school was Tuesday and we had training 8-3 and again today! Granted, I love Junior Great and think it is actually a better program than our school reading program but I have been using it for 3 years and a refresher class for 2-3 hours would have been great.
If you have not read Junior Great stories get your hands on a story for they offer great moral lessons and leads to great conversations. I am looking forward to finding more time to incorporate reading into my daily schedule but for now....I need to get ready for the first week.

Camscan

I forgot to mention camscan. Oh my this little phone app is amazing turns your picture into  PDF file. Scan students paper work right into their e-portflio.  Love it...

Geek Week

My mind is swirling from all I have to do before the year starts and then I go to Geek Week...as you can imagine, my list just got longer. Yesterday I took a class on Twitter and learned about Hoot Suite. Check it out here, it is a great way to manage all your social media, Twitter, Facebook and more all on one dashboard. Then I was not sure if there was a class I wanted to take in the afternoon. I decided to take a Google Site class because I heard the instructors are Google certified. I did not think I would learn too much since I already have my Google Site but.....WOW! I had to pull myself from my couch today to stop playing with it. 
Each of my students will have a Google Site with tabs for each class. I was planning on the students saving their work on each page as their e-portfolio, but they showed me how to link the students folder/sub-folders so when they file a paper, notes etc., into a file it automatically goes into my file. 


Did I mention I was teaching to a group of teachers about my flipped class? NOPE, because I am trying to forget about it. I spent hours putting my presentation together with great links, videos and more. Guess what? I could not get a connection and therefore show my slide. I wanted to cry, which I kinda did in the form of sweat...I was so stressed. I was already nervous with high school teachers in my room, for some reason they seem so much smarter than me. I wonder if it is because I often feel like a 5th grader and they are big high school kids' teachers?  Oh well, I get another chance to teach it on Friday. 

Tomorrow I am taking a Blogging Class...no more excuses for posting once a year. 

Spring Break

Why is it that a teachers job NEVER ends? My goal for spring break was to be about me, somehow planning a unit for NEXT YEAR gets in the way. I love teaching and I think when you have a passion for teaching, it is not a job! Enjoy your break however you choose.

Spring Break Ready

Time to blow off steam and that we did by enjoying a big slice of VOLCANO CAKE.