New Year

This 2017 I want to focus on myself so that I can be the very best teacher that I can be for my 24 “kiddos”.  It’s important for me to build myself up too so I am a complete person not just a

teacher.  So this post is short, sweet and to the point.  What are some recommendations you all have for me?  Currently, I am finishing, How to Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess.  I do love it and I am getting so much from it.  But I do want to have a book ready for when I finish.

Biliteracy

This past month in my district we have been vamping up our Dual Language instruction.  Our school has been doing a book study using, Biliteracy from the Start. It is a very useful tool in helping us to rewrite our units with focusing on helping our students become biliterate and bicultural.  

As a team, we sat today and rewrote our animal adaptions science unit.  Was it easy?  Did we use our time wisely?  Did we lose focus?  Did we miss our students?  Did we surf the net?  Did we have an amazing lunch?  

So we started working at 9 this morning.  When we began our rewriting, we had to pick the Key Use of Academic Language.  It took us an hour to figure out what verb from Blooms Taxonomy to use!  It was so hard to figure it out.  So we really panicked.  We thought if this is taking us an hour to figure out, what will the rest of the day be like.  Our team of three, had all 3 computers open with multiple open pages along with a projected page.  At this point, we started discussing lunch!!!  We needed a distraction.  But 10am was too early for lunch.  So….on we went.  It got a little easier with each step.  We put in Common Core standards, Spanish Language standards along with NextGeneration Science standards.  Then our minds drifted and we started looking at ordering supplies for next year.  Everything looked amazing!!!!  But back to work.  So then we went back to it.  Next we worked on Academic Language in word level, sentence level and discourse level.  By this point, we had enough and it was lunch time!  We couldn’t have been happier to leave that conference room and go eat lunch at Portillo's.   

At Portillo's we celebrated one of our team member’s birthday!  Chopped salad and some cheese fries, please.  We had a nice time talking about our lives.  This time unfortunately came to an end way too quickly.  

Back at school, we learned that some of us were able to order a few more supplies since we hadn’t spent all of our money for the school year.  Oriental trading got my money.  I just love them.  We had a hard time getting back into the swing of what we needed to work on.  We looked at essential oils and then a goose walked by the front of the school where the students are picked up and we couldn’t stop laughing!!  I am so proud of our team.  Our goal for the day was accomplished and we were able to turn in our lesson.  And yes, we missed our students!!!!

HUEHD

When I went to my bloggers meetup, #2016Teacherbloggerretreat, one of 

my prizes was an HUEHD document camera!  It was such an amazing gift, that I had to open it right up.  It is so beautiful.  It’s a bright red camera.  It’s so portable and easy to setup.  My class was finishing up animal pamphlets that they made for their animal research project.  The kids wanted to share their pamphlets with the class and this was an easy way for them to share with the whole class.  One of my students put their pamphlet under the document camera and was able to share with the whole class.  She was so excited to share and the class was excited to see what she did.  Using the document camera made it so easy to share with the entire class.  In my district we don’t have document cameras so sharing something whole class like this is hard but with the HUEHD it was so easy to share and all the kids were able to see.  I am so grateful to HUEHD to caring about teachers enough to offer teachers at #2016Teacherbloggerretreat these awesome document cameras!  Please follow them on their social media sites and show them love!  Thank you HUEHD!

http://www.huehd.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC76ozqwUDAATjNnJozJfMCA

https://twitter.com/HueHD

https://www.pinterest.com/hueanimation/

https://www.facebook.com/HueAnimation/?fref=nf

2016 Spring Teacher/Blogger Retreat

I'm Back!!!  I had taken a break from blogging because I have been so overwhelmed with my new school and position.  But I have missed all of you.  

This past weekend I had the privelge of attending #2016Teacherbloggerretreat.  It was held once again in Frenchlick, Indiana.  More than 200 teachers came to be inspired.  There were so many great TPT teachers along with some amazing bloggers that attended.  What I learned from this weekend, was that I can do anything that I put my mind up to!  I never truly believed that until #2016Teacherbloggerretreat.  

Many teachers were part of offering presentations on topics that are important to them.  I had the honor of doing 2 sessions on Brag Tags.  This was my very first time ever presenting. I was beyond nervous but I did have 20 teachers in total that came to my presentation.  It really was an honor.  I was able to sit in two different presentations. One was with the Tutu Teacher and the other was with the one and only Kindergarten Smorgasboard.  

I wanted so say a huge thank you to my bestie, Jennifer and my sister Maria, for coming with me.  I was so nervous about presenting that they decide to come with me to support me.  But they both ended up leaving inspired and rejuvenated by this amazing event.  Now they can’t wait for next year’s bloggers meet up!

But now let’s talk about the fabulous prizes we received!!!  First of all, a huge thank you to Ms Holly Ehle for all of her hard work.  Putting something together like this is no small feat.  My first fabulous prize was from ABC Mouse.  I got a cute mouse backpack along with a DVD for my class!  Then ABC Mouse went all out and gave all of us classroom access to their website!  

HUE HD document cameras were another fantastic prize.  The company donated each one of us 1 document camera to use in our classroom plus if we did a small post/video clip we can get another one!!!!!  The document camera that I received was red.  It is so easy to set up and so portable.  Plus, it can record and playback on it.  It takes pictures of what your presenting.  Amazing!

We also received from Vera Bradley a beautiful  bag to carry all of our treasures!  I love Vera Bradley products but the company is so giving that I love them even more now!

Here are our sponsors for this amazing event, please go show them some LOVE!!!

         

 

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=617546