What a first month!

Hi,

I have now survived almost one calendar month of my new job!  I am really liking it a lot.  I'm learning more stuff than I can remember!  I love working with the teachers at both schools and look forward to working with students more once I can get everything running smoothly and make up a schedule (hopefully soon)!

One of the things I've taught to the teachers at my schools was iPad and Windows 7 Tips and Tricks.

Right now it's very hard for me to want to face much computer time once I get home, so that's why my blog posts have been few and far between.  I'm hoping I'll eventually be able to get back to a semi-regular blogging schedule.

Today we remember September 11, 2001.  I made a resource page for my teachers and some of them found it useful.  That made me feel like all the time I put into it was worth it.  I think it's really important that we teach our younger students (who were born after that date) what happened--they are often confused about it.

And on that note, I'm going to post this and get away from the computer...or at least try to....

The First Day 2013

Things I missed today as school started:  The teachers I taught with last year.  But I get to work with lots of wonderful teachers at new (to me) schools.

Things I did not miss today:
First day jitters
Lack of sleep the night before
Teaching procedures and rules and then more procedures and rules...
Announcements interrupting my teaching
Recess/bus/hall duty
Kids (I enjoyed seeing them in the halls and classrooms I entered)
Paperwork to go home
Figuring out who goes where at the end of the day and getting them there

I think I'm going to do just fine with not having my own class.  :)   I'm really enjoying my new job so far even though I still have lots to learn and it is stressful, it's a different kind of stress and I will learn it and even be good at it.

First Day of School

Lettering from www.letteringdelights.com

Tomorrow is the first day of school here.  It's going to be interesting to see how I handle not having my own class.  So far I'm rather enjoying it.  There's probably an equal amount of stress, but it feels like a different kind of stress.  The complete pressure to work miracles with students is off, and I can tell.  That's been replaced with the stress of trying to support the teachers at my schools as they go through those pressures.

To all of you out there who have already started or are starting soon, I wish you a wonderful new year filled with the joys of learning and childhood.

Teacher Week: Now Teach! Organizing for Instruction

Hello,

Here are some organizational tips for teaching with technology.

1.  If you use mobile devices, change the lock screen or wall paper or both to show a number or name for each device.  On my teacher devices I also add my name, e-mail address and phone number on the lock screen.  Then if I lose it and an honest person finds it, they can still contact me even though the iPad is locked.

2.  On IOS devices, if you want a student to stay in a specific app, turn on restricted access in your setting->general menu.  Make sure to remember the password you set.  Then get the student into the app you want them to stay in.  Click the home button (the button with the square on it) three times and tell it to start restricted access.  The student won't be able to exit the app until you click the home button 3 times and put in the password you set.  This can also be used to restrict students from touching on certain parts of the screen (such as links to the internet).  I'll write a post on that another time.

3.  When planning to use technology for project based learning, it is always a good idea to help your students plan ahead before they use the technology.  For example, last year I taught my first graders to use this wonderful app called Tiny Tap.  I took several steps to help them be successful in creating their own tiny tap apps.  First, I showed them Tiny Tap and we looked at all the options and possibilities.  Then, we built a class version of a Tiny Tap app so they could see how it worked.  Next, we went to the non-tech portion.  I explained the parameters of the assignment:  they were to create their own app that had at least 5 different questions that reviewed something they learned in first grade (it was the end of the year).  After that, I modeled how to write a storyboard.  The students basically had to draw what they planned to put on the screen.  Students had to show me their storyboards with their plans before they got their hands on the devices.  They were very successful in building some great apps.  Many of them chose to add more questions to their apps once they finished the original 5 just because they liked it so much.  Finally, we rotated around the room and each child got to play every other child's game.  This can be done with almost any visual project you use with technology.

4.  Dropbox is the best thing ever.  If you don't have it and you work with mobile devices you should get it and learn to use it as soon as possible.  It's the easiest way I know to get things on and off of my iPad.

I'm sure there's a lot of other tech organizational ideas.  My brain is fried now after two days at my new job, so I'm going to stop there.  I hope this is helpful to at least some of you.

Joell

Teacher Week: Classroom Digs

Today I have no pictures to share.  Why?  Because I really don't have a classroom.  I have 4 computer labs and help out in many different classrooms.  This is a new thing for me, and I have to say, I kind of enjoy not having to prepare my room.  Of course, now I have to prepare two whole schools with their technology, but that's different.

Today was my first official day as a School Technology Specialist.  I'm very excited to learn new things and to help the teachers and students of my schools out.  So far, my biggest challenges have been all the stuff I don't know, and keeping track of everything that needs done.  Oh, and also I've managed to get lost probably 50 times today.

Since my instructional plan isn't quite all the way in place, I think tomorrow I'll just give out some ideas on ways I used to keep myself organized.  Or I might skip posting if I'm too braindead after Day Two of The New Job.

Thanks for visiting!
Joell

Teacher Week: Let's Talk About Me

Hello friends,

I'm going to see if I can manage to post this week despite it being my first week at a new job.  Here goes:

1.  I play English Handbells in my church's bell choir.  I like to play 4 in hand, which actually means holding 2 bells in each hand.  I hope the embedded video below works.  I haven't tried this before.




2. I have a goal to visit all 50 states.  I'm over half way there.  This summer I added Oregon to my list of states visited.  I saw every lighthouse in Oregon while I was there.

Coquille River Lighthouse, Bandon, Oregon

3.  I used to be a big sci fi/fantasy geek, but not so much any more.  My favorites were: Star Trek, Star Wars, Quantum Leap, Highlander, anything written by Anne McCaffrey, Lord of the Rings...and I'll just stop there.

4.  Before I became a teacher I worked as a sign language interpreter.  My signing skills have gone downhill due to disuse.  It's such a beautiful language, I miss it.  Here's a video I found that has some nice signing.

5. I have a cat named Katie who is 16 years old.  Her favorite thing in the world is a pizza box.  Every time I get pizza I have to leave the empty pizza box laying on the floor for her to enjoy.

Katie on her pizza box.

6. Although I've lived in Utah almost my entire life, I have never gone skiing.  When I was young and reckless I was too poor.  Now I'm too scared I'd break something.  Besides that, I don't like being in the cold that long.

7.  I have a teacher website that is in transition as I've changed jobs.  There might be some helpful links, especially for early grade teachers.  Here's the link:  http://my.uen.org/myuen/52987

8.  Though I have no kids of my own, I have several nephews and nieces.  Some are all grown up, but there are a few young ones still around.  The youngest enters first grade this year.  

9.  This one kind of goes with #8.  I am happily single.  I enjoy it most of the time.  The worst is when something breaks and I can't fix it myself.

10.  I finally got to 10!  I can't believe how hard this seemed to be.  Maybe I'm just boring.  LOL  I have met many online friends from around the world in real life.  I think it's safe to say that I'm not an axe murderer and I haven't met any yet.  The people I met that were farthest from me came to Salt Lake from Sweden.  It was great fun taking them around and they especially loved the real cowboys they saw while they were here.

Tomorrow's supposed to be a classroom tour, but I don't have a classroom any more.  If I remember and have time tomorrow, I'll try and get a picture of a computer lab or my office, but even that's not quite ready to go yet, so it won't be anything exciting.  I might just skip it.  We'll see.

Yay!  I actually posted something!

Joell

Overwhelmed in a Good Way

Hi,

I had my first training for my new job.  Boy, I have a lot to learn and I know will learn it all eventually.  I don't know how much time I'll be able to put into my blog as I adjust.  So, I will probably be on hiatus for a while.

Joell

Change Anxiety & Lack of Motivation

Hi,

I have to admit, I have no great excuse for not blogging.  My head is still trying to wrap itself around my transition from 1st grade to technology specialist.  I'm feeling pretty uninspired, mostly because I'm not going to the first grade class I'm used to next year, and I still don't really know exactly what I'm doing next year.  As a result, I've spent the last few weeks not quite sure what to do with all the ideas that keep popping into my head.

After I returned from ISTE in June, I was home for a day and a half before I turned around and left for a lovely road trip up the coast of Oregon.  My friend and I managed to see every lighthouse in Oregon.  I loved the weather and the scenery!

Since returning home I've been very unmotivated.  I haven't watched this much television in....ever....or at least since I was a teenager.  I can't even finish a book.

So, my professional development this summer has been ISTE and goofing around with learning how to use Twitter as part of my PLN (professional learning network).  I signed up for an online math course from Stanford which is really interesting, but still leaves me uninspired since I don't know if/when I'll use it.

My lack of blogging has nothing to do with lack of content, it's more a lack of motivation.  I'll try to get something worthwhile up soon.

Here's a picture from Oregon.

Coquille River Lighthouse near Bandon, Oregon

I can motivate a classroom full of students, but find it very difficult to motivate myself right now.  Anyone have any great advice?

ISTE 2013

Wow!

It has been incredible and I'm only a day and a half into it!  My brain is on overload and my introvert self is shuddering from all the people.  But it's so wonderful to be surrounded by like-minded people who get it!

Just some short impressions here, and I'll add more detail later.

1.  The opening ignite session was very cool.  Ignite talks are 20 slides long and I think 5 minutes--I can't remember the timing, but they're short and quick.  The speakers pack a lot of interesting stuff into it.

2. The keynote speech by Jane McGonagal was very inspirational and made me want to figure out how to gamify everything.

3.  Went to this wonderful session on QR codes and got several ideas on how to use them.

4.  Learned a little bit about edmodo and how to use it with other apps such as educreation and QR codes.

5.  There was another great session called 101 free tools on the web.  Can't wait to try some of them.

6.  I went to a short Intel sponsored panel, where I learned about 3 pretty cool free resources.  I'll post them later as I process everything.

7.  The people.  There are so many people.  All of them friendly, but I feel a little bit of the loner.  I don't really know a lot of these people from the twitter or blog world and being an introvert I find it hard to just insert myself into the situation.  This is entirely my own problem.

8.  San Antonio.  I have managed to boat up and down the riverwalk several times (I purchased a 3 day boat taxi pass).  I've had very good food at all the restaurants I've been to.  I saw the Alamo.  I went up in the Tower of the Americas.  My only complaint so far would be the heat and humidity.  I'm used to heat, but humidity is a rarity in Salt Lake City, so that is a little rough to get used to.

I'm waiting for all my pictures to upload from my phone to dropbox, and it's taking forever, so I'll leave you with one picture for now, and try to get some more up the next time I post.  I'm too tired to sit up and wait and I have a full day planned tomorrow!

Ballroom A, this is where the keynote addresses are.  It fits the theme of Texas Big, that's for sure!  Love the screens spread throughout the audience since the stage is so far away if you're in the back.

I'll get some more pictures and share more of the ideas and details later.  The list above will help jog my memory.  It'll be like a table of contents for helping me remember what to blog about for a while.

Goodnight from San Antonio, Texas!
Joell

Blog Reboot

I've had a little time to digest my upcoming job change.  I'm getting more and more excited!  Since I'm mostly going to be working with technology, I've renamed my blog Teacher Tech Time.

Hopefully, I'll be able to share all kinds of technology tips and tricks.  I'll check in once I'm back from the ISTE conference.

Joell

Changes

Hi,

I decided after much soul searching this year that I need a change.  So, I spent much of this spring interviewing for various jobs in my school district.  I interviewed for a school technology specialist job in May and didn't get the job.  I was bummed, but came to acceptance with staying at my school that I've worked at for 19 years.

Then today I got a call.  Another position opened up for the technology specialist job and they wanted me!  I'm such a bag of mixed emotions right now.  Excited for the new opportunity and to get to use technology.  Sad to leave behind my coworkers and students of my school.  Scared about the change.  Unsure about how I'll feel about not having my own classroom with my own kids.

I don't know many details yet, but I'll be working in 2 elementary schools in my school district and I'll be in charge of all the tech stuff.  I'm hoping to be able to teach students on techie stuff and that will be enough of the teacher stuff to help me get over not having my own classroom--plus, no classroom=no sub plans when I'm sick, no recess duty, no parent-teacher conferences, no report cards...etc etc etc.

I'm not sure what will happen with my blog.  I don't know if I can just rename it, or if I need to just start from scratch.  Or just keep it the same but change the focus more to technology and less on the first grade and teaching stuff.

Have you gone through a change where you left the classroom?  Was it hard to leave the kids behind?  If you have any tips for me as I transition I will gladly take them.

Joell

Summer's here!

Hi,

I'm officially out for the summer!  I know I haven't been so good at posting.  I just get tired and leads to unmotivated.

I have some summer goals and plans.

I will be attending ISTE for my first time ever.  So if you're going and would like to meet an ISTE newbie, let me know in the comments below.  I'm very excited (and a little nervous) about this.

A few days after I get home from ISTE I will be leaving for a trip up the Oregon coast.

When that's all done, I'll work on some goals:

Exercise (wish me luck)
Get the house thoroughly cleaned and organized.
Learn how to create a report using data from excel.
Read, read, read, read, read and then read some more.

I'm sure as I find renewed energy I'll be posting here some more.  Until then, enjoy your summer!

Joell

Helping Moore, Oklahoma!

I am very excited to announce a joint project of many TPT teachers from around the world.  A large amount of teachers have joined forces and resources to raise funds for the teachers of Moore, Oklahoma.  There are 4 bundles which are on sale for a limited amount of time.  There are two K-2 packets and two 3-6 packets.  Each packet is priced at $25 and contains around $100 in product.

Check out these great packets on teacherspayteachers:

K-2 Packet 1
K-2 Packet 2
3-6 and Clipart Packet 1
3-6 and Clipart Packet 2

For a complete listing of what is in each packet, go to the pages above.

Also, there were many tpt sellers who wanted to help, but weren't able to get in on the bundles.  So there is now a linky and sale.  I have joined this linky hosted by Math Coach's Corner and I will be donating 100% of all profits on Monday, May 27th to the Red Cross: Moore, Oklahoma funds.  Everything in my store will be 10% off that day.  You can find the linky list of all the sites involved below my signature.

Go forth and purchase great stuff while helping those in need!
Joell

Here we go again

It seems like we keep getting hit by tragedy after tragedy lately.

As a teacher, one of the biggest fears I have is being in charge of my little first graders in the event of a major catastrophe.  Here in Utah it would most likely be an earthquake.

My thoughts and prayers are with all the people devastated by the tornado in Oklahoma today, but especially with the students, teachers and parents of the schools that were affected.

Be watching this space for information about a fund raiser to specifically help the schools and teachers.

Image from http://tweetwood.com/RepFitzpatrick/tweet/336658548207525888

Pollination Fun

Hello all,

We've had a busy couple of weeks in the classroom.  We did contraction surgery which was a total blast!

We had our end of year Dibels assessment.  My students did awesome!  Every one of them showed improvement and some went from below to on grade level!

We also pollinated our plants.  It's always great to see how much fun the kids have with this, and they really end up understanding the life cycle of a plant so much better because they've taken part in it.

We have 3 weeks left here.  I sure hope we can make it a positive and fun end of the year.

A student pollinates her plant.

Why I Do What I Do

There are days, and yes, sometimes weeks, months and years, that I wonder why I put myself through my job.  I put so much of my heart and soul into what I do, and it often seems like no one really cares.

Last week a note went home informing families about this week being Teacher Appreciation Week.  To me, I thought it felt kind of contrived.  I thought, well, if they have to be told to show appreciation, is it really sincere?

My answer today was a resounding yes.  My students brought me notes, flowers, and in one case bubble gum (hehehe).  The most touching were the notes.  One was a card that the little girl made at home.  I could tell she spent quite some time on it.  Just the fact that she took the time and did her very best on a card for me meant so much.  Here it is:

Front of the card

The picture in the frame says "I love school"  There's a cat that says "meow, meow" and the green thing on the right is the Statue of Liberty.

Then during my reading group time, my early finishers hit the writing materials and I got this wonderful sweet note:

As much as I love this note, my favorite thing is really how great this little boy did with his writing!  He even remembered the apostrophe in won't!  When school started he could only write a few words.  Yes, today was a day that I loved teaching.

Plant Progress

Our Brassica Rapa plants are doing great!  They're 6-8 inches tall and have been flowering.  We pollinated them last Friday and this Monday.  Now, they will get fairly ugly as they grow seed pods, and then finally we let them dry out and die so we can collect the seeds.  All the pictures I took have kids in them, so I don't have a current picture to post here.  

World Cultures

A couple of weeks ago, our school did a multicultural fair.  Each grade level took a continent and did a project on it, and shared.  It was an awesome night especially since it gave us a chance to celebrate the many different cultures in my school.  First grade got the continent of Australia.  Our students did animal reports and made coral reef aquariums.  They turned out really great.  Here are a few pictures.

Our passport station.  Students would get their passports stamped for visiting.

Our activity was matching Australian phrases and words with American English.

This is how some of my students' reports looked.

The first page of one of the reports.

Coral Reef Aquariums.  I made this one big because it's hard to see.  The inside has fish and coral and there's sand, too.

So this long post will hopefully make up for my recent lack of updates.  Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all my teacher friends.  

Joell

Positive Reinforcement and Plants

Positive Reinforcement

It's the time of year where everyone is antsy.  It's the time of the year when the same old positives don't work so well.  So, it's the time in my class that the carnival comes to town.  Yes, the carnival!  

I use class dojo in my room to track behavior.  But the usual rewards for positives just don't seem to work by this time of year.  So, I have combined class dojo with my carnival games.  We're starting out with a target toss.  Every five dojo points, or when I give out a "target ticket" students get to throw a ball at the target.  If they hit the bulls eye, they get a prize from the prize box.  They love having the chance to just shoot at the target.

The balls have velcro attached and stick to the white, black and red parts of the target.

I also have some circus games I purchased from oriental trading that I'll use once this no longer works.  

Plants

When you find something as great as the Brassica Rapa plant, you just have to keep using it.  So, this is my third year teaching my students the life cycle of a plant.  We planted our seeds on Monday.  I'm happy to say they started sprouting on Wednesday and by today they were all sprouted! 

Starting to sprout on Wednesday--two days after planting.

How our plants look under their lights.

I'll try to update you on the plants as we go.  :)

Still Recovering from Spring Break

Hi all,

I returned from a wonderful, but exhausting trip to Washington D.C. last weekend.  I came back mentally refreshed, but physically tired.  I'm going to put up a few of my D.C. pictures here.

Tomorrow we will be planting our Brassica Rapa plants.  It's such a fun and exciting thing for my students, and with this being my third time through the process, I'm hoping I'll be more confident and comfortable with it (I have a black thumb).

Here are some vacation pictures.

There were two highlights to the trip.  The first was going onto the House of Representative chamber floor in the capitol, the second was the night time tour we took.  The monuments have a whole different beauty and feel to them at night.

Not bad for a hand held night scene.  You can just see the capitol's dome to the right of the Washington Monument.

It was raining by the time we got to the new MLK memorial.  This happened to be the anniversary of his death.  I loved this memorial.  It was very inspiring.

The capitol on a very cold morning, but it sure looks nice!

It was too cold for the cherry blossoms to fully blossom, but by our last day, we caught a few blossoms.   There were several signs of spring around the town, especially when it finally warmed up on our last day.

This is a really cool spiral staircase at the Supreme Court.

The Smithsonian museum of the American Indian was one of the best surprises of the trip.  We went there on a whim when our tour bus driver told us their restaurant would be less busy.  Not only was the restaurant less busy, the food was wonderful, and the museum itself was excellent.  I highly recommend a visit to this museum.

The Pentagon's 911 Memorial.  Pictures don't do it justice.  It's an experience.

I loved the World War II Memorial.  This one was new since the last time I was in Washington D.C.  I think they did a spectacular job of memorializing that time.  I only wish the water fountains were up and running, I guess they only work them during the summer.

Daytime shot of the MLK memorial.  There are quotations all around it with his inspiring words.

Mount Vernon, George Washington's home.  I knocked on the door, but no one answered.  LOL

Lincoln Memorial.

So there's a quick glimpse at just some of the things I saw on my Spring Break.  I'll try to get something school related up this week.

Joell

My Lack of Posts

Hello,

Yes, I'm still alive!  We're hitting that time of the year.  You know, THAT time of the year.  When the stress levels reach dangerous portions.  When the kids start bouncing around on your last nerve.  When the pressure is on, but you're too tired to go on.  Yes, it's the week before spring break.  Hopefully, I'll make it!

I have been very busy preparing to play the part of a tourist in Washington D.C. at the Cherry Blossom Festival.  I'm so excited, but a little annoyed to miss out on the White House.

I've been feeling pretty burned out lately, and as a result I haven't been taking pictures of things.  However, I found this wonderful app that I'm so excited to be using.

It's called Tiny Tap and it's this very simple app you can use to create your own ipad app.  I presented it to my students last week and they LOVED it.  It's a free app and it has a great tutorial that explains how to use it.  I'm waiting to get it put on all the devices at school, then my students will be creating their own apps.  This is also useful to me as a teacher if I want to create apps for my kids to use.  One of the things I like best is the ability to put audio questions on it, so the non-readers and ELL students in my class can easily use it.

So, that's my newest technology find.  I still have a lot to share from UCET, but I'll have to do that when I find a free moment between all the crazy busy pre-spring break chaos.

Enjoy Tiny Tap!

Joell

My Inner Nerd is Doing Back Flips!

I wish I could say I came up with the catchy title of this post, but sadly, I only stole it from the person sitting next to me in the Evernote session at UCET.

It was SO hard to get up early on a Saturday morning and go.  But I can gladly say it was completely worth it!  I planned ahead and got a ticket to the 3 hour session on Evernote.  I didn't know at the time, that it was being presented by this afternoon's keynote speaker: Leslie Fisher.  Leslie is a total blast.  She is quick witted and fun and she knows all this cool tech stuff!!!  She joked about knowing her can be expensive, I can see why....there's all this stuff I want to buy now.  :)  One of my favorite little things she said was she kept referring to Internet Explorer as Internet Exploder.  :)  Oh, and I learned a lot about Evernote, too.  :)

After the long session, I got some lunch, and then headed to a short presentation on what to do with just one iPad in the classroom.  It was very good, but I think I was hitting information overload.  At some point, I intend to blog some of the best things I learned, but for right now, it's all muddled up in my brain.

If I hadn't enjoyed Leslie Fisher so much during the Evernote class, I  might have skipped out on the closing keynote.  It is Saturday after all, but she was so great I had to go.  I'm so glad I did.  We had fun with twitter and a bunch of other really cool stuff (most of which I can't remember--thankfully it's all on evernote.)  

Things slowly wound down and they had a whole bunch of prizes to give away.  It took what felt like forever.  Of course, I really wanted to win some great techy prize, so I hung around.  Finally, they got to the end--the grand prizes--two iPad minis.  They call the first name.  No one cheers or goes forward.  They call the second name.  Much cheering and screaming and the lucky winner went to get the prize.  They started to ask if anyone from the first person's school was there....there was much grumbling about being present to win.  So they drew one more last name.  ME!!!  Yes!  I won an iPad mini!!!!  I still can't quite believe it.  Of course, they mispronounced my name, but hey!  iPad mini here!!!  :) 

I'll try to get a post or two put together to share some of the wonderful things I learned soon.  

Joell

UCET Day 1

Hi!

I had a day away from the classroom today and attended the UCET conference.  I was in technology heaven!!!  The keynote speaker was great, he is one fast speaker and his presentation was wonderful.  I spent most of the day with my friend and fellow first grade teacher, Christine.  I was so glad to have someone to pal around with.

The first session we went to was led by none other than Rachelle Smith from What the Teacher Wants.  Natalie was there, too, but since I'm a first grade teacher, I went to the lower grade presentation and wasn't able to get to Natalie's.  I took a picture of the two of them as Rachelle was presenting (okay, really, I just wanted the words to the cool song but then I decided I needed at least one picture for this post.  I sure hope Rachelle and Natalie don't mind...) so here it is:

The pace was completely crazy between sessions, so I didn't stop to talk or get a picture with them.  I did catch them in line for lunch later and acted like a silly gushing fan.

I grabbed my boxed lunch and searched for my next session.  The first one was completely full.  The second one I wanted to attend was also completely full.  The big session in the tech atrium was completely full.  I finally ended up in a presentation tools one where I tried to eat and learn keynote at the same time.  I think once I learn keynote and get a better way to connect my ipad to my projector I'll be using it a whole lot.

After that, I met back up with Christine and we went to a presentation which was about nearpod and explain everything.  I loved both apps and hope to use them in my classroom.

After the crazy pace of the morning we had about an hour between sessions.  We wandered through the vendor area and chit chatted.  Then went to our last presentation which was the only disappointment of the day.  I'll spare you the details.

I'll be going back tomorrow to hopefully learn a lot about Evernote.

Other Miscellaneous Stuff

As I was finding the picture for this post, I ran across a few others I figured I'd share.  For our Read Across America day, our students and teachers were encouraged to dress up as their favorite book characters.  Here are a few pictures of the adults.  (No kid pics here, sorry.)

Our librarian:  Amelia Bedelia, complete with purse.

I was the Cat in the Hat, but the whole class made Lorax mustaches and wore them, so this is me as the Cat in the Hat Lorax.  

One of our 3rd Grade teachers is the Wimpy Kid, he even brought his diary. :)

Blogs by State Link Up

Hi all,

Just a quick post.  Diane over at Fifth in the Middle created this wonderful blog by state linky.  So, I'm going to go ahead and join her.

I'm a Utah blogger!

I look forward to seeing where everyone's from and finding a few fellow Utahns.

Joell

It's Been a While...

Hi,

I had a lovely vacation in San Diego followed by parent-teacher conferences.  February has been crazy busy as it usually is.  We had Groundhog Day, the 100th Day, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, President's Day and parent teacher conferences.  No wonder I'm so tired!

We are currently working on maps and I got the biggest kick out of a few of the maps my students chose to draw.  I just had to share.

She got the Utah "Yoming" and "Callorado" placements fairly right.  Love that she has an East and West pole, placed on the appropriate sides of the map.  "Areazona" is just to the northwest of China.  Texas is just above the South Pole.  Florida is above Texas, then there's Pennsylvania, Washington, and Logen?   California is just east of the North Pole and Mexico is west of the North Pole with Canada just below Mexico.  :)  

This one is a map of her bedroom.  I love the microphone, guitar and drums in the middle.  

And we have a nice little neighborhood map here.

This week will be a fairly calm week compared to the rest of February.  Hopefully, I'll get around to posting about the awesome ipad app I used.  Yes, that's shameless teasing and self-promotion there.

Joell

Stuff We've Been Doing

Hi all,

I took some pictures the other day, so I'm going to share some of the things we've done this last week or so.

First, in preparation for President's Day, we used A Cupcake for the Teacher's President's Day Craftivity.  We read Abe Lincoln's Hat and brainstormed what items we might put in the hat.  I took pictures of some of the work before they added the cover over their writing.

I would put my candy and one of my barbies in and letters.  (I love her attempt at commas--at least she's trying.)

I would put frogs in it because when they ribbit it will be funny.  (I love the bloodshot eyes!)

I will put my Batman Toy and donuts and my wallet and a candy.  (He's certainly prepared.)

We did a quick Valentine's Day bug project:  Lots of hearts and they assemble them into bugs.  I was too lazy to change the yellow background paper, but they still look cute.

As a bit of a follow up of an earlier post, we have been working on number sense.  We're now working on greater than/less than. I have to say this group is catching on to it very well.  We played this game.  Each player rolls a double dice.  The large die tells the tens, the smaller tells the ones.  In a previous game they drew and wrote the number.  Now they just write their numbers.  Then they both have to agree whether the first number is > < or =.  After 10 rounds, they circle who had the greater number and count to see who won.  We played it another day with the smaller number winning.  Finally, I'll add a greater than/less than spinner to determine the winner next week.  Here's how a couple of the pages turned out.

And finally, my co-worker made the greatest bulletin board.  I had to take a picture of it.  I won't have time to do it this year, but hopefully next.

The other day we borrowed some iPads from the library and used socrative for the first time.  I loved it!  It deserves a whole 'nother post, so be watching for it soon.

Thanks for stopping by!
Joell