Holy Resource Batman!

Despite then fact that I had a fantastic time in Amsterdam and reveled in a four day weekend, I found myself really looking forward to getting back into my regular daily routine and schedule. I love having fun, but it's also important that I eat well and exercise and those things seem to fall to the wayside when we travel. Because I try to eat healthfully most of the time normally, I really go haywire when I travel and just enjoy without any guilt. It's tough to return home though because I usually am not happy with how eating whatever I want makes me feel and I crave exercise and healthy food. Unfortunately, we arrived home from our trip on a Sunday, which meant the stores were closed, so the fridge remained empty until I was able to shop after school today. Because I shop several times a week here and the produce is so fresh (which means it spoils quickly), I tend to let the fridge empty out before we go away for a weekend. I was enamored with my cart full of healthy fruits and vegetables and I cannot wait to dig into a nice big green salad for dinner tonight. I started my day off with a little butt kicking from Jillian and that felt really good! Hopefully I will get a run in or hit the gym later as well. This week needs to be exercise in HIGH gear after all these goodies!

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Today I discovered a really great resource that I just have to share! Check it out! It's a visual picture dictionary! This is such a fantastic tool to use for language and vocabulary development. I always strive to have good visuals to use with my ELL students and this seems to really fit the bill. Along the left margin there are themes you can choose from, but you can also search a specific word and view images.

This site offers:

• 20,000 terms with contextual definitions,
  developed by terminology experts
• 6,000 full-color images of a wide variety of objects
  from all aspects of life

and you can:

FIND words organized around major subject fields, corresponding themes or individual objects.

SEARCH ideas to quickly locate words or consult pictures to read clear, up-to-date definitions.

VIEW thousands of highly realistic illustrations and detailed diagrams created by skilled graphic artists.

DISCOVER a visual world of information of immense scope and depth

When I taught first grade, we did a science unit on amphibians. We would always create a diagram that showed the different parts of the frog, so I searched "frog" to see what came up.

Check it out!

Next year in Kinder, we will study butterflies...

Aren't these amazing images? I am in love! I also use Boardmaker a lot in order to show images, yet those images are cartoons and not realistic pictures or photographs. There is so much potential for using this site and these great images!

http://visual.merriam-webster.com

Enjoy!

How could you use the Merriam Webster visual dictionary in your classroom?

Amsterdam

Mr. Sneaker and I had the most amazing four days in Amsterdam! From the moment we arrived, it was non-stop fun with our friends Jesse and Michelle. We went to the Van Gogh museum, took a boat ride through the canals, rode bikes all around the city, enjoyed lots of amazing food, and played lots of games of Farkel.

I seriously need to do some healthy eating this week and lots of exercising, but I don't regret a minute of the fantastic time we had!

Substitute

Today I got to substitute during a third grade math period and it was oh so much fun. The way it works at my school is that there are no substitute teachers, but all teachers have to fill in for one another when someone needs to be out. So basically if a teacher is gone, the class will have many different teachers filling in throughout the day. Seems like a good way to save on the cost of subs, but sometimes I feel like it can be a bit hectic to come in for just one period.

Luckily, I was filling in for my friend and she was kind enough to give me the plan yesterday and talk about it with me. I taught the kids about area and they worked on finding the area of some different figures. I had so much fun leading a lesson for once! I was a little curious to see if the kids would act up because they tend to get a little riled up with subs, but they were fantastic. I am in the room a lot working with a few kiddos and I was their TA at the beginning of the year, so they know me well! I am happy to know my classroom management skills have not gone to the wayside. I used a lot of complimenting of students who were prepared and listening and that is usually a successful way to get others to follow suit. I will say that managing time is something I have completely forgotten about, but luckily we got through everything we needed to during the 45 minute period. It seemed to me like all of the kids understood and they were great listeners and on task the whole time. I had a little Smartboard fear since I did not have any time to prep in the classroom before math since the kids were in there for German class. Luckily, the teacher assistant was able to help out with that. I would have loved to try out the new board, but it's hard to just jump in during a lesson without ever having used one before...maybe next time!

I am so excited to be back in the classroom next school year!!!

Yay Kindergarten!

short week & a little travel

Tomorrow after school Mr. Sneaker and I are leaving on a jet plane to Amsterdam! Several of my friends from school are going too (but we aren't traveling together). They are staying at a hotel and we are staying with some friends of ours. I have never been to Amsterdam and I am excited to see what Holland has to offer. My friend Michelle, who we are staying with, is a great traveler and an excellent guide, so I am sure we will see and experience all the best of what Amsterdam has to offer. Almost everyone gets around by bike, so we'll see how I do with that. I haven't been on a bike this since this day.

I have to pack my suitcase tonight because I work until 4 tomorrow and our flight leaves around 6:30, so we are going to be pretty rushed. The airport is not far, but I still want to be organized rather than crazed! I love that the flight is super short and yet we will be in a whole other country!

Last night's zucchini bread experiment was a great success. It really tasted good and was super moist. I brought some to school today with some honey butter and it was gobbled up! I love baking, but I have a hard time resisting the temptation to each all of whatever goody I decide to make, so I always  like to pack some up to share at school. People have finally stopped asking me if it's my birthday whenever I bring something because they have realized I just really like to bake.

Not too sure if I will be posting from Amsterdam, although it's possible because I am bringing my computer in order to try and skype for my class on Thursday morning. Should be interesting, but I will at least go prepared and try to make it happen!

Tschüss! (that means bye in German!)

Table for 14 please...

Today I attended my first ever IEP meeting involving a HS student. Boy were there a LOT of teachers in the room. This meeting included:

3 Support Services Teachers (because we all work with the student in various classes)
Spanish teacher
German teacher
Art teacher
1 Science teacher (although there are three altogether bc he takes 3 different sciences!)
Math teacher
History teacher
English teacher
Principal
PE teacher

plus the student and the parent

I think it is great that all the teachers came. Normally it would seem unlikely that everyone including the parent would be able to show up on the same day at the same time outside of school hours. I find that the staff I work with are very committed to students and I love that.

Typically I deal with IEP meetings at the elementary level (back home in OR regarding students in my general education classroom). Since the children are so young, they typically do not attend the meetings, or if they do because of childcare issues, they tend to find something else to do besides sit at the table and listen to the discussion. I am getting used to the idea of actually having the student sitting right there. The teachers really made a point to speak to this student and not just about him, which I thought was excellent. I can only guess how overwhelming it was to sit in a room with so many adults who were all talking about his weaknesses and what he needs to improve on. Yikes. He did great though and really expressed himself and his goals well. I was so excited to hear from his math teacher that he got 10/10 on his most recent quiz. I work with him in math and this is a fantastic improvement over his performance earlier in the year.

***

After school I had to walk downtown to the doctor's office to get a new prescription since they do not refill prescriptions here. It took so long to walk there and back that I decided no additional workout is needed today. My friend invited me over for tacos, so I skipped the gym and enjoyed a yummy dinner. When I got home I decided to use up the extra zucchini I have because we are going out of town (to Amsterdam) on Wednesday and I don't want to have to throw anything out. I decided to search for a "healthier" zucchini bread recipe that doesn't have as much sugar in it. I came across a recipe that calls for honey instead of sugar, so I tried it out. I added some shredded carrots to the mix (mmm like carrot cake!) and then I also added some creamy greek yogurt since I didn't add the total amount of honey that was called for because it seemed like a lot. I hope it comes out good, but if not, I still had fun experiementing and trying it out.

In less than an hour I have to pick Mr. Sneaker up from the airport because he was in Madrid over the weekend for work. There has been some more ash cloud activity from the volcanic eruptions in Iceland and flights out of Spain have been canceled, but he is on board and on his way home! yay! I enjoyed some alone time this weekend (mostly because I got a lot of homework done) but I missed Mr. Sneaker a lot and got a bit worried about how I am possible going to manage being away from him next year. ::sigh::

all the pretty mamas...all the pretty mamas

(Did you read that title with the rhythm of all the single ladies?? because that is totally what I was thinking when I wrote it!) 

Oh how I wish I had the musical stylings of Weird Al Yankovic so I could cleverly change the lyrics to reflect a witty parody on motherhood, but I just don't think I'm that creative. 

I would rather spend my time writing about how special my mom is. 

So many mothers have shared with me that the gift of motherhood is the best gift in the entire world. I won't argue with that, but I will say that having a wonderful mother is also a pretty terrific gift. The tradition of motherhood starts with having a mother before becoming one and being a daughter to a thoughtful, loving, caring, and giving mother is what will allow me to become a good mother myself when the time comes. 

My mom is a friend, a shopping buddy, a teacher, a listening ear, a support system, an honest opinion, a caretaker, a problem solver, and much, much more. Despite the miles that separate us, we remain very close at heart and I know that I can tell my mom anything. I wish I could do more to make this day as special as she deserves, but I hope that she knows just how much she means to me!

I love you Mom!

Happy Mother's Day