Scavenger Hunting and Blogger Meeting!

Okay, was anyone else super excited when the beautiful ladies behind Blog Hoppin announced that they would be hosting the 2nd annual scavenger hunt?! I was stoked and ready to hit the ground running with my iPhone camera and my #bloghoppin sign. 

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this year's scavenger hunt...

Two of my favorite things, the beach and little Miss Maci all dressed up! 

She's always willing to take one for the team :)

I think I love this picture the best. I haven't hung upside down on monkey bars since I was like 10 ya'll and let me be completely honest I think I pulled a muscle trying to get this shot. But it was fun!

The last day of the Scavenger hunt was also the Virginia Teacher Blogger Meet Up. OMG, I had such an amazing time chatting and networking with teachers from across the state.

Not only did I get to snap a few pictures for the hunt but I met some of the sweetest ladies ever. It was so exciting to meet in real life people you talk to on social media, teachers you buy things from on Teachers Pay Teachers, and bloggers whose blogs you read religiously. Here are a few of the shots I got while enjoying the day in Richmond.

Rachel from Mrs. O Knows and I were prepared with our "Blog Hoppin" signs.

8 of the wonderful teacher bloggers at the luncheon. How cute are these ladies?!

I was even lucky enough to meet Karen Stamp from Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten who happens to be an author from Blog Hoppin :)

Just as I knew I would, I enjoyed  completing another fun scavenger hunt and was able get all of the pictures I needed. I will be sure to tell you all about the blogger meet up in the next few days. 

Everything Planners: Part 1

Hello Friends!

Just in case you missed my Periscope on Friday, I chatted about my classroom planning tools. My intention was to talk about my online planner but as I was preparing to scope the delivery guys showed up at my door with happy mail! My new EC planner came in the mail...yay!

  

I use two planners for the year. I need the physical planner because #listersgottalist but I need the convenience of having the online planner too. So I'll take a second to share  why I use my online planner and I'll post about my Erin Condren planner in my in my Everything Planners: Part 2 post.

 

I blogged about using planbook.com last summer and how much I enjoyed it. I was able to make believers out of some of my colleagues last school year resulting in us getting 6 months FREE membership! Wahoo! Everybody likes free right?! But on a real note this online planner is completely affordable. Membership is $12 a year, that's only $1 a month when you think about it! You can't beat that.

I came across this gem when I was looking for a planning app for my iPad. Planbook has a free one month trial without having to put in credit card information so I was sold on testing it out. Here is my top reasons I use this planner:


1. I can access this planner from anywhere.
I don't have to carry my work computer back and forth. If I'm planning at home I can use the computer there and when I get to school it's there!

2. I can print PDF's of my plans for the day.
If you work at a school where you have to turn in plans this makes life SO much easier. Just print them out and turn them in. You can use it for a sub and just print the plans for them or I when I know I have an observation, I just quickly print the plan out for whoever is coming to see me so they know what I'm doing.

3. I can attach my learning standards to each lesson.
This is true for national standards, state standards, and even standards for some parochial schools! How amazing is that?! At any point in the year I can check back and see how many times I have taught a standard and on what dates I taught it. That is so powerful especially at the end of the year when it's testing time and I have to prepare for review.

4. I can attach all files to my lesson each day.
No more searching through my computer for my files! I attach any documents or SMART Notebook files I need for that lesson and just pull it up when I'm ready.

5. Convenient sharing!
When I have student teachers, we usually share the account so that we can keep all of our lesson in one place.

6. There's an app for that!
Planbook has an iPad and iPhone app. I can easily pull up my plans if I need to refer to them throughout the day without having to be glued to my computer.

7. I can move lessons easily.
This year we had 2 weeks of back to back snow days. Crazy, right! Instead of having to erase and rewrite a bunch of things written in a planner, I simply hit the "bump" button and all of the lessons are shifted. As my kids would say, easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!

8. Search
If I need to refer back to an earlier lesson and I cannot remember exactly when I taught it. I can type in a key word of phrase from the lesson and It will bring up each time I taught the lesson.

9. Year to Year access!
As teachers we like to recreate the wheel a lot of times but sometimes we want to stick to a lesson that is tried and true! I have access to lessons from years past. I can simply pull up the lesson and add copy and paste it to my current year to use or tweak.

10. Sharing is caring!
You can share lessons with your colleagues, parents, or students if you teach older students. You simply create a key select what elements of the lesson you want to share (lesson, homework, standards, etc) and they can see what you allow them to.

Go ahead and try planbook, there is nothing lose! I'll be back soon for Everything Planners: Part 2. If you have questions for me feel free to leave them in the comments. Happy planning!

Summer Teaching!

I know a lot of y'all are like "She's teaching summer school? She's crazy!" and to that I say, you're right. No I'm just kidding, I'm not crazy, I just like to work. I shared on my periscope #periscopeteacherchallenge yesterday that I have never gone a summer without teaching. I would love to take a break and spend the summer completely on vacation, but not working scares the living day lights out of me. So I'm taking the time to talk a little bit about how it's going so far...

First of all let me give you a little background. The summer school I'm working at includes second through seventh grade and is being housed in a middle school. Second, third, and fourth graders downstairs and fifth, sixth, and seventh graders upstairs. Middle school is HUGE ya'll! There are too many halls, lockers, and everything is just BIG. I"m 5'3" so I feel regular sized when I 'm walking elementary school hallways. I don't want to say I will never teach in middle school but that chance is SUPER slim.

I walked in my room and I'm like "Where is the carpet? Where am I supposed to sit when I'm teaching or working with a small group?" Yes. I'm totally a sit on the floor kind of teacher. Now I'm not complaining, because I did choose this location for summer school but I say this to let you know that I didn't think about the full weight of my decisions before hand. But before the kids started I made it fun and pretty the way only an elementary teacher can do.

Aside from the big building and the lack of coziness of the classroom, I felt the craziness that is the first week of school and teachers I know you know what I mean. I hope my kids like me, I hope I can remember how the kids will get home, I hope I won't have to go to the bathroom! Eeeekk! But sure enough all of that turned out well as it always has a way of doing. The kids and I get along great, I know exactly when and where to get the kids to at the end of the day, and I now have a co-teacher in the room so when I need to go to the bathroom I can go. Hooray!

I'm teaching second graders at a STEM summer program and it's going well. I tend to like to teach anything but third grade in the summer so that when I get back to school in September I am reminded that my kids are not as mature as the group of third graders that just left me. One week down, five weeks to go! Have you ever taught summer school or are you currently teaching summer school? How is it going if you do?

July Currently

Hey everyone! Can you believe it's July 1st already?! I only know because Target is setting up that Back to School section that I have a love/hate relationship with. Ya'll know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, July 1st means it's time to like up with Farley and share what I'm currently up to :)

Right now I'm LISTENING to the FIFA World Cup semifinals game. Will the US women's soccer team play Japan or England? I feel so invested in this game. If you didn't know I'm completely into sports. I played soccer starting at age 5 so I live vicariously through these women.

I am LOVING this summer break. I've fallen into a nice routine of hanging out, reading, working out, and napping. I probably should be a little more productive but why? We have August through May for productivity right?! I'm THINKING I have about a million and one things I need to accomplish for school and around the house but like I said I have August through May for that :)

I am WANTING to workout so bad! But I am NEEDING to go to the doctor. On Monday I had a normal day as usual, I went to tutor and then came home to take a quick nap before going out to play tennis. When I got up I noticed my foot hurt a little and thought it strange but that I would walk it off. BAD IDEA! By the time I finished playing I realized I was really hurting so I came home and iced my foot thinking I'd be okay in the morning. I was also wrong about that. Any pressure on my foot hurt so I knew my workout for the day was out of the question and I had no time to go to the doctor then because I had to a summer school prep day which turned out to be a LONG day of walking limping around a HUGE building (our summer school is being housed in what used to be a high school) and moving materials around all day on a bum foot. Ouch! I decided to rest again today, (Can you tell I do not enjoy going to the doctor?) but will make an appointment if there is no change by tomorrow.

I'm an All-Star at making others laugh. I am usually the resident comedian in my social circles. Actually I'm usually comedian all the time. I am apparently funny, even when I'm not trying to be according to teachers and students around school.

What are you up to currently? I'd love to hear from you!