Friday, November 23, 2012

Post-Thanksgiving Thoughts!

Well yesterday was Thanksgiving and I wasn't able to make a post so here it goes........

I have so much to be thankful for!  I will be here all day if I tried to list everything but I want to share just a few things with you all.  I'm most thankful for a supportive family, where would I be without them?  I'm thankful for my job and school family.  I love my kids and co-workers!  I'm thankful for good health!  In all of my 33 years I've never had any sickness or accidents that resulted in a hospital stay.  I'm thankful that Hurricane Sandy showed us mercy and everything is still intact, although some families were not as fortunate as mine.  I meant to blog about the hurricane but never got around to it.  We were out of school for seven days!  The hurricane did a lot of damage.  I still can't believe that a storm of this magnitude happened in Jersey.  I usually see storms like this on the news in places like Florida but never in my state.  Again, I'm thankful that we made it through the storm!

On another note, I happy to say that I survived the first marking period and my first Parent/Teacher Conferences.  The conferences went well and I'm pleased with my student's progress.  I have my first observation coming up next week and I'm a little nervous.  I pray that all goes well.   Wish me luck!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Owls and Technology

Hello Folks!



It's been quite a whiles since I made a post.  I'll say it again, I don't know how others keep up with a blog.  Nevertheless, I'll recap what has gone on the past few weeks.  About three weeks ago, third grade finished up our owl unit and I must say it was an awesome study.  We finished the unit with our students dissecting owl pellets, in other words, owl puke.  Are you disgusted yet?  LOL!  Many of the students were grossed out with the thought of looking at, let alone, touching the pellet.  But after awhile, all of the students were engaged in the activity and enjoyed trying to figure out what animals these bones belonged to.  Of course after this assignment, my little scientist want to dissect  everything!  LOL!  Are next unit of study was bats, and everyone wanted to know if we were going to dissect, one.  My response, "Absolutely not!"  LOL

Bones found inside the owl pellet


Bones and fur


Bone matching

On to the next update - so I received some gifts last week, well I guess you can call them gifts.  I received a few Mimio products - Mimio Teach, Wireless Mimio Pad, MimioView, and MimioVote.  I was so excited to receive these products and cannot wait to use them in my classroom.  How did I get these awesome products?  Well, I expressed to a parent that my goal is to implement more technology into my classroom, he informed me that he could assist me in making that happen.  And a month later he made good on his promise.  I don't own the products, you can think of it as a lease.  My job is to use the products and write reviews as I use them.  So I'll be sure to let you all know how I like the products.