Getting back to Blogging!!!

It has been almost two full years since I began my blog. The last couple years have been filled with so many professional "committments." What I mean by this, is technology grants, National Boards and multiple committees at school have kept me away from writing. I must admit, I began my blog as a requirement of a technology grant I was involved in three years ago. I saw the value in it from the beginning. However, it was really difficult to keep it up and focus myself to continue writing. I was pretty convinced no one would be interested in reading what I was doing in my classroom. As well as, trying to complete all the extra curricular activities I found myself involved in; just really didn't leave me with much time to write.

I continued to read other teachers blogs and followed their teaching closely. I even shared others blogs in my teaching at Space Camp. I have found a few blogs I love to revisit and peruse frequently. After teaching my last session at Camp this summer, I decided I really needed to get back to this. My sessions are always about Literacy Integration with Space Science. I spend my time teaching other teachers how to best integrate good literacy with their own teaching. It occured to me that maybe I needed to take the next leap. I have no plan or idea for the direction my blogs will go, but I am going to set a goal for myself to write and share something from my teaching every couple of weeks. If I can share one idea that is worthy, than I will feel as though I have accomplished what I should. I must really practice what I preach to other teachers.

So in the next few weeks, I plan to have a new post ready to go. We shall see where this leads. I hope to a good place.

It really works!!!!!

DonorsChoose.org really works!!! A few weeks ago, I received an email congratulating me on the funding of my project. YEAH!!!! I was so excited. I wrote my proposal a couple of months back and waited very impatiently, as noted in my last entry. It only took about two and a half months for the project to come through. Really not that long in the scheme of things. The directions came along with the congratulatory email. Simple. I had three things to complete in order to finish the project. Parent permission slips needed to be sent home to take photos of the students using the new calculators. Once collected, I took the photos. I then wrote my thank you letter and had my students write their letters. I downloaded all the necessary paperwork and began the process. Before I even began to take care of my part of gathering materials, my calculators arrived!!! You cannot imagine the excitement that went through the classroom. Mine was as high as the kids. I realize it is a sad thing when new calculators can make one that excited, but lets face it, we just don't get these things anymore in our classrooms. This was a big day.

I am convinced there are still people in the world who want to do good things and this website proves that this belief is still alive and well. If you are searching for new materials to teach in your classroom, and do not have the sources available to do it, check out DonorsChoose.org. It is well worth the small amount of time you will put into the project.

To my anonymous donor; I am grateful for your thoughtfulness. Thank you.

Donors Choose

I found out about this wonderful organization called Donors Choose.org. They are a national link that helps teachers acquire materials for their classrooms when school districts cannot afford to purchase materials. The process is simple, you sign up for a free account. Write a snazzy little show and tell about what you need and why you cannot get it. And then you wait!!!!! and wait and wait. I posted my first "help we need something" ad a few weeks ago. I am asking for new calculators for my classroom. I am expected to teach the skills of using them, however, the ones I have do not work. So in desperate need, I thought this would work. I was sure I had written my plea up well and would receive my calculators quickly. However, the program obviously does not work as quickly as I thought. I have yet to see my new calculators. Patience is not a quality I have been blessed with. I am the most impatient person around. I want those new calculators now!!!! Please tell your friends to look at this website and consider helping teachers like myself purchase those materials that we cannot seem to purchase ourselves. We will be eternally grateful.

Blog titles

Well, it is obvious to me that I am still in the learning phase of my blog. I have changed my blog title four times, and had to change my URL at least three. Choosing a name is difficult. Someone always has the cleaver name I thought I would have. And some names do not lead to good searches. Nothing more needs to be said on this. I am trying desperately to figure out how to share my blog and things just keep getting in the way. As much of a tech geek as I am , there are still many things that escape me and this is one of them. Eventually, I will be able to master this medium and I hope find a way to make it useful to others besides myself. I hope someday to have a following of readers, but until then it is just me. With luck my new title and URL will remain the same and I will have no more reason to change.

Snowflake art

I have discovered a new link, it is called Animoto. I love it. I see millions of possiblities with it for my class. I took some of the snowflake artwork my students created after our Arctic unit and uploaded the pictures with music. I taught my students about Snowflake Bentley (the man who spent his whole life taking pictures of snowflakes to share with the world). This led us to a our artwork. After the artwork was completed, I posted my students creations on my other favorite website, Artsonia. This is an online art museum for kids to post artwork. It allows families to see their work anywhere they are in the world. I love that. Very global. Watch for my links to show these sites soon.

Snowflake Art

blogging in the classroom

I am still trying to figure out this blogging thing. I had the brilliant idea that I would begin a blog for my classroom. I researched other teacher bloggers and found sites that blew me away. Not to be left out, I wanted to do the same thing. Created my blog for the kids and had a cool graph and question posted. I had visions of the kids answering and journalling my questions. I thought it would be the coolest thing. Even talked to my teaching parnter and she was going to do the same thing. We had plans to have our classes correspond and do all kinds of cool things with math graphs and sorting information. All this planning and great ideas came to a crashing halt when I discovered my district does not allow this. Not to be deterred too easily, I am working on my Moodle site and have hopes to create the journaling in the sandbox there. Hopefully, will have it off the ground soon and students will be able to start writing online safely soon.