Five for Friday

Happy Friday everyone! We made it through another week. I had a pretty good week, but I'm exhausted. After doing so little last week during spring break, it was tough getting back on schedule. But this week seemed to fly by.

Well, since it's Friday, it's time to link up withDoodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday linky party.

1. Free Student Book Publishing Project

We are currently working on a book publishing project. Using the company Student Treasures my school is currently working on a writing where our students have the opportunity to become published authors. The best part of the project is that it is completely free. Although I'm excited that we have this opportunity, this project can be a bit labor intensive but the final product will be worth the work. I wrote a post about it earlier this week. Clickhere for more information.

2. Kidblog
I read about Kidblog from Fourth Grade Flipper last week. I looked it up and loved it so I created an account and introduced it to my students this week. They are already obsessed. I can't wait to explore this writing opportunity with my students throughout the rest of the school year.

3. Substitutes
I hate missing school, but I was given the opportunity to attend an amazing workshop that would mean that I would be missing 4 1/2 days. I couldn't pass up this opportunity, but unfortunately that means that I would have a substitute for several days. Wednesday was the second day of the training. Even though I had one of the best subs at my school, I feel like Wednesday was a wasted day for my scholars and I had to play catch up the rest of the week.

4. Skeeball
I've mentioned before that I played in a skeeball league. Well, we were on tv yesterday. Click here to see the broadcast.

5. Wiffleball
I can't think about anything else so I'll talk about what I'm doing this weekend. My friends and I are getting together to play wiffleball tomorrow. There's no special reason, but someone mentioned it earlier this week and several of us jumped on the offer. Looking forward to playing. I haven't played since I was a kid.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm looking forward to mine.

I'm on the News

As a teacher who is an admitted workaholic, I firmly believe that it is crucial to have some type of release. Somewhere that I can relax, forget about work, and spend some time doing something I enjoy. For me, this is playing skeeball. Yes, that's right skeeball. I've been playing in a skeeball league since 2007 and I've enjoyed every moment of it. Well, we made the news today. We are starting a new season in a couple of weeks and we had the opportunity do a news reporter to come to an event a few weeks ago to do a story on the Charlotte Skeeball League .

Click here to check out the story.

I highly recommend that everyone find a similar league in your city and join. It's so much fun.

Five for Friday

Only 4 more days before spring break. (Well actually there are five but next Friday is a teacher workday so I'm not counting that.) To wrap up this week, I'm linking up with Doodlebug Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party.

1. Geometry
We finally finished our fraction unit last Friday with a monsterous post assessment. My scholars did better than I expected, but we still have a lot of work to do with fractions. Why are fractions so hard to understand? Anyway, we had to move on and geometry was our next unit. Geometry is one of my favorite math disciplines. I loved geometry when I was in school. I think I am one of a limited number of people to actually love doing geometry proofs. We started by learning what polygons were and reviewing the names and number of sides of the different polygons. Then I had my scholars draw a picture using only polygons. That means no circles, no crossing lines, and no lines not a part of a shape. They struggled a bit, but most of the pictures turned out amazing. After drawing, I had them write a narrative about their image. (I forgot to take pictures, so I will have to add the pictures later.)

2. Skeeball
I've been playing in a skeeball league for about 5 years. Usually when I tell people this, they react in the same way. First they ask, "What is that?" I explain what it is and then they say, "They have a league for that?" Yes, there is a skeeball league. There are actually numerous leagues popping up throughout the country. The Charlotte Skeeball League is under the Skeenation.com umbrella. I love the competition and after a few seasons of playing awfully, I became pretty good. A few years ago, I was the first female to win the high rollers tournament.
Well I tell all of this because we had a free skee event on Wednesday for the first night of registration for the upcoming season. At these events we always do a luck of the draw two on two tourney. I was lucky and was paired with the best player in the league and we won the tournament. I love winning. It's always nice to take a break in the middle of the week and have a good time with some great friends.

3. Field Trip
Fifth grade went on a field trip on Thursday to the Charlotte Symphony. It was a required trip for all fifth graders in the district. There was a focus on the arts: symphony, dance, opera, visual arts. The goal was to have the kids think about their many possibilities in the arts. As they head to middle school, they will have the opportunity to choose their electives so the program included interviews of middle school students who were involved in the various arts in middle school. The kids really enjoyed the field trip.

4. Innocence
While riding on the bus to the field trip we passed a bar with a sign that said Draft Beer. One of my students said, "Ooh, look. Can we go there. They sale root beer." He was so excited about getting root beer and no clue about what the sign really meant. It's always nice to see that some kids are still kids and aren't as exposed to the outside world. His innocence was radiating from him. I love moments like that.

5. Innovation Institute
About a month ago, I received an email from our Deputy Superintendent inviting me to the Innovation Institute. The email described the institute as a way to explore oneself. I was instantly interested, but upon further reading, it said that I would be missing 4 and a half days in order to attend. I hate missing days and missing 4 days prior to end of grade testing, was unthinkable. Therefore I was torn. After talking to my principal and her encouragement to attend, I signed up. Today was the first day of the institute. And I am so happy that I chose to attend. As teachers, we are always being pulled in so many directions, so it was nice to slow down for a day and be able to reflect on myself and explore my creative self, which I don't do very often.

These are some of the paintings from today. I won't use this forum to explain what they mean in great detail, but all if these paintings reveal something about who I am and where I want to be at this moment in my life.









I can't wait until part 2 in a few weeks


Well, that was my week. I'm looking forward to the weekend. Baby shower and friends birthday party on Saturday and reconnecting with a friend on Sunday.