KinderBug

Yes, I caught the KinderBug really bad. My doctor is supposed to call in a prescription for me but it wasn't at the pharmacy when I got off work! I feel horrible.

Everything else is going very well. I presented at the Greater San Diego Reading Association Winter Conference on Sat. It went really well and I was excited that my group liked my presentation. I can't wait until the Fall conference, I don't know what I will present but I have a while.

My studies are going well and I am having a blast learning all these new tools. I am excited to start using these new things in my own classroom.

oh, yeah, I had to buy a new laptop this weekend!!!!!!!! My old one bought the farm-after putting hundreds of dollars into it to try and upgrade it for this program the DC jack came loose and now it will cost another hundred or so dollars to replace a $5 part. I had had enough so the nice guy at Best Buy helped me select a new HP that will support everything I will need for the next year. I like it, it's nice but very unfamiliar and it is taking a while to get used to it.

guess I'll be taking out another student loan!

Uuuuugh

Good morning world. It is President's Day-the end of what could have been a fabulous four day weekend. Could have been meaning it wasn't! Friday started out good-pedi and lunch with the girls then dinner with the family. It all went down hill Saturday morning when I woke up with a cold. It could be worse-one of my students came down with Strep so a cold doesn't seem so bad compared to what I could have. I ran around getting my errands done on Saturday (God bless my mom-she puts up with me when I am sick and cranky) and spent yesterday in bed watching the last season of America's Next Top Model. Then, Mon came over and we got most of our homework done. That content map was tricky! I'm sad that I didn't do anything fun this weekend but will make it up during Spring Break!

ahah! moment

I just had an ahah! moment. My partner teacher and I are planning a parent night to talk to our parents about the tools and techniques we use in our classroom to teach reading and writing in the hopes of creating continuity in instruction (school and home). But with blogger we could actually film lessons (or even the parent night if we still plan on doing it) and post to our blogs so that parents can watch us in action. Can't wait to talk to Mel about it!

February is flying by!

I started my classroom blog. I polled my parents and they were very excited for me to start it so...I did and I am so happy. I actually got to plan during my prep time instead of updating and making copies! And my partner teacher is interested in learning how to blog so I showed her my class blog and she wants to start her own. I know sh will need a little prompting now and then but I am excited that blogging fever is spreading. Here is my class blog: http://bayparkroom12.blogspot.com/

I also started using Bookr with my kids during Interactive/Shared Writing. We made two "practice" books, Big Cats and The Bug Book. I linked The Bug Book to my class blog so the parents can see it. The kids are so excited to use it, I promised them that after they made a few books with me that they could start using the computer lab to make their own books. Now I need to teach my parent volunteers how to use Bookr! I am glad Terri made the suggestion of creating my own folder for Flickr images. I was wondering how to make the whole process safe for my 5 year olds.

This month is so crazy! We have Valentine's Day coming up this week (thank God for my co-room parents!), then next week we have our 100th Day Celebration the following week. I love that I can post the pictures from these events onto my class blog!

Our 2nd Week of Class

I am having so much fun this semester! I am really into all these new tools that Terri is introducing us to. I was just playing around with Bookr's pimpampum and I can't wait to start using it in my own classroom. We make books together all the time in my class but I know this will be a great addition to our writing program, my Kinders will LOVE it!

I am also playing with the idea of starting a class blog. I already send home a 2-3 page newsletter every Friday but the idea of having a blog instead of a paper newsletter would be such a savior. I think I will come up with a sample blog and test it on a few of my parents. Not only will this save me time but it will also save paper and I won't have to spend my whole prep time updating the newsletter and making copies.

Now I can't wait to explore the other tools we were introduced to.