WooHoo! The Weekend is here... But don't Blink!

Yeah! This is HARD! I didn't think that I would keep this going once our 2ND class was over, but I think I kind of like having a place to vent. We have a ton of paperwork at my school, plus it is report card time only now it is called Progress Reports. I feel like I have 2 tons of papers to grade and then I have more things to do with my Grad Class. Of course then I decided that I had some free time so I volunteered to help with PTA at my daughter's school. I am hoping to sleep late tomorrow like maybe 8? Rough weekend and week coming up. Hubby won't be home for another week and that puts another feather in my cap for duties, but Rachel and I had a great time tonight. She read some of her kindergarten books to me (VERY simple) and I was so proud of her! Then we did another book report. She does the telling and I do the writing. It is actually pretty funny. I am looking forward to taking apart a computer next weekend, but now I am waiting for the BOMB to drop from our next instructor for class #4.
Hopefully this weekend will have some sunshine. I love a good rainy day, but 5 in a row! Come on! See you all soon!

First Quarter is ENDING?

I really can't believe that I have just finished my second class towards my graduate degree. More to the point, doing it while I am working. I can see now why it is smart to do it the Lesley way so that you only have one class at a time.

This has been a crazy week. We had our first field trip and my students did amazing! Now I get to look forward to assessments, grade cards, district assessments, and the lovely parent/teacher conferences where 100% participation or contact with all parents is required. At least I have some great room moms that are completely doing my fall party for the kiddos and I just have to be in the room. This is my first year for that so I hope that it goes smoothly!

Now I have to concentrate on figuring out how a computer works for my next class. I think I might actually have a clue on some of this stuff. Wait, that was a toaster that I took apart and put back together it just seemed like it was a computer! Anyway, it was nice to read that Leah might actually be challenged. Either way, I can't wait until Christmas and then I can relax for about 4 days before jumping back into everything all over again!

Can it get any harder???

Well, I first have to say that we have the best Graduate class ever! You girls are such a wonderful support, especially to those of us that are far behind on the technology curve. I thought this last class was hard and then our new professor hit us with stuff that I have never heard of and don't know what he wants! AAHHHHH! But as with this class I will survive and learn.
I had a yucky day today at school, but boy I am glad that I took the time to BLOG. It really lifted my spirits to read some of my friends entries and how they are doing, both good and bad. I do wish that we could get together more.
Only 2 days left for the first 5 projects that are do and I think I might get them done. I hope everyone reading this is well and relaxed. Talk to you all soon!

Happy Day!

Well, so many great "Mom Moments" have happened this week that I just have to share...
Friday, my daughter had her first field trip. Her face was just glowing! She woke up about an hour early and made sure that I made the right lunch. Then she talked all the way to school and when we got there she just BURST how excited she was and that they were going on the bus and feeding goats all those exciting kid things. When she got home last night she kept remembering things that they did and had to be sure to run and tell me so that I could be excited to. Don't you just wish you could rewind your youth and remember those moments as well?
Today was exciting too. We went to the Circus. My husband and daughter had never been and you should have seen their faces. It was like the MasterCard commercial says, "Priceless!" They both talked about all the amazing acts that they saw and of course my daughter talked about all the pretty costumes that the ladies wore. I didn't realize how much I had experienced in my life until I realized how many people had not even gotten to see things like a circus.
Now I am sitting down to finish up my Webquest. After reading Leah's I am not sure it meets all the criteria, but I had to adjust it for my students ability (which is very low since they are first graders.) I hope it is clear enough for them to enjoy as we do it in class, but complex enough to have the elements that our Professor is looking for. Well, if you are reading this make sure you stop and watch the face of a child. It really does bring joy to your heart!

Webquest Woes

I having been working on my final class project this past week and weekend and I am just not feeling quite right about it. I do wish that I was teaching older children so that I could make it more difficult and varied, but with so many children that are still learning their letters I just can't.
I did take the time this week to call all of my families to see who had computers or email access and only 6 out of the 25 did. A few expressed desire to have a computer, but finances were a factor. I was thinking of doing a webquest that the parents could help them with at home, but that is not going to work either. Well, I guess you work with what you have got!
I have gotten a little behind on grading my papers so I have set aside tonight for catch-up. Things appear to be going well in my class though and that is good news. We will start our reading program this week and the students appear really excited about it. I am really having a great year so far. I just wish I could add about 5 more hours into my day!

What happened to this week?

Holy Cow! I can't believe that it is already Thursday night. I feel like I have been living at school this week. I have not had a chance to work on my WebQuest so I have hired a babysitter for Saturday and hope to get at least 6 hard hours in. I have a lot of the main things hammered out, but I have to figure how to put it all together.
School has been really rough. I have some behavior issues at school and I am black and blue as a result. (Who know that 1st grade could be so rough?) Anyway, I have been able to organize things in my room a little better. I have also finished by testing for the beginning of the year, which gets a few people off of my back. LOL

I sent my Website to my Principal and he turned around and sent it to everyone! I was not ready for that, but at least he thought it was pretty cool. I have had quite a few compiments on how I incorporated the HotAir Balloons from my room to the Hallway and now on my Website. That made me feel really proud to have accomplished that. I think that may have been the best project I have done to date because my whole staff could see it not just my class and thier families.
Well, since it is almost Friday I better go and get a little rest before starting another day with the kiddos.

Website now up and active!

WOO-HOO! I finally have a website about my classroom. It is still in the beginning stages so be patient, but I will be updating it weekly. I am hoping to keep all important news flowing through this site as well so you can copy it to your favorites or use an RSS feed to get the newest information. I hope you enjoy it and feel free to send me any information that you would like to see or have questions about. WHEW! This project was a little stressful, but well worth it. I can't wait to send it to my friends as well! Have a great week everyone and I will post a WebQuest (I hope)by October! I am on Cloud 9 today!!!

Isn't amazing what a few days can do. I guess I was just having a little "moment" and now all is good in the world. I did get a new student today so I am not eligible for a teacher's assistant. I also have my class ready to go on the computer for Fasttmath so I can start them next week after we go over some rules on using the classroom computer.
I even have a new system for our preliminary tests that we use in the beginning of the year. I also had time to get my Skype set up and I am glad I did because my microphone is not working correctly so I will need to get that taken care of.
I just have a few more papers to grade and then I can sleep and get ready for more of the same tomorrow. Thanks for all my wonderful friends that are so patient with me! See you all soon!

HELP!!!

I feel like I am standing in quicksand and someone gave me cement boots to wear for the day! With the start of school finally under my belt, I am now sitting down to catch up on my HUGE list of things to do and I don't see how I can get it done. On top of everything else, my traveling husband is not home this weekend to "babysit" for me so I have to stop every 5 minutes to tend to my motherly duties. Let's add to that the fact that for some reason NONE of my Lesley emails and even other emails appear to be coming to my in box. Then I realize that no matter what I pick for my Webquest assignment, my students can't read it. I even have students that panicked this past week because I asked them to just write their alphabet. So now I am behind on everything and I get to start my week off with 3 different meetings regarding children in my classroom. OK, so maybe I am whining a bit, but really. I have not been watching TV or reading a good book or any of the other things that I would like to because I just can't seem to catch up. I guess it is weeks like this that make me wish that I had In-Laws to help out. They say that writing out your frustrations really helps I will let you know if this one helped later this week!

Two days down, 178 to go!

Whew! Hard to believe that it has only been two days of school so far. I think that this is going to be a banner year for communication with parents through email. I am hoping that once the enrollments slow down and we know which kids are going to be in our rooms I can set up a Yahoo Group mailing list and even a Website that is for my class. I am eager to get working on my website in two weeks, but I still need to concentrate on our Chapter presentation. I am working up a presentation side and hopefully it will go along with my partners tremendous examples that she has created. I will have to use my east coast talking skills to get it down to 10 minutes! (JK)

Class is going well. I have to say with all of the stress of starting the year and working on my Master's I feel a bit of relief when I get to sit at the computer and work on a project or tweek what I have already done. I seems to relax my somewhat. I guess whatever gets me through the day!

I have been using a lot of my new found skills from last class to ease up my documentation load for all of my special needs children. I think this will also help me when I have to go to meetings about them and have specific times and dates. It really is so much better then the old clipboard and hand writing everything.
By the way, isn't it great how this document is constantly saving what you type? Got to love that feature! Catch everyone later! Susan

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Wow! Sorry for not keeping this as up to date as I was hoping to. We found out about two weeks ago that we would have 3-4 hours to get our rooms ready for the first day of school. That might be ok for High school teachers (sorry my High School teacher friends), but having an inviting room with lots of color and aids on the walls means everything in the Elementary. So I have been working very hard to get that done so that I can greet my parents tomorrow as if my room always looks this perfect!
I have been trying to keep touch with all that we are to do in our Internet class. I think I have come up with an idea on something I can use in my class for my Webcast, but I do have to run it by our instructor since it will really be a whole class effort (mostly because my little kiddos can't read).
I am actually looking forward to our next class so that I can work on my website again. Lots of ideas, but I am not sure they will work until I give them a try.
Finally, only 5 days until my daughter is officially a student. I am not happy about that, but I guess life has to march on. We even had to buy a new camera for the occasion. Can anyone say, "Only child"! Take care my friends and I will see you hopefully, sooner rather than later!

How much we've taken in...

I realized this week that we have learned a tremendous amount in our Internet class. While I was talking with some friends and I told them about Blogging and Websites that I had started to creat they were actually impressed and a bit envious. These are things that I think a lot of people want to know how to do, but don't know how to get started.

The part that I really like about this past weekend's class was learning more about my classmates. Sometimes we go through professional development classes so fast and then rush back to school to try them, we don't get to know the people in our classes and they are really a great resource. I know that I have called upon Leah to help me out during my summer school and I think I have asked for help during class from everyone at least once so I am thankful that we did take the time to do that little into on Saturday morning.

The electonic email list is helpful, but most of us had already established a group setting on our own emails, but it was a nice feature for future use.

Learning about Delicious.com will be a big help. A year ago I was changing schools and I had to get all of my sites off of my computer because I know that I would not have it anymore to refer back to my teaching sites. With this account I will always have my favorite places to go to on the Web.

Finally, Flickr! This will be fun to get into as a teacher and a mother. I can't wait to learn how to use it to teach and to show off my family. More to come on that when Cindy and I do our little presentation.

Final thought: With all of the budget cuts that our district is going to have to make let's start to think about how to turn curriculum money into technology purchases. Or how to lobby for cheaper prices for schools. Otherwise the have nots (education) will continue "having not!"

A day of fun and rest!

Ok, so after staying up late and getting my SurveyMonkey finished and sent
I am feeling a bit better about getting some more things done. Then after I
woke up I could feel the anxiety begin to creep in. So, I took a day of rest.
Now I am ready to work some more. I guess we (teachers) all have a lot on
our mind this time of year. I am trying to also enjoy some last moments
of summer with my daughter. She starts kindergarten this year and then
BOOM, she will be a senior so I have to get all the little girl time in I can.
She always seems to cheer me up.

Not as Overwhelmed

Well, today was my day of rest. As much as you can rest when you have a 5 year old.

In the Beginning...

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? That may be somewhat true, but this old dog is trying to get her Master's in Technology. How old is this dog? Well, when I went for my Bachelors my computer classes were about Fortran and another one that excapes me at the moment. Each day I am learning more and more about what I have been missing out on in the Technology field and I do feel like I am catching up (all be it, very slowly)!



I am a First Grade Teacher in a subburb of Kansas City, Missouri called Independence. I have many years in the inner city and I am now enjoying a different experience in Independence. I hope to have lots of links and ideas to contribute and accept from anyone that would like to contribute or borrow.



A good teacher teaches, but a Great teacher learns!