Flair Pens and Lattes

NOTE: This post is not about technology, but one is coming soon. Thinking about the most wonderful time of the year has caused me to reflect a lot on 2017 in the past three days I've been off and not working. In 2017, I have experienced heartbreak, seen my best friend from college and brother get married, mourned the loss of my sweet grandmother whom I was so fortunate to see just a few days before she passed, and most importantly, been given the opportunity of a lifetime on August 15th when I started at St. Anthony Catholic School.   I can remember watching Legally Blonde  exactly eight months ago on a Sunday night after a week of crying, venting and just feeling hurt, confused and betrayed. The song "So Much Better" perfectly describes how I felt until a few days ago. It felt a lot like when I left my job in Boerne. I wondered how could something that made me so happy cause me so much pain? A little over eight months later, I can honestly say I am not that same girl. ...

It's been about a month since I've blogged. August and September is always busy, plus I'm learning three new sets of standards and I'm the only 5th grade math/science/social studies teacher so I've been planning a lot alone. Things have started to become less hectic as I've gotten in the groove of planning, prepping and grading again, so I thought I'd give you an update. But first, a little story. All weekend, I did not want to go to school for the first time since I was in Boerne. Not only was I at school until 7:30 pm Friday night (a decision that I highly regret and will not make again), but I also had two parent conferences after school (one planned, one unplanned). One parent highly intimidated me and the other one was about a child in my class who struggles. Not only does this student struggle, but he or she wants to achieve as highly as my GT students, but hesitates to ask questions because of embarrassment. My teacher heart broke when my students w...

Earlier this summer, when I was writing curriculum at Trinity I was asked my opinion about private and public schools. I have experience teaching at both of the schools I went to before Trinity, one public and one private so I didn't know how to answer exactly. I felt judged for being an advocate of private school for some students. It was the best decision for me. Let's rewind. After I left Boerne at the beginning of the 2015-2016 and took some time off from teaching, I had a breakdown. It was about mid-September when that happened and I realized I needed to be around people. That led me to join the Impact group at Oak Hills. About a month and a half later, after interviewing for a second grade position and getting rejected, I decided to join the Children's Ministry team at my church. Almost two years later, I love working with our littlest members and I've learned to work with pre-schoolers. They are so much fun! Working at Oak Hills brought me back to my faith and ...

I absolutely love writing. I always have. I can remember a project I did in fourth grade and how excited I was even before the school year started. I knew the project was coming even in third grade. For this project, we got to write our own stories and then publish the story in a little hardcopy book. (This was back in 2000 before iPad book creator apps) At the time, I was a competitive ice skater so I remember my story being about a young girl who was traveling to an ice skating competition. Fast forward to senior year of high school when I took a playwrighting class at my high school. I was one of four students in class. I remember spending hours writing and re-writing scenes in that play. I actually found a copy of my play earlier this summer when I was over at my parents' house. Sometime in high school, I also decided that I wanted to write screenplays. I don't think that lasted very long. While writing has not always been easy (I'm looking at you, English III and Play ...

Flipgrid has been all the rage this summer with teachers signing up for accounts by the thousands. According to the Flipgrid Twitter account, over 11,000 educators signed up for accounts during the month of July. I first learned about Flipgrid at this year's ISTE and I am so excited about this platform. There is also a new version launching August 10th. By now, you may be asking yourself, what is this Flipgrid thing? Flipgrid is a video platform with both a website and then the app for both students and teachers to use. I downloaded the app on my phone. The teacher creates a grid and a topic. The students, using iPads or even their iPhones, then enter the unique grid code and add their response. All the students' responses are then in one place for the teacher to view. No more emailing videos! When the student goes to the app, they choose the "I am a student option." They then enter the unique grid code. Very similar to the Kahoot game pin. After entering the ...

When I was younger, I remember having many opportunities for enrichment outside of my school classroom. I remember field trips being so much fun. When I was at ISTE a little over a month ago, I remember learning about Google Cardboard. I had heard about it before, but never fully investigated it. Sometimes it takes me a little longer to jump onboard with new tech channels and apps because there are so many I already love so much. But today on the blog, I'm talking about Google Cardboard. I'm no expert yet, so this introduction to this Google feature will be very basic. First of, Google Cardboard brings teachers and students immersive experiences. It does cost, but it's relatively affordable. Viewers can be bought here . There are many viewers to choose from that bring virtual reality to your classroom. Along with the viewer, you also need the Google Cardboard app on your phone. After you have the viewer, you can go to the Google Play store and choose from a variety of app...

When I was a student teacher, I realized that I needed my own personal iPad. Ok, maybe not "need," but it was worth the investment. My parents were generous and gave me one for Christmas that year. I was beginning my lead teaching in February and having my own iPad to use made life much easier. I could test and try out new apps, and create project samples at home. It also made professional development easier because I could take notes, test new apps and create on the spot. I definitely have a few apps that make teaching and my life easier. They're simple, and not new, but so helpful. 1. JotNot: I talked about using Kami in a prior blog post, but I still love Jot Not. For those unfamiliar, JotNot is a free document scanner app. I've used it to return signed forms via email, upload my teaching certificate to applications, email progress updates to parents, and many more. All you have to do is scan the document and you can email it or upload it directly. Due to a lack...

NOTE: This post is not about technology, but it's incredibly personal and a story that I'm finally ready to tell. At the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year, I was faced with the hardest decision of my life--leaving teaching temporarily. The whole month of August 2015 was a whirlwind and a blur. I spent the prior school year looking forward to moving down to second grade and the summer writing an EXTENSIVE classroom management plan, buying decor and supplies for my owl themed classroom (that started the day after school let out for the summer) and doing lots of professional development reading. I loved my sixth graders, and still think about them all the time, and I loved teaching writing, but I never felt that it was where I belonged. One Thursday morning in August, I was headed to a math curriculum training before going to put the finishing touches on my classroom. When I was about to turn in to the high school where the training was, I received a phone call from my prin...

I just finished some work in my Google Drive so today is perfect for Part 3 of my Going Google series. Today, I'm writing about something I've never used in my classroom personally, but want to wherever I end up next. It's time to hang out with Google. Right now, I use Google Hangouts for conducting my sorority's alumni council meetings. We live all over the south so Google Hangouts is how we conduct our meetings. I first learned about Hangouts when I attended TCEA in February 2015. I never really investigated it or experimented with it until last fall. I now love Google Hangouts and have seen how many uses there are for it in a classroom. First, you can talk to experts from anywhere in the world. It's kind of like virtual field trips, except students are learning from someone in the field. As an elementary generalist, I don't think of myself as an expert in any content area. I'm always developing my content knowledge when planning. I feel that it is imp...

As a teacher, there are apps that make my life easier and that I absolutely love using. One that I discovered recently deserves its own post because it's about to make teachers' lives so much easier. Pocket is a new FREE app that I just discovered this month when browsing the Education section of the app store. I just finished teaching myself how to use it. After you download Pocket, you create an account  and enable the pocket extension. You can sign up through your Google account. And if you don't already have a Google account, you should. I enabled Pocket on my iPad, phone and laptop. When I went to my Safari browser, I pressed the upload/save button, found Pocket and then enabled it. Now, whenever I find an article on my iPad that I want to save, I can just download it directly. My library in Pocket so far--these are all links I've saved on Facebook the past three years. I didn't include irrelevant ones. On my computer, I enabled Pocket by adding it t...

Two summers ago, I spent a lot of time crafting my teacher website for what was supposed to be my second grade classroom. I wanted my website to be fun and informative just like my sixth grade one (my principal even commented on how informative my website was and parents knew it would be updated daily and weekly). We were trained on Weebly at my school, and luckily I still have my Weebly account even after leaving the district. Fun and informative websites are critical for teachers. The first thing I do whenever I find out I have a job interview is look at the school website, the administrator websites and the teachers' websites for the team I might be a part of. I want to learn about the classrooms and teachers. Parents and students are the same way. I've seen great websites and I've seen outdated ones. If you're thinking of upgrading your teacher website, here are some of my tips. I love Weebly for websites because it's easy to use and allows teachers to personali...

Google Forms! Google Slides! Google Sheets! Oh my! In part one of the Going Google series, I wrote about the most basic feature of Google--Google Drive and Docs. (I just finished using my Drive to write our lessons for the kids of parents in a special training at my church this summer. I modified the lesson plan I have used for teaching before.) In my teaching, I've also used Google Slides and Google Forms. They have been tremendous tools in my teaching and I know that there are tons of teachers who use these frequently. They're kind of like Google Docs. First off, as a teacher, Google Forms can be a tremendous help. I've seen them embedded in teacher websites, as a way to collect parent and student information at the beginning of the year. With answer options of multiple choice, checkboxes, short and long answer there are so many ways to use Google forms at a school or in your classroom. When I submitted my presentation proposal at iPadpalooza, it was done through forms....

Blogging is a terrific tool for teaching and learning. As a writing teacher my first year, I tried  to get my students to understand that writing is a way to process our ideas and thinking. It's a way to share our ideas with others and publish our work. I was blogging back in college; I started a style blog from my dorm room sophomore year and also was required to create a post for a class blog for a course I took my junior year each week, as well as respond to other students' posts. A lot of teachers are already blogging with their students, and I took full advantage of it my first year teaching. If you work with younger students, it's a bit harder to create a blog but it's perfect for upper elementary and secondary students. You may be asking, how do I begin blogging with my students? Let me tell you. In my sixth grade class, all students had school email addresses through Gmail, as did I. Blogger was what I was already incredibly familiar with so I chose it for our...

As a teacher who loves using iPads in my teaching, I have my favorite apps that I love using thanks to my amazing mentor from my MAT year at Trinity. I'm always learning about new ones and trying them but I definitely have my favorite go-to ones. Today I'm sharing some of my favorite and simplest apps for students to use. Some of my favorite apps for students. I call them classics for a reason. Number One--Thinglink I heard about Thinglink during my student teaching year, but never gave it a chance. For some reason, it seemed challenging to use and my mentor and I never used it in our class. Fast forward to April of my first year teaching. I was up at school on Good Friday long-term planning and thinking about our research project in May. Right before beginning this project, students would have finished book review (not a book report FYI) and they had written a lot of papers so I was looking for something that would be more fun and engaging for them. I decided that they...

It's no secret that I love using technology when I teach students. Educational technology is something I am very passionate about and I love learning more about how to use it; that's why this blog exists. Today's post is something I have been thinking about a lot lately even though it has nothing to do with a particular technology tool. Besides technology, hallmarks of my teaching are incorporating the arts (I was the theatre and choir student my whole life and have learned so much from those experiences) and engaging students in what interests them and their passions. When I taught sixth grade ELA, I noticed at the beginning of the year that one of my students loved to write stories. One day, he came up to me after class with a story he had been writing outside of my classroom. Many of my students (well, most) sadly did not share his passion for writing and constantly asked me why they had to learn to write. I should add that many loved writing at the end of the year.  I...