It's Been A While!

I am just terrible at remembering to blog!  I LOVE doing it, I just caught up in other stuff and forget.  And let's get real, with Common Core being put into full swing here in the state of Florida last year, I was just too exhausted from curriculum planning.  However, I am once again vowing to do a little better.  :-)

Mu summer has been pretty uneventful.  I have done some training, spent time with family, and of course lesson planning and classroom organizing.  Below are more details into all of it!!

1. I started my summer with a Kagan training.

Honestly, I went into it wanting to hate it!  I had only known bits and pieces of Kagan before hand and I was really not interested in learning about it.  I guess part of it was that I was still stuck on what I thought should go on in a classroom based on my own learning experiences.  That was 20+ years ago!!

In the training I actually won a raffle, which thrilled me!  Us teachers love free stuff!!  We really don't care what it is!  Am I right?!

After going through the training and flipping through the catalog they want you to buy from, all of the pretty pictures and the $10 coupon I had in my hot little hands, I was convinced to purchase something!  I got the Kagan Switchboards.  They are "Write-On Plastic Pouches" that have 8 great organizers included!  I can't wait to use them in my centers!

2. The second thing I did was attend a training in Orlando!

This training was amazing!  The training was a grant funded professional development opportunity through FSU, FCR-STEM and CPALMS.  What an amazing experience.  First off, the fact that it was through FSU was exciting enough!  Go Seminoles!!  Then to learn I would be doing work with CPALMS was great too.  We use this site in our school and district all of the time.  This is a site that is even used around the US by other school districts.  It is a teachers dream.  Kind of a one-stop-shop for lesson plans that are created by teachers and other education professionals.

Anyway, back to the training.  I learned Thinking Mathematics.  This is a great training that provides you with more of a research based look at math and the way it it taught in the US versus the rest of the world.  It really makes you stop and look at all of the possibilities that are before us when doing math.

3. The third thing I did this summer is visit my family in Louisiana.

I look forward to this every summer.  I mean, they live 17 hours away ya'll!  Summer is the only time that I have to go home and make it worth my while economically.  Even though I love my life here with my husband, I miss them all dearly.  Here are a few photos from the week.

My daddy!

My husband Noel and my nephew Gabriel.

My nieces Makenna and Madelynn and my nephew Trevor.

Then, my husband and I brought my niece Madelynn and my nephew Trevor home with us back to Florida where we got to hang with them while mom and dad went to Key West for vacation.  We had a blast!!

We took them to the beach,

the community pool,

and 7-11 for Slurpees!

We also had movie night (Jurassic Park anyone?!)

and just hung out.  Oh and Madelynn got to play in a good 'ole Florida thunderstorm.

 It was great quality time.  Don't tell my husband, but I think he missed them as much as I did when they left.  ;-)  I have TONS more photos, but I don't want to bore you with those! :-)

4. Something else I have done this summer is some genealogy research.

There is nothing more exciting than to trace your family roots back 9 generations!!  Yes, I have done that on both sides of my family.  I even finished scanning hundreds of photos into the computer.  They were old, some as old as the 1800's.  My grandmother inherited them from my great grandmother when she passed away.  Here is a photo of my great-grandmother and me that I found this summer.

5. The other thing that has consumed my summer is school!

That's right, we all know us teachers never really get a break.  We think about school year round.  We think about what we will do to make it better next year, what classroom management strategy with work best, what we need to tweak in math instruction so they understand it better, what reading skill needs to be made a top priority, and the list goes on!  I also can't stop thinking about what I can do to be a better teacher and being better organized.  I have also been busily creating some cool things to use in my classroom.  I will make a new post soon about that stuff!

Thanks for sticking with my post and reading it!  It's been a busy summer and I only have a few weeks left!  I think I will cherish that time and use it wisely.  :-)