Meeting Nancy

What a fantastic morning! Well, not the 5:45am wake up, but that's another story.  What made this morning so great is that I got to meet Nancy Alvarez from Teaching With Nancy live and in person!

Back in January I linked up one of my TPT Freebies on Nancy's blog and she contacted me about featuring it in her Freebie Spotlight.  I was beyond thrilled and of course said, "Please do!"  In our e-mail exchange we discovered we both live in the same town! What a wonderful coincidence!

Nancy has been encouraging me in small ways ever since.  Knowing that I am new to blogging, branding, social media and developing PLN's (I didn't even know what a PLN was before Nancy) she has pointed me in the right direction multiple times.  We had talked about meeting in person, but we finally made it happen this morning.

We had breakfast and I asked her a million questions. So basically, I had breakfast and Nancy didn't get much time to take a bite... she was too busy sharing her wealth of knowledge.  I made mad scribbles in my notebook that include things like:

• Visual Storytelling
• Shortstack
• Screencast
• Branding
• Flubaroo
• Record MP3
• Google Educator.......and much, much more

It was a pleasure to meet her and I feel so lucky to have someone so close who is so willing to help and share her talents.  I did ask her if she ever sleeps, because I just don't quite know how she does it all!  I confess my head is spinning with all the new info.  Now I've got to find the time to dig and learn!

Passport to Global Citizenship for IB Students

Do you teach PYP in an International Baccalaureate school?  This little passport to global citizenship is designed to compliment teaching the IB Transdisciplinary Themes and to reinforce your Central Ideas and Lines of Inquiry, and it's just plain fun for kids!

This passport just got a a face lift and some updates that I think make even easier to use in your PYP classroom.

There are pages for students to make Global Connections and record Lines of Inquiry, as well as, some blank pages you can edit to meet your own classroom needs.   You might want to consider using these extra pages as a motivator for students to share ideas and global connections they have found or make on their own outside of the classroom.

There are two versions of this passport and both are editable! The updated version is a PowerPoint file allows for a bit more customization and already has text boxes for you to personalize this passport to match your IB units of study. You can pre-type your Central Ideas and Lines of Inquiry or you can print a blank version and have your students fill these in themselves.

You have several different printing options.  This passport includes Transdisciplinary Theme icon stamps that you can print and students can cut and glue them into their passports as you complete each unit.  Or you can have students illustrate their own icon stamp that symbolizes your particular central idea if you prefer.  There is also a version that allows you to pre-print with the icons already on the page.  It's totally up to you! 

Both versions of this product allow teachers to enter personalize data on the Global Citizen ID Page and even allows for adding a student picture electronically.  You can also add customized text to the included blank pages.

NOTE:  To add the picture to the PDF version you must have the most recent version of Adobe Reader (XI).

Click to Preview this Product at my TPT Store

For those of you who may have found your way to this post and aren't familiar IB schools.  IB stands for International Baccalaureate.  It is a world wide program founded in 1968.  The following is the IB Mission Statement:

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

To be honest I think this mission statement is true for most educators.  I am pretty sure that most of us who go into education desire to develop "inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect."

My Mouth Is A Volcano

Why yes, sometimes it sure is!  I can name a handful of people who would likely say it always is...but I won't.  My volcano mouth has not been saying much on this blog lately though that's for sure.  I really need to decide what my blogging plans are, but since I haven't it will remain a mystery to all of us for now.

Anyhow, are you familiar with this children's book?
 
I had not heard of it until recently.  It was written by Julia Cook in 2005 and I think it's a must have for every preschool and elementary teacher out there.  It's a perfectly adorable story that will open a fantastic opportunity for discussing the age old problem of interrupting.  As a frequent interrupter myself it was good for me to be reminded.  Sadly, I am one of those people who seems to always be able to connect a story of my own to the story you are in the middle of telling!  You would think I would have figured it out by now...but alas...no.

Anyhow, I can quite relate to little Louis and his struggle with his "important words".  Guess I'll keep working on it.

FYI...in addition to being a great book for helping to establish classroom boundaries it is also a great jumping off spot for teaching metaphors!  Really what's not to love about this metaphoric title???? 

Frozen and Les Mis Mashup

My legs are jello.  I can barely keep my eyes open.  I did a 7 mile run this morning and now my evening is toast.  I was ready for bed at 4:00!

The run however, was fantastic.  For the last few months I've been listening to the Frozen Movie Soundtrack while running.   I LOVE it.  It's perfect and yes, I have been seen laughing, crying, singing and even doing jazz  hands with Olaf while running.  Today I decided it was time for a change,  I knew I was going to run longer and I needed a few more songs. 

I went to switch to my standby favorite playlist "Country Running".  Huh, nothing in it.  I suck at Itunes so I am sure I did something wrong.  Anyhow I didn't have time to be messing around and I needed to get out the door.  I had big plans today...Costco was waiting.  So what did I actually have on my phone that would work....Boris Karloff's the The Ginch?  Nope, no good.   Les Mis soundtrack?  Yep, that will do!

So I hit a few of my favorites and added them to my Frozen playlist.  OMG it was so perfect!  When "Valjean's Soliloquy" transitioned to "Let it Go". It could not have been more perfect!  He ends with:

I'll escape now from that world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing now
Another story must begin!

Pretty much the same thing Elsa is singing about in "Let it Go".  I was pumped!  Music really motivates me and of course the emotions in both of these are so inspiring.  So I  managed to pull off the whole 7 miles and felt pretty darn good!

My good friend Karen convinced me last November that sticking my legs in the pool 1 minute for every mile was good for my recovery.  She's not wrong, but she might be crazy.  Last fall I couldn't last more that 3 or 4 minutes.  Today the weather was nice and the water wasn't quite as cold.  I did the whole 7 minutes.  Guess I am crazy too!

 

Bunny Chaos

There was a lot of excitement in our backyard today! I looked out the window from the kitchen and I could tell that Finley was showing lots of interest in something on the lawn. The next thing I see he has picked up something in his mouth and is running toward the door. As he gets closer I can tell what it is and I proceed to spill my large cup of coffee all over the counter and drop my bagel (cream chess side down) on the floor as I rush to the door. He has dropped it at the door and is looking up at me with such excitement and joy!  He has brought me a gift, a very tiny scared baby bunny!!!!  OMG!

I was afraid to open the door for two reasons. 

1. It was likely Finley would pick it up and carry his treasure in the house to show me. 

2. It was so close to the door I was afraid that if he didn't pick it up then the bunny would startle and run inside on its own! 

As I talked to Finley through the door, while grandma tried to clean up my breakfast that was now all over the kitchen, I decided I had no other option but to try and rush out the door before either of my concerns could come to fruition. 

Long story short, the bunny chaos multiplied as I tried to keep Finley away and coax the bunny toward the bushes.  Suddenly, another bunny popped out!!!! Finley had to pick this one up too...of course. After  much noise and commotion I managed to get Finley inside. I was able to gently scoop up each of the bunnies and put them back in the bushes hoping they would recover and decide this was NOT the yard for them. 

But y'all know me ....even in the chaos I was able to grab my phone and I snap a few pics. Look carefully and you can see the bunny at Finley's feet! 

UPS Tracking

Things have been pretty rough around here for awhile now.  Likely to continue for some time to come.  While the beautiful dusting of snow we received today was a little bit of a lift. The thing that truly lifted my spirits was the tacking e-mail I got from UPS a little after 7pm tonight.   One Certified Marriage License from Los Angeles County Courts is arriving tomorrow!  It's the little things. 

The Friz

Do you remember The Friz?  Also, known as the BEST teacher ever! I've used so many of her books in the classroom and the shows were so well done!  I remember being so excited when my son was little and finally old enough to be interested  watching The Magic School Bus!  I can actually hear the kids saying, "Ralphie!" just thinking about it!

I've dressed up as Ms. Frizzle twice even!  Once when Scholastic sent a costume to the school I was teaching at and I volunteered to be the mascot for the book fair.  The second time, I had my mom help make a bee themed jumper dress. I found perfect outrageous earrings and a fantastic red wig! My class was studying bees at the time. I made a  large yellow paper beehive bus just like the one in the book.  My 2nd graders helped me carry it in the school Halloween parade.  Such great memories!  Maybe I'll see if I can dig out a photo of that day?  Maybe not.....

What inspired my thoughts of Ms. Frizzle today? I saw this shirt on Pinterest today and I just LOVE it.  Not only because I love The Friz, but because I love to run and this is just a perfect motivating thought!  I sure wouldn't want to miss that bus!

 

PS.  Professor McGonagall actually ties the Friz for best teacher ever....and I've dressed up as her too!