Day 17: Tree

I know today is a school day and I should be posting about something school related, but I had to show off my tree AND we don't have a Christmas tree here at school.

The one on the left is the small one in my daughter's room, and of course the one on the right is the one in our living room.

I love my tree this year, I know it's not your large full tree that most are use to but we went out and cut both of these trees down...and it's a great family tradition! Here are pictures from where we went to find our tree, just an hour up the road from our house.

Day 16: Makes You Feel Merry

My co-workers! We had our Secret Santa reveal party today after our staff meeting....I'm ready for the holidays!

Day 15: Lights

A little bit of a stretch but the light of the projector today as Secondary Coaches presented at our District Principal/Coach Meeting.

It was great being able to share everything we have been doing in our PLCs with them!

Day 14: Drink

My pink 50/50, three a day is my goal...drink more water! (It use to have a monogram but I peeled it off in a meeting, must make a new one)

Day 13: Composition

com·po·si·tion

ˌkämpəˈziSH(ə)n/

noun

1. 1.

   the nature of something's ingredients or constituents; the way in which a whole or mixture is made up
2. 2.  a work of music, literature, or art

Today we had our first snow in the valley! I spent the day (really early this morning) playing in the snow with my daughter. I chose the pictures of her making a snowman for today's challenge. It is definitely a piece of art. The composition of the snowman were: atmospheric water vapor frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer.

Here's to a possible snow day tomorrow!

Day 12: Joy is...

...an empty Christmas card box! Because that means I have finished all my Christmas cards and they are ready to be mailed off on Monday!

Day 11: Green

Today we were short on subs, so I stepped in and taught 6th grade math. Needless to say I'm a bit tired after a week of teaching teachers in our Distrtict PLCs.

This teacher is a small Packers fan!

Day 10: R is for...

RUBRIC!

Today was our last Secondary District PLC, whew!

Our timeline for this PLC was that our teachers were working in grade level teams and/or subject area teams. They had to use their pacing guides from last year (they had prioritized their standards and created standards pacing guides) and determine which standards they wanted to created a District Summative Assessment from. Once they decided which standards they wanted to assess they began creating standards rubrics for the standards they chose (we are a Standards Based Teaching, Grading, and Learning district).

One way to guide the teachers into creating these rubrics was to use and activity called Ramp It Up! (click here to view the activity).

It was a great way to show them our process/steps for creating their rubrics.

Here is a link to our template for creating Standards Rubrics.

Day 8: I Shop Here; Day 9: This is the Weather Today

Day 8: I Shop Here

Since I am posting these from school I decided to show you were I "shop" at school...our supply cabinet. I must say I like having the supply cabinet available for us instead of having to predict how many staples I'll use in the year, how many paper clips, etc. If I run out I just head to the cabinet.


Day 9: This is the Weather Today

If you have watched the news most of Oregon and Washington are getting hit pretty hard with rain. You may say...well you live in Oregon where it rains all the time right!?!?

Nope! We actually are in the middle of a drought, it was pretty bad this summer...so the rain and even snow is welcome!

Day 7: 6 o'clock

Around 6 o'clock every morning I am standing in my kitchen packing lunches being sure to include a note in my daughter's lunch (because I will hear about it if I forget). Once the lunches are packed and water bottles are filled then the book bags are packed...yes I carry a back pack especially if I have to take any type of technology home.

What does 6 o'clock look like for you?

My morning routine is very much a routine...I'm slightly OCD.

Day 5: In the Cupboard; Day 6: Shadow

I woke up this morning and realized that I had failed my challenge and forgot to post yesterday :(

In my defense I had spent about 6 hours finishing decorating and scrubbing my house getting ready for my husband's team Christmas party. I was exhausted!

So here is my catch up post as well as today's challenge.

Day 5: In the Cupboard

It's that time of year...apple cider and hot cocoa with mallow bits of course!

Day 6: Shadow

I love the shadows that my candle casts. This is the ONLY time of the year that I burn candles, and they have to be a certain scent (Christmas tree, and one I had a while ago that was called snowflake, I believe).

Day 4: Tiny

This is my office, where I spent a very very tiny amount of time today!

I started my morning in a Middle School Principal/Coach meeting, then moved to a SpEd placement meeting, on to the district office for Train the Trainer Data Dashboard meeting, came back and worked on a few schedule changes with the office, and left a little early to pick my girl up and visit the book fair at her school!

I was only in my office long enough to drop my things off and then once again pick them up. I didn't even log into my computer.

WHEW, I am very happy it's the weekend!!!!!!

Day 3: Silver

Another full day today! The first half of my day was spent co-facilitating our Secondary Math PLC. Each subject team (6-12) meets four time thoughout the year for a half day PLC. We are continuing our work with quality assessments. Today our focus was building Standars Rubrics and starting our District Summative Assessments. I am over the Secondary Math group, however all Secondary Instructional Coaches help facilitate all the PLCs. I am very proud of the hard work my teams did today.

The second part of my day was spent on Focus Walks. This year we are trying to give each teacher in our building at least two opportunities to complete Focus Walks, visiting their peers and other classrooms. This year our Focus Walk focus is technology (due to our 1:1initiative). Now of course that doesn't mean we aren't looking for other things just focusing on technology.

My team of three teachers spent almost two hours visiting classrooms I our building. For the last hour we visiting the elementary school up the hill (where I use to teach). I had so much fun getting to see those younger student hard at work and using their technology!

Which gets me to my picture of the day. In one third grade classroom we visited they were using the Book Creator app to work on their animal research projects. The picture I took was of a great little girl working on her project...unfortunately I took the picture with my school iPad and left it at school...so I guess I will post it tomorrow. So how does the picture fit within today's challenge you ask...well the animal the student was writing about was the Silverback Gorilla!

Day 2: Where I Stood

Here is the promised photo of the day challenge, as you can see today is...Where I Stood

Of course I stood many places today, but Wednesdays are early release for teacher professional development and meetings. One of my jobs is to facilitate these meetings. Each Wednesday is devoted to something different during the month.

The first Wednesday of the month is District meetings. Every Wednesday our staff meets in grade level teams for the first half hour. The remainder of our time together today was spent having our teachers work on District PLC prep time (for our secondary whole district PLCs).

This year the secondary coaching team has worked on a flipped model for our PLCs. We are using Blendspace as our vehicle to deliver prep materials to the teachers. They simply open the Blendspace and work through the "slides" which may contain Google Docs or Forms, videos, readings, etc.

Where I Stood: In the front of our PD room presenting

Where I Stood: By my computer/doc camera station to present

Where I Stood: The view from the front of the PD room

If you want to participate...doesn't have to be everyday in my photo challenges post your photos on my FB page: click here!

December Challenge Day 1

Here it is already December, over a month has gone by without one single post from me...horrible!

So now I am challenging myself to post once a day for the month of December. I saw this picture challenge posted by a friend of mine and thought of how I could use that with my blog.

I will post a picture of the challenge tomorrow, my iPad is not letting me attach pictures!

A little twist to the challenge will be that on the days I am at work, school, the picture has to be work/school related with a post about the picture.

I'm hoping this will get me back into the swing of posting.

Day 1: Red

Today I spent some time working on a Kahoot for our upcoming District PLCs. If you have never used Kahoot you are missing out! If you have ever played trivia at a restaurant it's very similar. Kahoot is a free site where you can create quizzes, surveys, and discussions. The students don't need to register, just enter the session code, and GO! Click the picture to learn more. 

My Kahoot is a quick quiz that will have the teachers identifying if an assessment question has been written the correct way or not. This year in our District PLCs we are focusing on quality assessments. I'm pretty excited to see how exciting the game will get, teachers are not competitive at all!!

QR Code Professional Development

Well our in-service week has come and gone...as well as the first week of school! WE WERE BUSY!

As promised I am writing about the QR Code Professional Development lesson I presented during our tech day. I was very excited, and the class could not have gone smoother.

I started the class with having them download a QR code reader. I prefer I-nigma. It is free, tends to have fewer pop ups/ads, and is user friendly for even the little learners.

Once that was completed I passed out the Dynamic Duo cards (post can be found here), and had them find their other half. Once they partnered up I had them share two things they knew about QR codes OR wanted to know about QR codes. 

Next, I asked if anyone knew what QR stood for? I then presented this infographic which prompted a great discussion.

(The QR codes actually work on this!)

After that I then jumped into the "bulk" of the presentation. I showed them an infographic that I had made on "How to Make a QR Code".

I used the app Piktochart to make it!

Once they realize how easy it was, the ideas began to flow. I had them practice making a QR Code with an answer to a question I gave them, they then had to have their elbow partner scan their QR Code to reveal the answer.

Finally I showed this presentation with ideas of how to use QR codes in the classroom.

Click HERE to view it!

We had so much fun and I received numerous emails from those that attended the class letting me know how they are using QR Codes in the classroom.

Now on to my first week of school...

We rolled out our 1:1 initiative and it's been one exciting roller coaster! What they say is true...you learn by doing. Things we thought would go smoothly were bumpy and other things we were concerned about seemed to not be a problem.

I have to thank our teachers for their effort, support, and time out of their "normal" welcome to my classroom lessons they have given to help make this possible.

I know we will still have a TON ups and downs, but it's pretty exciting...and to watch how thrilled the students are to have this opportunity has been amazing.

I also went around to the teaching staff and snapped some "My First Day" pics. I am blessed to work with this great staff! I am looking forward to a GREAT year!!!