Summer adventures

As i sit here and write this I cannot believe there is only one week left of summer for me before I go back to work. Although I am excited to meet my new students and see my co-workers, I am also sad to give up our lazy mornings in PJs and afternoons spent by the pool.

Summer wouldn't be summer without some exciting summer adventures. During the school year our family does a fair amount of traveling, however those are mostly for weddings! This summer we had some fun adventures both near and far. Let me share some of our favorites! 

We love our summer days and early evenings spent up at the lake. Thankfully we just travel to Lake Lanier, which is short 30 minute car ride north. This summer, both of the kiddos were brave enough to go for a tube ride and LOVED it!!! I think our favorite was when Cooper kept asking for "more". I think he must have enjoyed it too much because he then took a good solid nap on the boat. 

Another highlight early this summer was Ansleigh's 1st dance recital! She had a blast as a Baby Ballerina while dancing/singing at the top of her lungs on stage! 

Next up in early June we celebrated Cooper's 2nd birthday with a fireman theme. We were even able to swing having the fire department bring their fire truck out to our house, and that was a HUGE hit!!

Pretty soon after we ventured to Mobile for Fathers Day Weekend spent with Elliot's family. Ansleigh had been counting down the days for months to go to Mobile. She is always so excited to get to visit with her cousins and Lolli and Papa. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was blessed to get to attend the Get Your Teach On (GYTO) National Conference in Dallas. It was hands down the BEST PD. 

Even though we ventured away from home for many adventures some of our favorite adventures took place at home: 

 Many mid-week (during the school year we only go on the weekends) grocery shopping trips with tiny carts. 

 Lazy mornings full of lots of snuggles!

 Concerts at the park with friends.

 Evening hikes down by the River. 

4th of July fireworks that EVERYONE stayed up to watch and LOVE! 

We took an end of the summer week vacation to our happy place... the beach!!! We had a great week at Hilton Head with Elliot's family. Here were a few highlights from our trip: 

Summer 2019 you have been a great one! Although it makes me sad that our children are growing older by the day, it does make for some fun traveling adventures! 

Get Your Teach On (GYTO)

The last four days, I had the privilege to attend a conference of a lifetime! Most would think that a teacher conference would be boring and filled with lots of learning. It was indeed filled with of LOTS of learning but it was far from boring. In fact it was a PARTY!!!! I was blessed to go with the support of my school and with a colleague of mine. We had an amazing time listening, learning, and bouncing ideas off of each other. I come back from this conference feeling inspired and full of great ideas for this school year. I was also able to meet some of my favorite "famous" teachers who I follow on social media. I was totally "teacher crushing"! I cannot wait to share these things with my team and school. Here are a few pictures from our incredible four days in Dallas, TX. 

 Jenny and I catching an early flight to head out to GYTO in Dallas. 

 The conference was held at the beautiful Gaylord Texan Hotel. 

 Even during the summer teachers have a good time especially at the water park!

 Night one waiting for opening session. Like I said it was a PARTY!!!! 

Night one was INCREDIBLE!!! The keynote speaker was Rachel Hollis, and she was nothing short of amazing! Her stories had us all laughing and crying, while at the same time inspiring us to follow after all of our dreams, especially as women. If you are reading this and have not read her books I highly encourage you to! Well thats a wrap for a long but amazing 1st day at GYTO. 

Day 2: 

Day two started out with a bang by listening to Wade and Hope King speak and again inspire us all to follow our dreams and make the magic happen in our classrooms each day. If you haven't heard of Hope and Wade they are husband and wife teachers from The Ron Clark Academy and are making waves in the field of education. They also have a book out called The Wild Card. I encourage all teachers to read this book. They give simple, practical tips, of how to make the magic happen in the classroom. After this session I attended several break out sessions to dive deeper into content, all of which were amazing!!! Day 2 breakouts for me were: Math Super Solvers, Marvelous Writers, and Social Studies and Culture. In each of these sessions I was able to listen to very knowledgable teachers, some that I knew and some that I didnt (but I now follow on social media). In the afternoon we also got to hear from two very talented current and former Ron Clark Academy students. These two students were both incredibly well spoken and brave to speak and inspire a room of 4,200 teachers. They shared about their lifetime impacts from their teachers. 

Here are some pictures from day 2:

 "Teacher crushing" getting to meet Amy Lemons 

 Just a portion of the amazing "swag" given to us

 Getting to listen to the amazing Hope King

Day 3: 

Day 3 was another incredible day at GYTO. We started out in the morning by getting to listen to five different teachers' stories and why they became teachers. Each of these stories were very touching and motivating to keep building relationships with our students because thats what truly matters. After this keynote we broke out into some more amazing breakout sessions for the day. My sessions for day 3 were: Building a Super Classroom Community, Building Super Readers, and The Art of Integration. The afternoon concluded with another session with Hope and Wade King. In this session they talked about how to continue to make the MAGIC happen in the classroom by empowering our students to be successful all the while keeping relationships at the heart. 

Here are some pictures from day 3: 

"Teacher crushing" getting to meet Chris Pombonyo 

 Our wonderful host this morning Jared Lemons 

 Another wonderful session with Hope and Wade King 

 Being "super reader" detectives 

Day 4: 

Day 4 was a short, sad, day because it was the day we had to go home. The past four days were incredible full of lots of FUN and learning with like-minded educators. It is my goal to make it to another GYTO National Conference in the years to come. This morning we were able to sit in a Q&A session with some of the GYTO educators. Then we attended one last breakout session before we had to catch our flight: Collaborative Stemagination. 

I know it sounds cheesy but I will forever be changed from this amazing conference! Thank you so much to the GYTO staff for an amazing 1st time experience. 

For those of you who have never been but are interested in going check out these 3 quick videos of a recap from the week: 

And one last thing, if you are looking to get some inspiration from some amazing teachers be sure to check them out on social media: 

Hope King

Wade King

Deanna Jump

Lanesha Tabb

Abbie Mullens

Cara Carroll 

Cassie Stevens

Amy Lemons 

Chris Pombonyo

Weather PBL

This was a very fun, interactice PBL for students to learn and present about different weather patterns. We began the PBL by going on a gallery walk in the hallway to look at different weather patterns. While studetns were observing the pictures they also took notes on a graphic organizer. Here are some pictures of students on their gallery walk:

 

Here is a picture of what the graphic organizer looked like to take notes on and a student example:

 

We also used a few different resources to get a general understanding of different weather patterns. Students then chose 1 weather pattern that interested them and did a mock weather report. Here are a few examples:



 



The next week we dove right into our partner work for our PBL. For this PBL, students were grouped into groups of three. Each member of the group had a job. The jobs were news anchor, meteorologist, and safety expert. Each group was assigned one weather pattern and a location that it occurs. Students had a list of QR codes and books to do research on their topic. They also had a graphic organizer to help them take notes on their weather pattern. Here is a list of the QR codes:

Here is a copy of the graphic organizer that students used to help take their notes on their weather pattern:

Here are some pictures of students working in groups, using QR codes to watch videos for their research:

 

After each group finished their research they then worked together to write a script for their weather report. Here is the script template that we used:



Last, students filled their weather report using the app Touch Cast and they turned out great! Check out our videos: