Five For Friday Linky Party (Jan. 31st)

A Way to Keep My Weekly Blog Effort Going

I've found a way to hopefully keep my goal of blogging weekly.  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for the weekly Five for Five Linky.

Houston Ice Storm 2014!  

Another "Snow Day" for us on Tuesday.  We just had one on Friday.  I've never seen anything like this.  Not a snowflake in the sky but enough of a weather forecast to get districts around Harris County to shut down!  I'm really screaming inside because we are SO behind!!  Ugh!

I'M SO EXCITED (yet anxious)!  I just submitted my application for Graduate School. [yikes]  It has been 13 years since I was a college student.  I have to admit, I absolutely LOVE learning!!  Shhh...I am that one teacher that secretly enjoys signing up for professional development because I want to learn something new.  This has been a goal of mine since forever ago.  It just seemed that as I began to take the steps, life took over and made me refocus on something else.  NOW IT IS TIME!!  I hopefully begin in the summer.

This is our ChocoLab -- Kobe.  He is such a sweetheart!!  Ok - so in the mornings, I am usually the last one out of the door.  He usually looks oh-so depressed by the time I come out of the bedroom because everyone has left (he loves each of us SO much).  I typically find him at the bottom of the stairs sulking.  He does know the rules though.  My hubby doesn't allow the furbabies on the couch.  I know he knows this rule because usually you can hear his four paws hit the ground upstairs as soon as our bedroom door (downstairs) opens up.  So we sort-of know that he sleeps on the couch in the upstairs family room if no one lets him into their bedroom.  Well, Thursday morning I was really the last one out since I had a district meeting to be at.  I walked out of my room and began calling his name since he wasn't in his normal location.  Still no sound.  So I walked upstairs and this is what I found.  There was another blanket spread out on the floor in front of the kid's bedroom doors (probably left by Elijah, his closest pal).  I was talking to my hubby on the phone when I made the discovery of our new couch potato.  He had me put him on speaker so he could tell him to get down since he was obviously ignoring my requests, but our little defiant buddy simply tuned his head.  LOL!!  I couldn't help but snap a shot and send it out to the family to give them a little smile to start their day.

Reason #2 Why I Love Trainings/PD Meetings -- A REAL lunch time!!  It is always so nice to be able to eat something yummy at a leisurely pace instead of the 10minute quick inhale of something that teachers usually endure.  Plus you can get some great ideas to try and new resources to explore.

  

We did our 1st lesson with our NEW Chrome-Books!  Our school decided to buy some Chrome-Books for each grade level.  Each student in our district has their own Google Account and so I can only imagine all the unlimited things we could do.  This week we kicked off our Media Literacy unit.  I found a great web-quest activity.  Today, I paired up the students and gave them a Chrome-Book to work with.  They did Task #1 with a partner.  It allowed them to visit several different sites and determine if the purpose is to entertain or inform.  We discussed what features they might look for to determine the purpose.  They were so excited and did so well!  I can hardly wait till next week's lesson to complete Task #3.

I've already got big plans for these babies.   I'm thinking Google Doc publishing, Report presentations, a Virtual Flat Stanley emails, etc.

Have any great ideas to share?