Sunday, May 22, 2011

March...uh...I mean May Madness!

WELL....blogger friends, I must say that the month of May has been the busiest yet! I went on a three day camping trip with my class and the rest of first and fourth grade from my school to Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky! It was extremely tiring, playing Mommy to a cabin full of first grade girls, hiking, and helping with meal duties for our entire group. We all got on a couple of "those big busses with the TV's," as the kids call them (Grayline). Here are a few photos from our trip.
 We saw lots and lots of farmland. 
 And we went over a very, very narrow bridge. This is what we saw outside the window, Yikes! The lake was beautiful though.
 At the Nature Center we learned about different kinds of owls native to the area. 
At the Homeplace, a historic pioneer village, we watched some blacksmithing in action!
 That oxen was HUGE! A few kiddos didn't want to get too close!
 Our Nature Guide took us OFF THE TRAIL in search of a beaver dam.
 The 4th Graders got to go canoeing! There was a lot of flooding in our area (you may have heard about it on the news). The lake is usually MUCH further back, but since it flooded they actually canoed OVER the basketball courts and playground the children usually play at during down time...
Our Pond Life tour guide was FANTASTIC! He was so encouraging and helped the kids discover the little world inside the pond....even though one child found a leech! Ahhh! Ms. King got a little scared then, but don't tell anybody!
The children had a blast at the annual Pillow Fight after the Night Hike. Afterwards we had a late night snack of milk and homemade cookies! TIME FOR BED! Haha! After all that both the kids AND the teachers were worn out on the bus ride home!

This month has also brought a bit of uncertainty. I was displaced within my school district, so I'd been freshening up my resume and getting ready for interviews. As you all know the end of the year brings lots of TESTING and final REPORT CARDS! I'm shooting to finish grading today and finish report cards this week. I've also been trying to get a jump on signing up for summer professional development! WHEW! Only 7 days left 'til SUMMER :-)

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Common Core Standards

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image from http://www.corestandards.org/



I saw this post about Common Core Standards over at Swamp Frog First Graders and thought I should link to it on my blog. My state is switching to the Common Core Standards for the first time next school year. I'm excited about the change! I'm going to check out the http://www.corestandards.org site too. Hopefully I can find some sort of training or professional development workshop to learn more about it.