Want to play with me?

An interesting and busy week.  The wheels have been set in motion for many life changes.  I will keep things moving along with a vision of the good things to come.

@Work

I found a fabulous website that allows me to make extremely polished weekly e-mail blast to parents.  The site, Vertical Response, has a ton of templates and features the ability to personalize e-mails.  I sent out my first this morning.  It included great graphics, links, and video information for parents and students.  I hope that it helps improve their grades by virtue of having more informed parents.  We have only 5 weeks left in the course and the majority of my students are not doing as well as I would hope.

I took the GACE in Economics this past Saturday.  I over-prepared.  It was much easier than the test preparation materials.  I suppose it's best to be over prepared.  I should hear about my results in a few weeks.  I believe that an additional area of certification will make more more marketable to high schools.  Perhaps it will open another avenue at GAVS for a full time position.

I attended a fabulous Softchalk webinar.  The presenter spoke about theme-ing training for teachers as games.  She had created a "mission impossible" type theme.  I may borrow this idea in the French 1 development.  It helps to make the measurement outcomes very practical and performance based.  I thought I could produce "Mission possible:  I want to be an exchange student."  Some of the assessment could include completing an application with essential personal information in French, reading a letter from your host family, and writing a letter to your host family.  I'm spending a lot of time working on the idea (see Popplet)

 

@Home

I'm getting back into the swing of things.  I don't like house work.  I have a hard time tearing myself away from the computer/work to get anything done around the house.  I LOVE my new i-pad and am using it to help.  I downloaded a fabulous day-timer application and am budgeting my time down to the hour.  I hope that it will keep me on track.  I need to balance my life a little better.

I'm back in Trey's class room.  I volunteer once a week to make copies and work with a reading group.  I love eating lunch with him on Friday's and seeing him in action at school.  He really is very smart and has made great progress in reading and math.  I can't wait until he takes the CRCTs so that we can see what grade level he is now.  He counted to 100 by 4 just for fun in the car yesterday.  I can't help but be impressed.

His 6th birthday is this Thursday.  I'm bringing in a cookie cake to class.  We have a bowling party scheduled for April 16.  I've hired someone to make a Lego Star Wars cake.  She is a phenomenal cake designer and I'm very excited to see what she produced.

@Sports
I played three matches this past week.  I went 1-2.  Not so great...but I am learning and growing.  The A7 ALTA match was an education.  I am certain that playing at this level will help me to improve my footwork and resetting.  I just need to relax and breathe.