Conference

I thought the conference was somewhat helpful. Although I felt all this information was being thrown at me, but not really explained very well. In one of my breakout groups she gave us definitions of blogs, social networking, digital footprint, etc., but that was it-- no further information. Also, so many websites were told to us instead of shown, now I'm going to have to spend a few hours flipping through them and trying to look back at my notes to remember what I wanted to look into more. But, past that, I thought it was a little eye opening and will get me to search more and be more proactive with technology. I just wish the breakout groups that I went to would have went into more depth than just talking at the surface level.

Writing Marathon

I enjoyed this whole day. I loved Nick and Melissa's lesson. My kids love the graphic novels, especially Bone. Most of them have a lower reading level but don't want to read a "kid" book. They want to read more of a chapter looking book. So, these books are great because they look like they are for older kids, but they still can actually read the text. As for the writing marathon, I loved having that time to communicate and get to the girls in our group. We haven't talked this whole class very much, so this was a great chance for us to learn about each other with beautiful scenery.

Says-it.com

This site is awesome because you can print off for free or buy those images that you create. You type in your own information. For example, I had a Writer's Celebration for my kids and we invited other classes. My kids wanted to make concert tickets. I googled and found this website and it has a concert ticket format. I put in our date of the celebration, etc., and copied the ticket into Microsoft Publisher and printed them out on cardstock. Enjoy!!

Research Project

For my research project, I have kind of bounced off Krystal's idea of a book list. As an elementary teacher who teaches with 4-blocks, I teach a writing mini-lesson and possible 2 reading mini-lessons a day. While teaching this year, I realized there were different topics I was teaching and I wish in hindsight I would have tied more of them together instead of being so sporadic. So, for my research, Charlotte gave me a great website- goodreads.com. Basically I want to create a list of my picture books and divide them into what topic(s) they are emphasizing. For example, some books might be a good tool for inferencing or sequencing or cause and effect. This website allows you to create an online list of your books (equipped with a picture of the cover and referencing). You can also categorize them into different groups that you create and write a little blurb about the book to remind yourself why you wanted to use it to teach.