My Favorite Vacation EVER! Over and Over Again to Recharge and Reenergize!

Florida-the land of Disney World, beaches, palm trees, sand, and UGH!  Yes, that’s right, UGH!  I live in Florida and this time of year is literally UGH!  You go outside and you instantly break a sweat.  If your palm tree isn’t trimmed high enough, then you get either covered in the water that is dripping from it because it has rained and made the 100% humidity become 200% or the spines in it stick you and it hurts!  Oh, and it’s only 8:00 a.m.  That’s right, 8 a.m. and it hits you like a ton of bricks!  So, you spend most of your time in the ac, avoiding the beach because it isn’t much better out there in the salt flavored bath water (no kidding-today it was 87 degrees in the water!!!).  No, I did not escape to Florida for my favorite vacation-I’m easier to please!   I escaped to my favorite vacation ever-over and over again-ever!!!  North Carolina!

You see, I’m easy to please.   I have lots of ideas for my favorite vacation ever-England, Ireland, Australia, Alaska-and notice, most are cooler places, but I haven’t been able to do those and may never be able to do those, so I go with easy, and cool, North Carolina.  Why, well, here’s why:

 1.  A cabin, a REAL cabin!  We are always blessed to find an economical location, but this one is my favorite-a REAL cabin!  No insulation, no luxury, no protection from bugs and other things-a REAL cabin!  Did I mention it is strikingly similar to the cabin I stayed in when I was in elementary school in Canada for two weeks every summer?  The only thing missing from this and my childhood memory would be the great big lake that we had in Canada, but there is a replacement.

2.  A WATERFALL-

In fact, many if we wanted to wander further out, where there would be lots of people!  Instead, we headed to Schoolhouse Falls (can’t ever escape that word!)  When we got there, only two people were there and they were sleeping in hammocks!  Cool water, beautiful sight, no one to bug us!  YES!  Exactly what I would call FAVORITE vacation detail! 

3.  History! 

I am slowly discovering the fun of Florida’s history-we camp a lot when Florida is friendly to its residence-but there really isn’t anything like this! Biltmore, home to one of the most financially influential families in America!  I could easily put my entire house in the library of this home!  And kids were FREE this visit!  YES!  And, my two teenaged boys like it! They LIKED IT!!  We even visited the flower garden and they liked it!  Did I mention that part of the reason why this is my favorite vacation EVER is because of the…

 

4.  Plants.  

I know that many people love the tropical “loveliness” of Florida’s tropical plants.  Well, not so  much here!  I’ve learned, over time, to find things I like, but, in North Carolina they have real trees, real grass, and really, really, really beautiful flowers!  I could spend all day looking, just looking at plants and flowers and loving them! 

5.  Walks!  

I have an adventurer and I am one too, so walks are so great for us!  We can find so many things on our walks-like REAL rocks that have mica in them and real trees, REAL TREES, and mountains!  In fact, we can go up so high on our mountain walks that we are looking at the mountain tops that were up above us before!  Long walks that make our legs hurt, but not enough to not get back to the cabin.  Walks that still allow you to run down the hills to the flats where you are out of breath with fun, even with your little dogs with short legs along, who have just as much fun as you, walks.  Did I mention how this is my FAVORITE over and over again!

6.  Mountain Air-

This is down at the Lake.  Take off about 5 degrees in the Mountains!  

Cool, cool mountain air, so cool that at night it makes your teeth chatter because it is in the 50’s and it is July cool.  So cool that you have to sleep in winter pajamas cool.  Enough cool air to soak in and make you think about it over and over as the wind blows and you stand with your arms stretched out, soaking every bit of it in , knowing you won’t feel it again until December, if you are luck, cool!  Feel it, remember it, cool! 

Trying to stay warm in the rain!

7.  MOUNTAINS-

Mountains that you can see sitting on a porch that was built just for that, just to look.  Reading on that porch is a distraction because you can’t help but look, rolling into one another, off in the distance, but wondering if anyone was looking at your mountain, thinking the same thing.  Watching the clouds roll over those same mountains and, then, watching them disappear as the rain rolls in and brings the cool mountain air that makes you put on a jacket. 

8.  Fireflies-

Waiting for dark to come, just so the bushes will light up. There are fireflies in Florida, if you know where to look.  Last time we went camping we saw one.  Here, they light up the yard.  With very few other bugs to bug you!  So great to walk out and watch.  Sadly, my boys are beyond the age of trying to catch them-but that didn’t stop my sad attempt one night, or my adventurers the last night.  No luck, but worth every second. 

Today, I have commented on 3 different photos of people visiting other mountains in North Carolina about how much I wish I was still there.  It helped to clear my head.  It helped to refocus my thinking.  It helped me to get mentally aware of where I need to be and where I need to go.  It helped me be me, to find me again.  It put me in a FAVORITE place-peace. 

If you are blogging, and you have time, take a few moments to share your favorite vacation on the linky found at I Heart 3^rd Grade!  I know it made me want to sit down and jot things out.  It was a great way to get me back into my blog and reflect on a great vacation all at once!

May the 4th Be With You

Yes, it is International Star Wars Day and we celebrated with style!  I wore my Star Wars shirt to make the day festive and added a sign to my classroom door. 

In the morning we did some fun activities in language arts and math.  I shared some information about Star Wars and we talked about characters from a Star Wars Character Encyclopedia.  I felt it was really important to share some of the female Jedi Knights, and both boys and girls were very impressed. 

It wasn’t till the afternoon that we really had some fun!  At snack time we created light saber snacks.  Unfortunately, the food coloring I thought I had turned out to be only red, which meant we all had to have Sith sabers.  They were really easy to make-frosting, stick pretzels, and a tool to put the icing on with!  I let the kids create their own and they really had fun making them.

I also found these cute Honey Maid Star Wars crackers (BOGO) at my local grocery store.  They were really yummy and I could hear the kids talking about what characters they were eating!

After snack came our real activity-graphing our favorite characters!  This was perfect because we happen to be on our graphing unit right now!  I found this at Royal Baloo and it was easy to use.  The lines copied very light, so I had to darken the copies on the machine.  I created a Mimio lesson to go with the graphing activity (while I watched The Avengers on t.v.-I am a sci-fi geek and I know it!)

I also made a support page so that all of content that we needed was present.   The kids created the question to ask and then gathered their tallies. 

Once that was completed, they filled in their graphs. 

As a final step, they flipped over to the back of the paper and asked a question that a friend had to answer about their graph!

            Simple and fun to celebrate one of the greatest  “fun” holidays on the calendar.  Next year, I will be planning for more fun events, including a storm trooper to fill my door and Yoda ears for all!  I’ve got 4 more years in a row to come up with some fun stuff-May the 4^th be with me!!!

P.S.  Don't forget about the great TPT Sale happening on May 5th and 6th.  Enter coupon code THANK YOU at checkout to get 10% off the already great sale price of 20% off in my store!  

Going Blind!

And Trusting Myself!

A Page of My Crazy!  

Today I did something that some might thing is just crazy!  I went into my observation blind!  Yes, that’s right!  So, here’s what I mean.

            Our district has changed over to the Danielson Model.  We have had very little training and very little time to figure anything out.  Our administrators are learning on the fly, just like us.  Just like us, there is no real time to become experts at it.  Just. Like. Us. I have always said I could never be an administrator, but in this time in education, that’s more than a fact then ever!  Some days, I question…well, I won’t go there!  I know you know what that question is!  On top of all this, we are also completing the “free” version of Danielson.  What that translates to is LONNNNNG.  Very, very LONNNNNNNNNNGGGGG!  Now, let’s back up to what I did for prep work!

Prep Work:  I am very lucky to have a very good friend who thinks like me, who brainstorms like me, and who will just, point blank, tell me what I wrote is crap or is great!  I am very thankful for this friend.  We survived National Boards together at my kitchen table, Saturday after Saturday, while my husband took care of the kids and allowed us to do our crazy work.  I honestly never thought we would be pulling this type of shift again-but it has come-thank you Danielson (sarcasm intended!) 

            Over the course of two Saturdays (thank you flu for making it two instead of three!) we meet at my friend’s house.  I have to say, I am so thankful for the view of horses and open fields to take my mind off the brain numbing effects of repeated questions worded another way.  We spent the first Saturday working through Domain 4.  It wasn’t too bad.  It felt similar to National Boards in many ways.  You learn the tricks and techniques to answer these questions by finding every tool possible to guide you.  We found a decent tool and are hoping for the best.  The second Saturday, we worked on Domain 1 and our lesson plans.  We conquered the plans first-no problem!  Then…oh the THEN!  Can I just tell you that Domain 1 is, well, Domain 1!  Hours later, we still are not sure exactly what is right and what is wrong! We tried our best and are hoping for the best! 

14 hours to be exact!  FOURTEEN HOURS!  The only way to emphasis this was by typing it out!  I have now heard everything from 6 to 21 HOURS of time!  Time is a precious commodity to a teacher today.  There are many things I could do for my family, for my students, or for my class in those 14 hours worth of time.  Have I learned from it-to be honest NO!   No, I haven’t learned from the written response.  I have not seen things differently or in an enlightened way.  That’s what National Boards did.  This was, well, 14 hours of MY time!  Time that is precious and could be used for more then this craziness!  (Please allow me the favor of this moment!  I don’t complain very often and this is my opportunity!)  So, here we go with Going Blind!

Going Blind:  We were told to go through and read Domain 2 and 3 and be sure to cover them as best we could.  I refused to do it.  I honestly did and here’s why-it’s the ONLY way I will get better!   Truth right there!  I could have taken time to go through them, change things in my room, fix things all pretty, plan according to the rubric, and go nuts in general!  But what would that teach me?  What would that show me about my teaching?  How can I get real feedback and improve?  So I went in BLIND!  I taught the way I would have taught this lesson if my administrators hadn’t been in there.  I did do some “extras”-I made my chart pretty, I had my post-its ready, I did some pre-finishing work, like getting my pretty Marzano rubric up instead of my chart paper one.  But I didn’t go crazy and make everything perfect, so I could learn! 

How I Plan to Learn this System! 

Now, I am also not one to sit back and let the good times roll.  What I did do is VIDEO TAPED my lesson!  Here is my “mad” idea.  I will now go and print off the rubrics and watch my video.  I will assess myself (just like we ask the kids to do).  I will find positives and negatives to my teaching and my classroom so that when I go into my post observation I am well aware of just what occurred and where growth can be made.  Most importantly, I WILL LEARN!  I will learn what I do successfully!  I will learn what I can work on!   I will learn what DOK Levels my lesson really hit!  IT WILL BE OF VALUE TO ME!  That’s what I want from this.  Deep down, my administrators are NOT who I am working for-it is my students.  If I don’t learn what I am doing well, what I can work on, and what I can increase or decrease, what does it matter!  In many ways, it is my protest to this whole crazy educational time we are in!  It is my rebel side poking out its head and saying, “I am worth more than this!”  Crazy, I know, but I want to LEARN over and over who I am as a teacher, who I should move forward to be, without the dog and pony show of meeting the expectations to score high and be great!  I want to be that teacher that doesn’t have to, that it just comes naturally as a part of who I am!  So, go blind everyone!  Do this thing to be the natural you! 

Good Luck! My post observation is next week-let’s see how I feel then!