NSTA 2019

I’m writing this on the plane home from St. Louis, and finally posting it weeks later. I have to admit that I was not excited about the fact that NSTA was in the Show-Me-State. This is my third NSTA conference, and it was one of the best organized conferences that I have attended. Don't get me started on the food! We ate at so many fantastic places in downtown St. Louis. Yummy!

The conference kicked off with a keynote from retired astronaut Scott Kelly. His message was inspirational and informative. “I was trained not to focus on the things you can control, not the things you can’t.”

The results of the “twin study” were released just the next day. It was pretty neat to have heard his story and then to see him on the morning news the next day.


On Thursday I also had a Technology Advisory Board meeting. I am excited to get to work with the team this year.

The plane ride home is always my favorite time to reflect on what I’ve learned and to make plans for how to implement changes in my classroom. I attended two sessions in particular that made me think.

I actually attended a session that I had seen last year. I love the idea of holding a School Maker Faire. The team from South Orangetown Central School District was back again this year to explain how they hold a district-wide Maker Faire. With all the maker-resources we have on our campus, I think it would be amazing to showcase the work we are doing to the entire school community. The presenters talked about how many of the projects are done in school and saved, but others are done by students at home and brought in.

I also really like the “Science Fair of Optimization.” The 4-6 grade team from Captain Samuel Douglass Academy told of their science fair woes and how they were able to make things easier for the teacher, but still meaningful for the students. The developed group projects based on a problem that requires students to apply the engineering design process. Students are presented with a scenario based on a problem facing a cleverly named fake company. As a group they must decide what variables to test to solve the problem. Each student then completes a “science fair project” where they test the variable using the controls set by the group. At the end, the students come together to create a prototype using the information they learned from the individual projects.


Our school has not had an elementary science fair in a while and we are trying to move in that direction. Once of the problems is helping student to understand variables. I love that this project focuses on identifying variables and creating a way to test a single variable. I look forward to talking with our upper elementary teachers about the idea.

Our Bringing Student Creativity to Life in the Elementary Science Classroom workshop presentation was one of the best that Cara and I have done. Just a few weeks ago we were panicked because HP Reveal Studio is in transition and we cannot create augmented reality projects using that website. At FETC, we learned about Thyng. We sent them a message and the responded almost right away. They have been great to work with and even stayed in the office late on a Friday to be “on-hand” during our workshop. The projects look great and we think they are going to be a great tool for our First Grade Garden next month.

The workshop was a lot of fun. We set up the green screen and demo-ed how simple it is to use the Green Screen app by DoInk. We were the last session of the day, but we had a nice crowd and got some great feedback.


Saturday morning Suzette joined us to add her middle school perspective to Transforming Your Science Classroom with Technology. It was an 8am session on a Saturday morning in a very large room.

We had a nice crowd and got some great feedback. After the session, a STEM Coordinator stopped us to ask questions. She said that her district had a lot of the tools and resources that we talked about, but that the teachers were not using them in a way that connects to the standards. One of the greatest compliments to me was the fact that beyond all the tools we told about, it was the way we used the tools that stood out to her.

We did have time to enjoy a little bit of the city. We walked to the Gateway Arch one evening.

We also made it to the Botanical Gardens and the St. Louis Zoo.

The biggest surprise of all though was the weather on Sunday.

We knew it was going to be cold and rainy, but the temperature dipped and we actually saw some snowflakes and winter mix. For three teachers from Florida, that’s a big deal!

Five for Friday–April 12th

What a week! My student teacher had been teaching at 100% right up until spring break. I should have started taking over last week, but my son was in the hospital so I was not at school. It was fantastic to do some teaching again, but I am worn out! Thankfully it is Friday, so that means…

Now that I am taking back over from my student teacher, I’ve given her a few jobs. I’d read seen these newspaper seed cups and decided to have her try them out.



She ended up using them as part of her final observed lesson. Our flowers are planted, but I forgot to take a picture of that. Oops! Hopefully we will have something to show by Mother’s Day.

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In preparation for our state test next week, we did a lot of math this week. I pulled out one of my favorite activities from Mailbox.



Centimeters are more fun with frog rulers!

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In reading, we were working on reading strategies. I used these cards (a great freebie) and picked out the strategies that were most appropriate for third graders. I printed passages from Readworks.org and gave each pair of students a strategy card and a passage. They used post it notes and created a poster to show what it would look like to apply that strategy. Each group shared their strategy with the class.



My mom was going to send me her old beanie babies, but she couldn’t get to them in time. Maybe next year!
I was happy with how they came out and I saw a few light bulbs later in the week when they found opportunities to apply the strategies.

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Speaking of testing, I came across this post this morning before school. It made my day! My class is going to eat doughnuts FCAT-style on Friday. After four days of testing I think they will get the joke!

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Update on my son: The little guy has had a week of Daddy Day Care. The Irishman has been off for the week to care for him. He is doing much better! We see the pulmonary specialist next week. After 8 days in the hospital and a week of breathing treatments, it may be diaper rash that brings us to the pediatrician tomorrow. Go figure!

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Enjoy your weekend!

Five for Friday

Spring break can not come soon enough! It was one of those weeks that went by in a flash!

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LOVE THAT POEM 

We usually do a big poetry unit in April. The project has been passed down to third grade teachers at my school for over a decade. In the last couple of years we have added an analyzing poetry component. Last year I did both writing and analyzing at the same time. This year we looked at our data and decided we wanted to look at understanding poetry before the state test. We looked at figurative language. We hit the third grade common core “literal and non-literal language” standard. We spent two weeks on similes, metaphors, hyperboles, and personification. (We’d already covered idioms.)

Love That Dog is a poetry must read. Even though we are going to focus on writing poems in April we did write our own “Love that…..” poems this week. I remembered a former student teacher had done something like this with the fake book covers and all. I’m quite happy with how they have turned out!

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Stories in the Stars 

Last weekend we went to the star lab at the local science center. We’d were wrapping up a unit on stars, and our kids had the constellation bug. After a playground conversation with the third grade team, I whipped up this quick project.



I’d been looking forward to seeing the finished product all week, and they did not disappoint!



I posted the project in my store if you are interested.

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Harlem Shake…or not 

Last year our faculty did a flash mob on the last day of school. We were going to do another at the faculty basketball game, but participation was weak so they canceled it. The alternative was that we would all come to school on Wednesday dressed in costume.

We filmed our own school appropriate version of the Harlem Shake to show at the half time of the faculty basketball game. If the kids asked why we were dressed up, we had to tell them to come to the game to find out.

I posted a picture of my outfit on my Facebook page on Wednesday.

I wore a dress that was my mom’s back in the day. I had a hard time leaving the house though. My daughter did not understand why she could not wear a Cinderella dress to school if I was wearing my fancy dress. It was more than her three-year-old mind could understand. In the end she stamped her foot, pointed at me, and told me that when SHE is a grownup she is going to wear THAT dress.
In the end I actually missed the filming. Just before the top secret filming there was white smoke in Rome signaling a new pope. The new pope was going to be named any second. I decided that it just seemed wrong to pass up the pope for the Harlem Shake.

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One to Remember 

I had a former student stop by yesterday to see me. He is now in 10^th grade. It took me a little while, but I remembered his name. We chatted for a while and then as he was leaving I embarrassed him with a story I remembered about him. We’d been reading The Talent Show in our basal that week. The question on the test said something like, “What did Beanie learn about herself after working with Carol Ann?” His answer was, “She learned not to take any krap.” Funny enough he was spot on!

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Be sure to check out Gina’s Birthday Bash next week! 

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Enjoy your weekend and have a happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Reading Temperature Freebie

My student teacher is now at 100%. As a result, I keep volunteering to create things for the class with an ulterior motive. So far it is going well! My students are loving the things I’ve made for them!

Today we needed something to use to assess students’ ability to read temperature. I’ve added this one to my TpT store, so check it out!



I had a few questions about the table I painted with chalkboard paint. I took some pictures this afternoon and I hope to post later in the week with the “how to” and details about how I use it when teaching.

Our Boosterthon pep rally is tomorrow. Jeans and a t-shirt? Yes, please!

Have a great week!

Florida Fall Leaves

One of my schools traditions is the annual Thanksgiving Feast. The entire school sits down at once to eat a turkey dinner. As in everyone. They close the office and all.

The idea is wonderful. In practice, it sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. Thankfully due to some…errr…issues with our cafeteria staff this year’s feast was catered by Boston Market. Yum!

I had my Synonym Turkeys hanging in the hallway, but I wanted to make name cards with my class. We have just finished states of matter, so I channeled my inner Girl Scout and came up with these:



We started with a solid (crayon shavings), sandwiched it between layers of wax paper, and added heat until it melted and became a liquid.



There *might* have been a bit of a boogie involved as we acted out how the particles were moving once heat was added.

I’d planned to make one big one and then cut out smaller ones. It didn’t work that way. I also played with the thickness of the cloth on top and the setting of the iron. I ended up using an old men’s shirt and a medium heat to get the desired effect.

In the end I gave each student a piece of wax paper. They sprinkled a little crayon shavings onto their paper and put a matching square of wax paper on top. They watched as I ironed each side quickly. Once they were done “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” I let them use a Sharpie to draw the outline of the leaf and write their name.



I am thrilled with how they came out. This is as close as we come to fall leaves here in our part of Florida!  Better yet I have enough left overs to take it home to repeat the project with my favorite three-year-old.