Five for Friday

1

Thursday night was the VIP reception at the Marzano Conference. Unlike the presenters reception I was actually invited and dressed appropriately this time. (Click here for that story)

We expected a large group of teachers to be recognized. It turns out that the team of five from our school were the only five teachers able to attend the reception. (The other team was from Arizona and did not travel.)



We got autographed books/certificates and mingled with the real VIPs. It was a surprisingly fun evening. We met a principal from Australia, talked movies with Bob Marzano, and were treated like stars.

2

Two of the teachers from our group have videos currently being used for LSI training. We did not know that until the trip. The two teachers kept getting stopped and called by name by people who had watched their video in training sessions. It was like walking around with movie stars.

LSI has lots of video recorded, but we didn’t know what it was being used for until now. (Other than the research study.) There were pictures of our kids in the promotional catalog and clips from our classrooms on the video montage at the end of the conference.

3

My daughter told everyone that I was going out of town for a concert. She is only three. I had to convince her day care teachers that a concert would be more fun, but it was really a conference for work!

4

I am still researching technology for the STEAM lab next year. A lot of the companies I am looking at will be at ISTE 2013 in San Antonio next week. I would LOVE to be there myself! I have a little bit of conference envy. I’m tempted to ask if the school would pay for a virtual attendance registration. 

5

I’ve already reached that point in the summer where I am panicked that summer is moving by too quickly! There is still so much I want to do! I’m going to make a summer bucket list tomorrow. What are you hoping to do this summer?

Unpacking

About three weeks ago I was asked to go to Orlando for a Common Core institute. After getting my husband to agree to play Mr. Mom while I am away, reservations were made. It wasn’t until I went to submit my sub request that I realized that the Orlando trip was directly after the only two personal days I plan to take this year.

Meaning I would be away for SIX days straight.

Meaning I had to write SIX DAYS worth of sub plans.

Then on the day before we left for our fun little family cruise the school was on lockdown for SIX hours due to an armed robbery on the university campus. My class was on our way back from a field trip at the time so we had turn around and spend the afternoon at the park.

I have the BEST parents in my class this year. I made one phone call and had 5 parents there. They brought the kids pizza and drinks. My darlings declared it was the best day ever and didn’t even seem bothered about that fact that we were at the park until 4pm.

While all ended without incident and we had a great time at the park, it meant I had no time to a) write my sub plans and b) get my hair cut. It pained me to cancel that appointment!

Anyway….

I had a great time on the cruise. I was nervous about cruising with the kids, but it was fantastic! We did my two favorite things: sleep and eat!

As soon as I got back I repacked a bag and headed off to Orlando. Tomorrow is day three of the 4 day institute. So far we’ve had a very disappointing ELA presenter and a pretty good math presenter. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes! We hope to be unpacking some standards – hence the title of the blog.

I miss my family terribly, but I have gotten SO much work done! I posted two more items to my TpT store (Student Self Reflection Cards and a Pirate Map Activity) and have one more in the works.  I have wanted to get that done for weeks!

I am honored to be nominated for a Liebster award by the lovely Jessica at Wild About Firsties, but that will have to be another post. I have to go convince myself to grade papers tonight before I go to bed!