I'm back!

So, last year was the longest and shortest year all packed into one! My change in district, school, and grade levels left me very busy playing catch-up all year, but I am ready to hit this year and begin sharing my new adventure with you.

Here is my first activity. My district offers a summer 'Tech Tune-up' course. One of the expectations was to use a new tech tool to tell about your summer or introduce yourself. I chose to use Adobe Spark. It is online presentation tool. It allows you to create one page, multi-page, or video presentations. It is kind of a mix of Haiku Deck and Animoto (if you are familiar with those tools) all wrapped into one. Adobe Spark is fairly easy to navigate once you understand what media you can add to the different options (Post, Page, or Video).

Here is my final creation about my summer!

Summer Fun 2016

It is time...

I have been putting off writing this post for about a month now, but with school starting within the week, I had to do it. 

It couldn’t wait. As school staff are getting back together, the texts are starting to roll in.

This was the hardest thing to put into words. 

But it is time.

After many wonderful years with Princeton City Schools, I have decided to take on a new challenge. You can’t put 16 years of teaching experiences into a post...the laughs, the tears, the successes, and yes, the failures too.

So I’m going to make it short and sweet! 

• I treasure each child I had the honor of teaching more than you will ever know. 
• I respect the parents I had the pleasure of working with who trusted me day in and day out with their precious cargo. 
• I value the staff who I had the privilege of working with each day as well as laughing, crying, and playing some competitive boardgames every now and then. 

I will miss you all. 

Please keep in touch and know that I am only an email or a text away if you need anything. Seriously, if you need anything! (Give me a couple weeks to get acclimated to my new position though! *laugh*)

Thank you Princeton! The Vikings will always hold a special place in my heart!

Love,

Melanie


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For those of you wondering, I am going to continue to blog about my new experiences. Stay tuned!

Animal Projects

End of the year is always a busy time. For the first graders, this always means animal project time!!

Here are a couple projects from our first graders.

Isaiah did his project on the Great White Shark. Here is the 'glog' or online, interactive poster he helped create using Glogster EDU.

Dan (who is has challenges for speaking for long periods of time) typed his project, then helped create his own voki to give his animal project speech on Cheetah's. He was very particular about the hair and skin color, sunglasses, and the black and orange jersey top. We struggled with getting the right voice as his first choice, the Daniel voice, had an English accent which did NOT make him happy! He setting on the James voice.

Sharing the LOVE!

My starry night creation

About a month ago, I attended a painting night for the alumnae of my high school. It was a fundraiser for an organization that brings art to people who would not ordinarily have access to such activities. The person "instructing" us, Sarah, runs the organization called Art For All People. (If you have a minute or two, please check out the great work that her organization does.) She took us step by step through the process of creating our own painting. Although I was nervous and very unsure of my ability to follow her simple directions, I was impressed with the outcome. The subtle similarities and delicate differences in each of the canvases were pretty amazing. I was brave enough to share my painting (Look to the right!) and I hope my friend doesn't mind me sharing her work as well! (Scroll down to the bottom for our picture. I will also share my second painting completed through a fundraiser for this organization.)

I was inspired by her story and what her organization does. My creative spirit was sparked and the students (and you) reaped the benefits!! I hoped you enjoyed our creations to speed a little LOVE at Valentine's Day!

Here are a couple examples of the Valentine's Day paintings that the students did. The students painted with minimal assistance. (We were using acrylic paints so we offered a little help to keep everyone clean.) The students chose either the word LOVE or a heart shape as their main focus. The word or shape was "written" with painters tape. The students used white, purple, and white to cover the canvas with valentine colors.

To add some color contrast, a small red heart decoration was added as well the work love to the heart painting. (Mrs. B added this detailing to complete the picture.)

The students LOVED the activity and many thought they were 'real artists' because they were using a paint pallet and canvas. We hope you enjoy our online gallery!

Here was my second painting attempt. I am pretty pleased with this one, but I REALLY love the starry night one. I proudly display the starry night painting in the classroom. I hope that you display your child's LOVE painting with pride as well!

~Melanie

Two of the over 50 attendees at the Starry painting night!

Super Bowl and New Year's Resolutions

I usually don't do too much with Super Bowl activities in the classroom, but this year News2You dedicated a paper to the Super Bowl. We decided to use that as a basis for a lesson on voting, learning a little about football, and of course, making a Super Bowl snack. 

The classroom voted 12 to 1 for the Seahawks to win. As we know, that didn't go so well. Here are a couple pictures of our Super Bowl snack. We made fruit dip (following the recipe from News2You….We added cinnamon to the recipe you will find through the link.) 

We loved the fruit dip and apples!

Some of us liked the fruit dip MORE than the apples!

As part of our All About Me lesson, the students made New Year's resolutions about something they would like to learn how to do 'all by myself'. Here are a couple examples of our writing activity and the resolutions the students chose.

Until next time….