ETA Hand2Mind

You Can Count on Rekenreks

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Summer... is so awesome!

Proud mama moment....has nothing to do with education (in the normal sense).......

Well, my kids have already "wrapped" on their first summer camp for this summer (it was acting camp).  They were able to do the Youth Actors Experience with Ron Weisberg at the JCC in ABQ.  My oldest did it last year too, but with different teachers.  This year was great.  Ron was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed themselves.  The extra fun part, they will screen the short movie created at the camp at the AFME (Albuquerque Film and Music Experience) on Saturday, June 6th.  If you live in the area and want to go enjoy some of the fun that AFME offers, click below.
AFME
There will be a number of big stars in attendance.  Should be fun.

Gabrielle (on the right) with a dear friend and actress also, Addison 
 The kids at the Wrap Party
 Gabrielle and Marky, both were in Kervanos (student film to premiere soon)
Click the link above to see the trailer.  She had a good time working with him again at camp.
From left to right: Audrianna (my youngest..with cookies), Gabrielle (my oldest) and 
Ron Weisberg (director and teacher)
Ok, I'll stop talking about my kids now.  :)

Next....
On to education, sort of, classroom stuff.  Sooo, I am moving classrooms this year.  All my stuff had to be moved in about a day.  Several others in the school were doing the same thing.  So, we all jumped in to help each other, as did many of our own children.  It was great.  The rooms got moved so much faster with all the help.  BUT, here is what my new room looked like right after my stuff got moved.


Yikes, right?!?!

I have been working on it for about 4 days now.  I have moved furniture, cleaned out cabinets and begun organizing in a way that works for me.  I am close to finished with it, in the means of summer storage, not set for the school year though.

I will show after pics when I get there.  Probably in about a month!!!!  I hope to get some paper up on the walls so I can quickly put up bulletin boards for the year in late July.  Soooo much to do.  I have a list going, but it keeps getting longer, not shorter.  Anyone else have that happen?

Saturday, May 23, 2015

5 for the Summer!

fiveforfriday2_thumb3_thumb4  Click the link to join.

Divider-1_thumb8
SCHOOL IS DONE!  I get to be with my daughters and husband without looming deadlines, paperwork, computer work, etc, etc.  I am soooo tired.  We had planned on going camping this long weekend, but I asked my hubby if he minded that we just stay home and sleep....all weekend.  He is so awesome- he totally understood.  We are lucky to have a hot tub in our backyard, so that's where I will be stationed for several hours this weekend.  I'll have to figure out a cute drink to have while I am in it.  I don't drink alcohol, but like sweet drinks...Pinterest here I come.  We worked really hard on our backyard last summer and created this....

Unfortunately, right now you can't tell how hard we worked because it is completely overgrown with weeds EVERYWHERE!!  It's been raining soooo much this month.  We are in the high desert outside the ABQ area in NM and this has been a very weird weather month.  It's not even very warm yet!

Divider-2_thumb3
Last summer, I hosted a 4 week summer organization challenge on my blog.  It was super helpful for me.  I will be doing it again this summer, but not positive of the start date.  It will count as my spring cleaning this year, since I never had time for it.


Divider-3_thumb3
These 2 crazy girls and my hubby and I plan on doing lots of camping and driving around in the forest on 4 wheelers!  I can't wait to get started.
 

Also, I think the girls will be in some filming this summer.  We have already gotten a few calls that we couldn't do since the girls were still in school.  I am hoping to be able to watch them do their thing!  They are so good at acting and love it so much.  

Divider-4_thumb3
I have plans to go through ALL of my school stuff and get rid of a ton of things.  I also want to go through and label my entire library of personal books.  I have soooo many books, so that might take awhile.  Sigh.  I have taught several different grade levels and I have kept boxes, tubs, and more boxes on everything.  It's time to purge.  
Divider-5_thumb3
I would really like to go on some runs with my kids.  I NEED the exercise.  I basically haven't exercised all school year.  It was a super busy year with no sleep, no family time, and no calm down time.  So, I need to get my body, brain, and I suppose soul back on track.  Yoga, running/walking, stretching, and turning of all screens is going to be necessary. 

I hope your summer vacation starts soon too.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

May Currently '15

Oh my goodness, I am thinking of my to do list right now....

To complete this next week:
*STEM Festival giant class project that kids will present- still need to do most of it (it's on the 13th!)
*DIBELS testing for 1/2 of my class, hey I have 1/2 already done...that's good right?!?!
*Complete placement cards to help each student find the right fit with next year's teacher
*Upload various papers to our district website (I've never done this, so who knows how long the papers will take to complete.  I don't think the uploading will be long though.)
*Plan for the next 3 weeks
*Video students for the final installment of our STEM party videos
*Put said video together and get hubby to put the background in for me over the green screen
*Finish gathering materials and helpers for our final field trip on Tuesday (it's a fishing field trip and requires a lot of bits and pieces)
*Finish getting all the info for the talent show kids I have been assigned- help as needed to prep for the show THIS Friday
*Put the clay projects for our Mother's Day presents of our entire grade level plus my class (I have 2 grade levels in my class) into the kiln (63ish projects) on Tuesday for firing (I will have a parent helping me for this one)
*Friday, take out all the projects from the kiln (with fingers crossed) to pass out to the students to take home
*Figure out how I will wrap the presents if we are only getting them out of the kiln on Friday!!!!  It will have to be super easy- like a bag, but it will also need to be protected so it doesn't break.  Who knows where to find a mountain of bubble wrap????

Oh boy.  I am tired.

Well, here is the Currently from Farley's site.

Well, wish me luck that I get it all done.