September 29th

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I am so very thankful to work with such a hard working and passionate group of educators. I also need to remind myself every once in awhile to take some time, relax, rest, and just be. I hope you are looking forward to your fall break and that you are taking time for you. The work will always be there, and the emails can wait. I started today by reading and taking a nap and it felt good! I hope you have a wonderful week and that you schedule some time just for you!

Dates and Details

Fit Friday walks
3rd-5th will walk from 8:40-9:05
AM TK/K-2nd will walk from 9:10-9:35
PM K and PM 12:30-12:55

September 29: No Office Day! #noofficeday document- 
October 1: Star Staff meeting - 7:30 AM Please bring your writer's notebook :)
October 2: Tech time Click here to view or add to the agenda! 
October 3: Jog-a-thon Click here for info and the schedule
October 6 & 7: Two day GLAD training- Fassler, Duley, Steinlein, Rohrbacker, Bullock-- subs needed, 4th grade Coloma info night  
October 6- #noofficeday Let me cover your class so you can take a look at classroom community and expectaions (Check out the #noofficeday document)
October 9: Star Academy Parent Ed Night and 5th grade Angel Island info night
October 13-17 Fall Break!
October 20-24: Book Fair!
October 20- #noofficeday Let me cover your class so you can take a look at classroom community and expectations (Check out the #noofficeday document)

October 27-31: Minimum days- parent conference week and Red Ribbon Week!
November 18th: Star Family Book Club-- Kate Messner!

Tech Tips
This past Saturday I attended Brian Briggs' session about Chrome Extensions. So many great ones! Here's his presentation. Congrats to Carly for winning the raffle for Spring CUE!

September 22nd

Pirate Booty!

This past weekend was the first Area 3 Writing Project Super Saturday and the big theme for the day was writing notebooks and getting started. Several of our teachers attended and I look forward to hearing all about their sessions, and our October 1st staff meeting will be all about notebooks! I also ran across this great post by Donalyn Miller-- Channeling Your Inner Nerd: Writing About Your Passions and after some thought I've decided I'm a writing nerd. What are you nerdy about? Leave a comment and write about it!

Dates and Details

Fit Friday walks
3rd-5th will walk from 8:40-9:05
AM TK/K-2nd will walk from 9:10-9:35
PM K and PM 12:30-12:55

September 22nd- Jennifer non-contract day (Petra is teacher in charge) and 3rd grade field trip to Effie Yeaw
#noofficeday document- No Office day will be back next week - so add to the doc if you'd like me to support you, co-teach a lesson, etc. 
September 23: Star Family Book Club 6:30-7:30  Library Mysteries! 
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and Stella Louella and the Runaway Book
September 24: Star Staff meeting 8:00 AM -- it's PIP Wednesday, so we will meet briefly in the lounge to review the planning doc and PIP process, then you'll have time to think about your PIP and make a plan. Here's the planning document http://goo.gl/VYZp7j
September 25: Tech Time Click here to view or add to the agenda! Amy Harris will be here to share how to create e-portfolios with Google sites
September 26th: Jennifer non-contract day (Petra is teacher in charge)
October 1: Star Staff meeting - 7:30 AM Please bring your writer's notebook :)
October 2: Tech time Click here to view or add to the agenda!
October 3: Jog-a-thon Click here for info and the schedule
October 6 & 7: Two day GLAD training- Fassler, Duley, Steinlein, Rohrbacker, Bullock-- subs needed, 4th grade Coloma info night  
October 6- #noofficeday Let me cover your class so you can take a look at classroom community and expectaions (Check out the #noofficeday document)
October 9: Star Academy Parent Ed Night and 5th grade Angel Island info night
October 13-17 Fall Break!
October 20-24: Book Fair!
October 20- #noofficeday Let me cover your class so you can take a look at classroom community and expectations (Check out the #noofficeday document)

October 27-31: Minimum days- parent conference week and Red Ribbon Week!

Tech Tip:
Make a meme! You can create your own memes at http://memegenerator.net/ 
Megan Ellis, an awesome teacher from Palo Alto is a meme goddess. She wrote a great post this past summer about using memes in the classroom that is sure to make you chuckle. Have a great week!

Memes In the Classroom: Why I Let My Snark Flag Fly

September 15th

Pirate Booty
This past weekend Carly and I spent as Civil War soldiers preparing for our 5th grade field trips in December. Here's a little iMovie trailer I made for fun on the ferry back! We had a ton of fun!

Dates and Details

Fit Friday walks
3rd-5th will walk from 8:40-9:05
AM TK/K-2nd will walk from 9:10-9:35
PM K and PM 12:30-12:55

September 15: After school enrichment starts
#noofficeday document- I'll be in classrooms all day - during the unscheduled times I will just be dropping in, and if you've scheduled me to come in I am looking forward to it!
September 18: Tech time 3:15 Click here to view or add to the agenda! This week we'll be having a blog workshop to beautify, build, or add something new to your blog
September 19: Picture Day , no Friday walks 
September 23: Star Family Book Club 6:30-7:30  Library Mysteries! 
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and Stella Louella and the Runaway Book
September 25: Tech Time Click here to view or add to the agenda!
October 1: Star Staff meeting 
October 2: Tech time
October 3: Jog-a-thon Click here for info and the schedule
October 6 & 7: Two day GLAD training- Fassler, Duley, Steinlein, Rohrbacker, Bullock-- subs needed, 4th grade Coloma info night  
October 6- #noofficeday Let me cover your class so you can take a look at classroom community and expectaions (Check out the #noofficeday document)
October 9: Star Academy Parent Ed Night and 5th grade Angel Island info night
October 13-17 Fall Break!
October 20-24: Book Fair!
October 20- #noofficeday Let me cover your class so you can take a look at classroom community and expectaions (Check out the #noofficeday document)

October 27-31: Minimum days- parent conference week and Red Ribbon Week!

Tech Tips
Here is a little more info about Voxer in case you are interested.
Click here to get started with Voxer
Here's a YouTube video:

September 8

Pirate Booty
This week Donalyn Miller's post "No More Language Arts and Crafts" on her Book Whisperer blog really validates the work you all are doing this year to inspire passionate readers! Her post did also make me think that sharing these kinds of posts with our families might also be a good idea- especially if they are wondering if our changes are crazy!  Thank you for all you do!








Dates and Details

Fit Friday walks
3rd-5th will walk from 8:40-9:05
AM TK/K-2nd will walk from 9:10-9:35
PM K and PM 12:30-12:55

September 11: Tech time 3:15 Click here to view or add to the agenda!
September 11: Star Parent Ed Night: Google Apps & the Common Core 6:00 in the library

September 15: After school enrichment starts
September 19: Picture Day , no Friday walks 
September 23: Star Family Book Club 6:30-7:30  Library Mysteries! 
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and Stella Louella and the Runaway Book
September 25: Tech Time
October 1: Star Staff meeting 
October 2: Tech time
October 3: Jog-a-thon
October 6 & 7: Two day GLAD training- Fassler, Duley, Steinlein, Rohrbacker, Bullock-- subs needed
October 9: Star Academy Parent Ed Night
October 13-17 Fall Break!
October 20-24: Book Fair!

October 27-31: Minimum days- parent conference week and Red Ribbon Week!

Tech Tip

Use your phone as a presentation remote? Free app and Chrome Extension= awesome!

Save a Google Spreadsheet as a Doc!

http://practicaledtech.com/2014/09/08/practical-ed-tech-tip-of-the-week-convert-spreadsheet-cells-into-a-document/ 

September 1, 2014

Pirate Booty!

Image credit

I love to read many different blogs, but Katherine Sokolowski's Read. Write. Reflect is definitely one of my favorites. I can't think of a post I didn't love, and she blogs about everything-- books, her family, her dog, and her 5th grade students! Her blog is a great place to find blogging ideas. This week, she wrote a post about purpose and authenticity that I'd like to share with you. Here's a quote from her post:

"This will be a short, but sweet, post. I just wanted to share something that has really been helping me plan in the last few years. Looking at my students’ work this week, I realized I’ve changed a lot from the teacher I was eighteen years ago. Assignments, lessons, anything, have to go through two guiding questions…
What is the purpose of this?
Is this authentic?
When I ask myself those questions, it eliminates a lot of what I used to think was important."  

Click here to read the entire post with pictures. Enjoy!

Dates and Details

Fit Friday walks
3rd-5th will walk from 8:40-9:05
AM TK/K-2nd will walk from 9:10-9:35
PM K and PM 12:30-12:55

September 2: NCS PD day (no school) main campus in the AM beginning at 8 AM, juice and coffee at 7:45. Wear your best aloha wear! Lunch on your own followed by a staff meeting at Star in the afternoon. Click here to view the agenda-- please bring your writer's notebooks! We will meet in Petra's room.
September 3: Star Staff meeting 7:30-8:30 Click here to edit/view agenda location: Julie's room
September 4: Tech time: Education City PD 3:30-4:30
September 11: Star Parent Ed Night: Google Apps & the Common Core

September 15: After school enrichment starts
September 19: Picture Day , no Friday walks 
September 23: Star Family Book Club 6:30-7:30  Library Mysteries! 
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and Stella Louella and the Runaway Book
October 3: Jog-a-thon
October 6 & 7: Two day GLAD training- Fassler, Duley, Steinlein, Rohrbacker, Bullock-- subs needed
October 9: Star Academy Parent Ed Night
October 13-17 Fall Break!
October 20-24: Book Fair!

October 27-31: Minimum days- parent conference week and Red Ribbon Week!

Tech Tips

Lisa Highfill is an amazing educator from the Bay Area and is a fabulous resource for anything and everything tech related, especially YouTube! Here is a link to her channel-- and this week she has featured TONS of resources for Google Sites. Follow her on twitter at https://twitter.com/lhighfill  . Here's a video for changing fonts and themes!