Leavin Me Hangin!

Good morning and happy Saturday!!

Aren’t Saturday mornings just a beautiful thing? I am still curled up under my covers  in my bed relaxing while the sun shines in my window. Could it get any better on a winter day?

I had quite the productive and enjoyable day yesterday! It was long, which made sleeping in that much better for me today! And for those of you wondering, my “sleeping in” was 8:00am !

But, let’s back it up to my day yesterday.

Breakfast:

Yesterday’s breakfast was a mighty good one! I had a left over cookie butter jar, which, in my case, is equal to all the peanut butter jars out there! (I am really strange in that I actually can’t stand peanut butter ) So what did I make? Well! Overnight oats in a jar for sure!

In it went:

• 1/3 cup Quick oats
• 1/3 cup vanilla Almond Milk
• 1/2 Tbsp chia seeds
• 1/2 Tbsp Flax seed meal
• 1/2 banana
• Shake of cinnamon
• 1/2 packet of Stevia raw
• few drops of vanilla

Oh man, was it good! Wish I had an endless supply of Cookie Butter jars with just enough left inside to make this every.single.day. No exaggeration.

I also enjoyed a Chocolate Chip Clif Z Kid Bar yesterday. I mean, who says they are just for kids?! Perfect size and too delicious to pass up!

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I actually subbed in the same classroom that I mentioned had the iPads, which was great because I knew the expectations and the schedule for the day. Made for a fabulous Friday!

Knowing that I was meeting my cousin, Jenn, for dinner last night, and that I also had errands to do in the area, I just headed to the stores after school! Apparently, my phone charger likes to be temperamental and choose when it wants to work, and when it wants to leave me hanging high and dry. Like yesterday. Like when I left for work and saw it had 31% on it still.  Really? So off to the Genius Bar I went!

They are so nice and friendly in there. I told him my problem, and he easily swapped it out and gave me a new one!

Rather than spending my time at the mall and spending money I shouldn’t be, I headed to one of my other favorite places!

Jareds! Aaron bought my engagement ring at Jared’s and we have loved their service ever since. There is one sales associate, Andrea, who is so wonderful to us and always looking out making sure we find what we want and get good deals! We had looked at wedding bands, but had no thoughts of buying it soon. Until Andrea called on Thursday. Turns out my ring was sold out of the showcase and would take 71 days to come in again. What? 71 days?  Well, this girl right here was not waiting any longer! I went in and ordered it! Not having any chance of not coming in! Jared’s also has the best hot chocolate ever. Of course I had to get some!

What better way to drink hot chocolate than with diamonds in the background?? They are a girl’s best friend, after all!

I had a quick trip to Office Depot to make, decided that when I get my own classroom, I  want need this.

Who wouldn’t want it!

 

This led me to my dinner with Jenn! It was such a great time catching up with her! We haven’t had family functions for a while to see each other, and knew it would be some time before we would again, so this was perfect (and fit into our busy lives)! We headed to TGI Friday’s (always a winner in my book!) and I ordered the Cajun Chicken and Shrimp.

Definitely delicious and will be ordered again. Even have leftovers for lunch today!

I came home real fast, changed, and headed out to have a night out with friends! It was a perfect way to end both a busy and fantastic day, and a long week! Now I’m off to complete a workout and enjoy the rest of my day! Hope you do the same! If you got hit with the storm, I really hope you are staying safe and don’t have too much damage!

Make it a great day today, my friends!

Questions:

• Any spectacular plans for your day? Did you get any snow in your area? 

iPad.. in the classroom?

Woo! Already Wednesday afternoon! That has to make someone else feel as fantastic as this girl right here!

Being that I am a substitute teacher, I am usually pretty good at staying up on technology in all of the schools I sub at. We all know technology is advancing, but did you know it is also advancing in the classroom? There is now wayyy more than the awesome chalkboards we had when we were in school!

There are now some classes that have Promethean Boards, or SMART boards; some have ELMO machines, and a LOT of classrooms have receiving laptops for their students.

This is an example of a Promethean board. It connects to your computer and projects onto the board. It is interactive and allows the teacher or student to physically manipulate the material.

An example of a SMARTboard. It is pretty similar to the Promethean board, except that this is not moveable,. It is hooked onto your whiteboard or chalkboard, and leaves less space to write.

An example of the ELMO device. The ELMO is the white object on the stand. You physically put a piece of paper or a book under it, and it projects it to the screen! It is basically a newer version of the overhead, without needing special transperancies to print on!

A version of a laptop I have seen in the classrooms.

Recently, I subbed for a fantastic class. What made it even better was that I was able to see other technology that is out there. Each and every student walked in the door, grabbed an iPad and then went to their desk to start work.

I am fortunate enough and own an iPad myself, but wasn’t sure how it could be used throughout the day. I was able to use my iPad a LOT student teaching in a Learning Support classroom. There are so many marvalous apps out there, and it actually becomes overwhelming trying to learn them all! I have seen some iPads floating around schools, mainly for resources, or for teachers, but this entire classroom had them! One for each student, plus a few extras!

In this particular school, classes team teach and are only separated by a moveable wall; one teaches math and science, and the other LA and social studies. While I was there covering for one teacher, we actually opened the wall separating the classrooms, and taught together.  I was blown away by the iPad use. I honestly thought they would sit on their desks most of the day, but not ever use them, except to maybbeee play an app while waiting on others to finish work.

Nope. Not the case here!

The students literally used the iPads for EVERYTHING! They took notes on it, they wrote paragraphs for the assignment, and they even took their science pre-test on it. Pretty unbelievable. On top of that, they even have an app for spelling. The teacher programmed all the words at the beginning of the year, and each week, they complete 2 activities with the spelling words (in the app), along with a pre-test and post-test ON THE IPAD!

One interesting and fun point of the day was when, suddenly, all the iPad’s made the text message noise (you know the one). So, of course I had to ask what was going on! Turns out, there was a 4.8 magnitude Earthquake in Japan that just hit. Huh? Well, there is an app called “Quake” that beeps every time an earthquake hits in the world! I believe it went off 2 more times throughout the day.

It really is remarkable where our world of technology is going. I am so happy to now know a few more ways to use iPads in the classroom. There may have also been apps I learned about and have been addicted to ever since… 

Questions:

• Do you feel is is right for students to be using iPads in the classroom? Do you use it in your profession?
• What are your favorite apps? I’m always looking for new ones!

Of possible interest:

• http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/
• 100 Ways to Use iPads In Your Classroom

 

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