2020 Review in Books

Let's be honest, no one wants to write about their 2020. One of my goals for this year was to read more for pleasure. (aka non-educational books) That happens to be one of the goals that I actually accomplished!

So instead of writing about my year, I decided to share all of the books that I read.

All images link to the book on Amazon.

 

   

  

 

It is always fun to me to look back at the books I have read throughout the year. I will admit it has been a LONG time since I have read this many, but it is almost like a journey through the year.

I know many people are happy to see 2020 come to an end. No matter what this year brought you, I hope that 2021 brings you everything you hope for and more!

Happy New Year! (PS - what books should I read this year??)

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School Supply Labels

 I have used a version of these school supplies in my classroom, but wanted to recreate them based on the needs of the different teachers since some of us are teaching virtually, some are doing a hybrid setup, and some are back in the classroom full time.

This Google Slides presentation has school supply icons so that you can easily let students know which supplies are needed to complete an activity.

I have included 3 sets. The first set is the smaller icons that can easily be copy and pasted into a digital platform. This could be putting them at the top of an assignment, posting them in Google Classroom, or putting them on a slide that can be projected virtually or in a classroom.

The second set is the icon placed in a circle with the icon name. This is more ideal for the classroom. They can easily be printed on regular computer paper or card stock and laminated to be displayed in a classroom when students need materials for an activity.

The third set is similar to the second set, but it does not contain the circle or words, it is just a larger version of the icon that can be printed and cut out in the shape of the icon. I would print on card stock or computer paper and laminate for durability.

If you want to be able to edit this presentation to fit the needs of your classroom (ie. adjust sizes, change font, add different icons, etc.), then click on File, then Make a copy to get your own copy that you have editing rights to.

Click here to get your copy!

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Bittersweet Christmas

First of all, to my readers who are currently celebrating one of the winter holidays, I hope you are having a Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, or Happy Kwanzaa.

This Christmas is a little bittersweet for me. Ever since I was a little kid, I always spent Christmas with my extended family. Large gatherings with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Once I started dating my now husband, we also continued this tradition. We rotate one year with his family in PA and one year in NC with my family. Obviously this year is going to be different. No traveling to be with family. No large gatherings.

At first, I was upset. I absolutely LOVE spending this season with family. Then I realized that this year has been a year of appreciating the small things. Now, instead of being upset, I am appreciating our little family and the fact that this is the first time we will ever spend Christmas in our own house. Our kids are currently 6 and 3, so they are such a fun age with the Christmas traditions.

We are going to bake cookies, watch movies, eat popcorn, go look at Christmas lights, cook a delicious Christmas dinner, and of course what the kids are most excited about... open presents. It will be nice to go to sleep in our own beds, stay in pajamas all day, and the kids can play with their new stuff rather than packing everything up in the car to drive home.

So as I continue to appreciate the little things this year, I hope that you also are able to celebrate this holiday season in some way.

ALSO, to all my fellow educators out there. Please make sure you are taking some time for yourself this winter break. Keep the computer closed. Those emails, grades, plans, etc. will all be waiting for you on January 4. 

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Bulletin Board Letters using Google Slides

I found that I could never find the bulletin board letters I wanted in the store or I would find some I like but there was never enough of the letters that I needed. I also am one of the few teachers maybe that doesn't own a Cricut machine.

So I am going to show you an EASY way to make bulletin board letters quickly using Google Slides.

First you need to change the size of the slides in Google Slides:

In order to make the letters be empty or white on the inside you need to use Word Art:

I continue the process above until I have each of the letters in the alphabet. Once all of the letters are done, it is super easy to go back and change them to different fonts. You can always drag and drop from the corners to change the size of the letters.

Once you have created slides for the entire alphabet, the easiest thing to do to make a new set of a different font, is to make a copy of the presentation and then click on each letter and change it to the new font. Google has many fonts available. When you click on the font name and the drop down box appears, click where it says More Fonts. You can filter the fonts by display, which will show you the best fonts for this purpose.

I keep the Google presentation as a master. When I want to use the letters to make a bulletin board, I will create a new presentation and copy and paste the letters I need. This also allows me to resize the letters based on my needs for that specific board.

Print the letters on colorful paper (Astrobrights is my favorite), cut them out, and staple them up! I prefer not to waste time laminating them because I often change my boards from year to year.

Click here for a free copy of the Boogaloo Font letters

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Setting Boundaries (Again)

Well this blog post didn't age well...

In December I wrote a blog post about how I was learning to say no. It was making my life much less stressful by putting myself first, especially at work. I had learned that I can say no to something and life will go on.

A couple of weeks ago I came across a book called Boundaries on Amazon Prime. I added it to my library and started reading it as I finished my previous book. (One of my 2020 goals is to read more for pleasure.)

Amazon

This book confirmed everything I had been feeling this school year. I was learning to set boundaries in my work life. I was learning that when you set a boundary, not everyone is going to like it, but if they truly respect your relationship they will understand.

This book touches on more than just work. It focused on friends, family, children, significant others, and more. While I was working on setting my boundaries at work, this helped me also look at all aspects of my life and where else I needed to work on boundaries.

I am starting 2020 off much happier than I was about 5 months ago and I can’t wait to see what the rest of this year brings!

Marshmallows and Toothpicks Activity

I've got a super quick and easy activity to do with your young kids this week.

I created an activity for my daughter that helps her practice her letters, while also allowing her to use her hands to keep her busy. This idea was thought of when making all of those busy boxes (see previous post) a month ago.

Each slide shows how to create the shape or letter using toothpicks and marshmallows. Make sure to have a conversation about how we can create all of the letters with the toothpicks, but the shapes with curves are not going to look exactly the same since we are using straight toothpicks.

I also allowed my daughter to explore with the toothpicks and marshmallows. She enjoyed creating different towers and designs using the materials.

It kept her busy and that was the whole goal!

Click here to get your copy of the presentation.

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You Do YOU

When I first started blogging, I wasn't sure of my purpose. I knew that I wanted to share my resources and my story, but I would get disappointed when only 1 or 2 people would view a blog post.

Then I stopped myself and said, wait a minute... why do I care about how many views I get?? I'm not trying to become some social media influencer. I had to check myself and think why I really was doing this blog. Deep down I realized that I am doing this for ME!

I use this blog as a way to clear my thoughts. I use this as a way to share my resources, even if it is with only one other person. I use this as a portfolio where I can quickly find those resources that I felt confident enough to share with the public. It all boils down to me. I am doing this for me.

The reason I wanted to write about this is because I see SO many different personalities on social media, especially Twitter. It is kind of scary that social media has become a place where people feel they can bully others because they are hidden behind a screen. It has also become a place where people feel they can't have different opinions than others. I'm all about standing up for something you believe in, but attacking someone just because their opinion is different than yours is just mean.

The sad thing is that many of the people I follow on Twitter are teachers or in the education world, where we teach children to show respect towards others or teach them how to respectfully disagree, but then the ADULTS get on social media and do the complete opposite of what they teach in the classroom.

I was always taught that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. There are some people that need to learn how to scroll past things they don't like or disagree with or even just click that lovely UNFOLLOW button.

When it comes to the social media world, you need to think of your purpose. 

Maybe you do want to become a social media influencer and gain a large following, that's awesome. You do you.

Maybe you want to join just to follow other people and don't feel like posting. That's cool. You do you.

Maybe you want to just post every now and then. That's great. You do you.

Just remember. it doesn't matter what ANYONE else thinks about you. All you need to worry about is YOURSELF.

You do YOU!

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Nearpod, Camp Engage Fall Notes

Over the summer I signed up for the Camp Engage event put on by Nearpod. At the time I wasn't sure which platform I was going to use for my interactive presentations and even throughout the school year I have gone back and forth some, but after attending the Camp Engage Fall event I am now sticking with Nearpod.

Nearpod has some great new updates:

• interactive videos (choose from videos already in the Nearpod library, find a video on YouTube or upload one from your computer); add in some questions and now your video has built in check points
• Microsoft Immersive Reader (ability to read and interact with raw text on the slides)
• partnerships (it seems there are new partners every day bringing even more engaging content to Nearpod); my new favorite is Calm, where you can build in some much needed mindfulness activities as we continue this journey of virtual learning

I knew about Immersive Reader as it is popping up in many technology tools now, but the session by Angie Bakke showed me all of the amazing things it can do!

• it reads raw text (this means it needs to be words typed on the slide)
• it highlights the words as it reads them
• you can change the pace of how it is read
• select only one line of text highlighted at a time
• select parts of speech (for example, you can choose for all adjectives to be labeled in blue)
• translate words into over 60 languages!

In Julie Cobb's session and Tiffanye McCoy-Thomas's session, I learned about some ways to take Nearpod to the next level in my instruction.

• start your lesson with some type of drawing slide (for example, draw a face of how you are feeling). This gives students something to do as you are waiting for others to join your lesson
• make the objective slide interactive (asks students to highlights important words that they are unfamiliar with). This can lead to a great discussion about academic vocabulary that may show up during the lesson
• if you have an website or some resource you want students to use while answering some of the interactive question types, add it with the directions at the top of the slide

One of the struggles that I have been having with Nearpod in my whole group sessions, is that some of my students are able to work on their own to complete the activity after the mini-lesson, while some students need to continue working together as a whole group. I wish there was an ability to seamlessly switch from instructor-paced to student-paced in the middle of the lesson. However, Phil Wagener shared a great work around for this in his session.

I created a new Nearpod lesson with the independent activity. I set it up as student-paced and then copied the link. I then created a Google Presentation slide with 2 options. Stay and work on the activity together with the teacher (this option requires the students to just stay where they are) or they can choose to work on the activity by themselves. If students want to choose this option then they click on the image, which takes them to the student-paced version. In my original Nearpod lesson that I used for my mini-lesson, I created a Web Content slide. The link I used goes directly to the Google Presentation slide that I just mentioned. This allows students to easily click on the Nearpod link without having to go back to Google Classroom or enter a new code, etc.

I love learning new things about the technology I already know and am using. I hope that Nearpod continues to grow and adapt to our ever-changing needs, as well as, continue to host these amazing, relevant, and FREE professional development opportunities for teachers.

If you want to check out one of my interactive Nearpod lessons click this link:

https://share.nearpod.com/Wq8O9460xbb 

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Learning to Say No... again.

This is another one of my previous blogs that I wanted to bring back. Little did I know when I wrote this in December 2019 just how much our lives would change the next year. I knew I had an issue with anxiety before, but after dealing with the extra stress that 2020 has brought on I knew I needed to get help.

At the beginning of this year, I was starting to be the yes girl again (see the previous blog post below), but I knew for my mental health that I needed to say no. Saying no to your principal is not always the easiest, but I explained what I was going through at home. I was working from home while trying to help my daughter navigate virtual kindergarten. It was a lot. I needed to say no to some things, so that I could put a focus on what was important. This didn't mean I couldn't help others out, I just had to be selective about what I could and couldn't do.

Flash forward a month and I felt like I was finally getting in the groove with virtual learning. I was planning ahead, I was staying on top of my grading, things seemed to be going well, but I still did not feel like myself. I felt exhausted. I noticed that my hair was thinning. I just felt off.

Side note - I am one of the worst at going to the doctor. I usually only go when I am sick, but I decided that it was time. I went in for a routine physical and when the doctor asked me to tell her what was going on I  broke down and started to cry. I had let everything build up inside of me and my body just couldn't hold it in any longer. After talking for awhile, we decided to try some medication and therapy. I have to admit I was a little nervous about medication. I always felt this stigma around anxiety medication, but my best friend who is a pharmacist and my doctor helped explain it to me. They both said, look the medication is just going to help your brain function the way it is supposed to. Mental health should be looked at as an illness and we often use medicine to treat illnesses.

I am happy to admit that I have been taking my medications for 3 weeks now, and I feel absolutely great. I feel normal again. There are still some days that are worse than others, but I feel like I can function. I'm not exhausted all the time. I'm not getting frustrated with my daughter or husband or even my students. I still have a ways to go and unfortunately the stress of the world is not going away any time soon, but it is a step in the right direction. I'm working on becoming the best version of myself again and if my body needs medication to get me there then that is what I am going to do.

Original Post (December 4, 2019):

I had to take a break from posting for a couple of weeks. Honestly, I’ve tried to start this blog post a couple of times now and just wasn’t sure if I should post it or not.

Life has been tough. Work is stressful. Coming home and trying to take care of kids and a house after work pushes me over the top some days.

Last year I was the yes girl. I was the person at work that people would come to if they had problems, needed to ask a question, wanted to talk, etc. I was the person that if you needed something I was going to be there for you or at least point you in the right direction. It gets exhausting. Who is my yes person? Who can I go to with my problems?

I decided that this year I was going to put the word no into my vocabulary. When the committees list came out at the beginning of the year... I signed up for one. When people had questions, I would point them to the right person rather than trying to solve everyone’s problems.

I realized that I was actually doing me at school. I haven’t been behind on my grading. I’ve been planning things a week at a time and not having to run to the copier every single morning.

Then I realized there was someone that needed my help. So I started being a problem solver again. I started saying yes more. To be honest, I didn’t like it. I wasn’t happy again.

Two weeks ago I drove to work (about 45 minutes) and didn’t even remember the drive. I pulled into the parking lot and literally didn’t know how I got there. I didn’t feel right. But I went inside and started my day. All morning I just didn’t feel right. I went through the day as I would any other day, but something was off.

Around lunchtime I looked at my watch and realized my problem. My resting heart rate was 85. That was pretty much the lowest it had been day. I knew right away my blood pressure was up. I probably should have gone to the nurse to have it checked, but I think I didn’t want to know.

I made it to the end of the day. I called my mom on the way home like I always do and just talked. I realized that I needed to take care of myself. I was letting anxiety and stress get the best of me.

I realized that it’s not selfish to say no. We have to start worrying about ourselves first. We have to take care of ourselves so that we can be the best version of us for our friends, family, coworkers, and in my case my students.

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Ambiguous Vowel Digital Activities

I've got another word work activity ready to go. These two activities practice the ambiguous vowel patterns. I enjoyed making the basketball theme on a previous activity, so these two follow the same setup, just using a soccer theme instead.

One activity focuses on the vowel patterns: aw, au, al, and ou. 

The other one focuses on the vowel patterns: oi, oy, oo, ou, and ow.

This set of activities have a soccer theme, where students will pick a soccer on the main slide. It will take them to a new slide with an image. Students must identify which vowel pattern the word in the image follows.

If the student gets the vowel pattern correct, they add 1 point to their score. Students will double-click on the scoreboard and change the number. Each correct answer is worth 1 point. Students can choose to play until someone gets to 5-8 points. There are 16 slides with images in each of the activities. The last slide contains an answer key in case the students are unsure of what an image is or what the spelling pattern is for a word.

Here are some sample images:

Get your free copy here:

Vowel Pattern Soccer Activity - oi, oy, oo, ou, ow

Vowel Pattern Soccer Activity - aw, au, al, ou

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Twitter: @apotter730

Thankful.

This year has been weird. We are going through something that I never thought we would go through in our lifetime, but it has been a time to truly reflect and be thankful. I know some people may not feel this way, because this year has taken A LOT from us. People have lost loved ones, jobs, homes, and a daily life that we were used to.

For me, though, I've used this month to sit back and be thankful.

I am thankful for family. I am lucky that Covid has not affect my family personally. We have been able to have our parents come to visit at different times in a safe manner. We were able to have our family beach trip in August. In a year where many of our trips have been canceled, being able to safely spend time with family was such a blessing.

I am thankful that I have a job where I can safely work at home, while also helping my daughter attend kindergarten in a virtual setting. I am happy with the way my county has handled the idea of virtual learning and tried to prepare us teachers as best as they could for charting this unknown territory. I am also thankful for my husband's job. Working in a restaurant throughout this pandemic has not been easy for some, but his company really created a good path for them to navigate while making sure to take care of their people.

I am thankful for my kids, who have taught me a lot of patience this year. There have been many struggles while being stuck at home with them for the past 8 months. But we have learned to appreciate all of this extra time together.

I am thankful for friends, especially those who I can call up to talk at any time of the day. Not being able to visit and be with friends as often as we normally would has been hard. I enjoy being social, I enjoy being able to get together for happy hours, dinner, fire pits and this year it has been really tough to do that. So being able to pick up the phone and chat is always a great thing.

I truly hope that things start to turn around for the better. This year has been full of ups and downs. While some may find it hard to be thankful for anything, we must continue to look forward. Things will get better. Keep your head up. Stay safe. Wear a mask.

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Instagram: @mrspotterstyle

Twitter: @apotter730

Technology Spotlight: Jamboard

I really wanted to jump on the Jamboard bandwagon sooner, but I needed some time to see how it could truly fit into my virtual learning world. Oh how I wish I had started using it sooner.

My favorite thing to use it for is my small group sessions. I love that I can preassign them each a slide and then quickly scan back and forth between their frames to monitor what they are doing. Here are some examples so far:

Use the grid background to practice area model for multiplication:

Drag and drop the fractions on the train cars to match equivalent fractions.

Review adding fractions with the same denominator.

Review decimal place value.

As you can see, I've started off pretty simple/basic. I have seen some great templates already created out there!

Click here to see my presentation on the basics of Jamboard to learn more about it.

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Instagram: @mrspotterstyle

Twitter: @apotter730