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Here is a video about Friday’s transformation of my room into a football field. I was apprehensive that it wasn’t creative enough, but the students loved it and had a great time!

I learned a lot about what to do and not to do, but it was inexpensive, quick, fun, and the students showed their math skills.

Based on some conversations I had over the Summer, here is a quick tutorial/demo on using Pocket to save blog posts and listen to them read to you.

I am so nervous right now!

I just sent an email to the parents of last year’s students. I invited their student to view the first 3 book review videos I have created for them. Let me back up and explain…

I’m not much of a reader – I tend to fall asleep when reading and I always think I have something else I should be doing. It’s not that I have anything against reading, but it just feels so… passive. Well, I know that I am not setting a good example for my students with this. Also, if I can work on becoming a stronger reader, I can more closely relate to my students that struggle also. The other thing is… I’ve been preparing for first grade for most of the past 4 years. My book knowledge has mostly revolved around books for grade-level first graders, not avid fourth-grade readers. I look at the 2-inch thick books they are reading and realize that I have to step up my game.

So I asked my students to put together a list of books they recommend I read. Every student could recommend one book and I would read and review it this Summer.

I’m not sure that I’m going to finish all 24, but I am glad that I am making progress. The problem has been less about the reading and more about recording the videos! I danced around recording them for days before finally just setting up a makeshift “studio” in my office and just recording them.

Honestly, I’m not sure I will accomplish my original goals, but something about this feels right, even if it is a little clunky.

So, here they are. Please be gentle…

During an EdCamp in the Spring, one of the classrooms I visited had a raised kidney table in the corner of the room. The chairs were stools and I absolutely loved it! I wanted to do something like that in my room. I already have a bar stool/chair for myself (I’m painting that later this Summer!),the kidney table, and the risers. So, the only thing I am missing is the stools.

First layer of spray paint. You can’t see the mess I made everywhere!

My goal was to buy/make/obtain four or five stools for class an decorate them in my superhero theme. I had a neighbor moving out and they were throwing away 2 stools which had been on their back porch in the weather – score! I bought one from Craigslist for $8 – more than I wanted to pay, but I was excited to get them done.

They were in pretty decent shape, so I didn’t have to sand or strip them – just a quick wipe with a cloth and I began to paint. I started with Krylon spray paint, which covered the wood nicely, but went everywhere – concrete, trash cans, other legs I didn’t want to paint – it was quite a mess! After a quick run to Michael’s, I had some brushes and bottles of paint in hand and finished painting the legs. It was looking pretty good and I began to get excited.

Tracing and trimming out the foam seats.

But the REAL excitement for me was putting the padding on. It was WAY easier than I thought it would be. First, I went to Walmart and bought fabric squares ($1.25 each) and foam seat cushions (about $6 for 4). The squares were almost the exact size to cover the stools! I traced the foam with a sharpie and cut it. Once that was done, I placed the fabric down with the foam on top, then the stool turned upside down on that. I pulled and stapled opposite corners, then worked my way around the circle pulling the fabric and stapling it.

I am so happy with the results!

I found two more shorter stools at Goodwill for $4 each and am going to be creating a Superman one and another TBD character stool. I’d love to do one with Captain Marvel or Batgirl, but need to find the fabric. Total cost for 5 stools:

• Stools: $16 (2 – Free; 1 – $8; 2 – $8)
• Fabric: $6.25 (5 at $1.25 each)
• Pads: $6
• Paint: $13.74 (3 Spray Cans – $3 each; 6 bottles – 79¢ each)

TOTAL: $41.99 or $8.40 each

I took some time last night and did figure out how to get the Tweets showing up correctly using IFTTT and the Embed Tweet feature. The only thing I don’t like is that is shows retweets and replies. There is a way for me to get rid of them, but I would have to rewrite a bunch of code and I don’t think that is where I should be putting that much energy right now. Maybe another time…

I also added Beaver Builder as the theme, which is my currently preferred WordPress theme for building sites. The site look is definitely not the same as most other teachers, but I’m not really trying to promote anything else. I just want a place that I can force myself to write until I get into writing how-tos for classroom activities, processes, and such.

This wasn’t supposed to be a Sunday night post, but I let the weekend get away from me. So let’s start off with the week – it was quite the learning experience! I spent all week at my Region 13 ESC WeTeach_CS training.  I’ve posted some about this on Twitter, so let’s just say I reviewed a lot of information and am slowly progressing toward my CS certification test, which I’m planning on taking around July 11 in San Marcos. My plan is to complete my online training for the test in the next 2 weeks, which will also complete my PD hours requirement for the CS project. I think my biggest takeaway was the connections I made (or re-made) with some of my colleagues. It’s nice to know that I have more teachers I can reach out to when I hit a wall on Computer Science or Makerspace issues. We also did 2 days of programming on TI Nspire calculators. I’m not sure how I can translate that back to my school, but I’ll pocket it for future use.

I spent most of the weekday evenings exhausted. Two weeks into summer and I’m still struggling with my schedule. I was hoping that having a solid daytime schedule would help things, but I just couldn’t get much done at night. I decided to forgive myself and just go with it. I finished watching a couple of TV shows and focused on rest. My big plan was to get a lot done starting Saturday.

It took a couple of hours, but I finally got focused on Saturday. I decided that since my brain was being indecisive, I would start in the yard – sunshine and manual labor. It turned out to be the exact thing I needed and after mowing both yards and some light tree-trimming, I was on my way. I started checking things off my to-do list, including going to the Dollar Store to finally figure out my classroom activity organization. I think I have a solution, but I want to write it in another post. I walked into the workroom to begin picking everything apart, but only lasted a few minutes before I became unfocused again – I’m still not ready to get organized for next year, so I’ll work on other things in the meantime.

Today is Father’s Day and the boys and I took my dad to Topgolf for a couple of hours. Everyone was either tired or injured so I’m not sure everyone else had a good time, but I definitely did. But immediately after, I needed a nap! After another morning of being outside then resting, I felt ready to get some work done (I’m starting to see a pattern here).

This afternoon I have completed an inventory program in Google Sheets for our Transformation Room inventory. I just sent it to the room manager for review and I’m quite impressed with myself! After we polish it up some, I might write a how-to article on what it does and how it accomplishes everything.

Right now, I feel in the zone on the computer. One of the things bugging me is how tweets I post to the website show links but don’t make them clickable or show photos from the tweets. I think I’m going to try and solve that tonight before writing up my book review notes for the first two books I have read. I’m wasting time not getting the other books read and want to get that project moving!

WOW! What a weekend! After Connor’s graduation ceremony Friday morning, we moved on to dinner and his overnight school lock-in. Already tired, we headed to Dallas to grab dinner at Rodeo Goat (awesome burgers!) and to the American Airlines Center to see Maroon 5. We were within 5 seats of the stage and the boy was so excited. After a short overnight, we returned home to nap and get him packed for New York. He hit the plane about 30 minutes ago.

In the meantime, I’ve been camped at Starbucks working on various Summer projects and waiting for 9:00. I’ve had a great time focusing on family, but I’m looking forward to changing my focus to myself and professional development this week.

Today, I begin my week-long training with WeTeach_CS to ultimately take my Computer Science certification. I’m quite excited to continue my training so I can take my certification test early in July. I’m going to try and post more on Twitter this week so I can rebuild that muscle for the upcoming school year.

I am currently sitting in a Starbucks waiting for my son’s graduation venue to open. I thought I would take a few minutes to cover some odds and ends.

First, I’ve received a few texts and emails from others teachers and administrators this week. They weren’t anything stressful or time-sensitive, but it was nice to have that connection back to the school year. I do feel somewhat isolated and given that this is my first experience with having a “summer off,” it was nice.

My Ron Clark Academy shirt came in! After my trip there last month, I wanted to buy a shirt. But it was a week before payday, and had to order a shirt online after we returned. I’ll post a pic of it up on Twitter sometime soon.

I completed two books on my student reading list: Ready Player One and Holes. I’m planning on recording my reviews for them sometime in the next couple of weeks. I want to do them as video reviews at locations related to the books’ themes. Hopefully Ready Player One will be at an arcade and Holes will be at a zoo in the lizard habitat.

The biggest thing going on this week is my younger son’s graduation from high school, which begins in 2 hours! It’s been a whirlwind of flexible schedules, finals, parties, elementary school walks, cleaning, cooking, and yardwork, His big party was Thursday evening, so today should be much easier to manage. Finishing my first year in education, visiting his old elementary school, and getting him ready for graduation has made me appreciate how far I have come in the last 6 years – starting with the idea of going back to school and culminating in this amazing profession I’m a part of now.

Next week begins my first full round of PD classes that will keep me busy for the next week. More on that starting Monday…

Yesterday, I wrote about my organizing my personal life and making the transition to my first Summer break as a teacher. Today, I want to cover my professional goals.

Organizing My Classroom Curriculum – This is probably my most daunting task for the Summer. I spent most of the last year using items and then throwing them in a pile thinking that I would organize them later. Later is here now and it’s time to pay the check. I have also inherited a bunch of amazing activities from another teacher and need to go through those items and integrate them where I want.

My current plan is to use the TEKS to organize everything. I’m not ready to write about my challenges from the past school year yet, but a physical touchstone regarding the TEKS should help me be more successful this year.

I have been looking for an organization system for every activity and I love this one, but it requires a lot of expensive materials to implement. Instead of using project cases, I’ll just start with a few plastic document folders and see if it gets me close to what I ultimately want.

The other challenge is organizing Google Drive. I’ve decided this is just not going to happen this Summer. Given Google’s detailed search capabilities, I’m just going to wait until I’m ready to go paperless, which is a few years down the road.

Redecorating My Classroom – I limped through the year with a hodge-podge of decorations, but was never really happy with how the room looked even though it was functional. Also, there were a few items I tried that just didn’t click with me and the students such as personal weekly goals. I threw almost every idea I had into the room and I want to cut back and refocus.

Professional Development – I’m currently signed up for about 140 hours before the next school year. I’m doing math, science, social studies, and computer science. Some friends and colleagues have warned me that I may be taking on too much, but almost all of it relates directly to my classroom, so I think it will help me be less stressed during the school year.

I’m making my first transition from the classroom to Summer right now and I am struggling. Don’t get me wrong, I have a bunch to do – but without a specific daily routine, I am not getting as much done as I want to. While I work on a way to get myself back on track, I thought I would get everything written down. This is part 1 of 2.

Here’s a breakdown of my personal Summer goals and activities:

High School Graduation – My younger son is graduating from high school this Friday (YIKES!) and I am hosting the graduation party Thursday night. I have a bunch of cleaning to do, including all of the cleaning I neglected to survive my first year of teaching. Also, I want to get the outside of the house cleaned up, including trimming bushes, mowing, and trimming trees. Thursday will be spent cooking and decorating the house, so I have today and tomorrow to get this done. On top of that, I am taking him to Dallas for a concert on Saturday and putting him on a plane to New York Monday, which means packing, printing, and planning. The great thing about teaching is I have this week to focus on him 100%, which means I can not only get everything done (hopefully), but also I can enjoy my time with him. I know things are going to change for him after he returns for New York and prepares for college, so I want to enjoy this time while I can.

Personal Development – I have spent the last 7 years collecting articles, pins, favorites, etc. to read, review, and integrate into my new career and I want to at least start picking through them. It’s on my to-do list. I also want to start writing and reading more. This blog will hopefully help with the writing. The reading is coming from another source, which I’ll write about at another time.