March Madness is just around the corner.... Book Madness that is!

I ran across this fun activity on Facebook today and thought, Hey, I'm going to do that! It was a post by Nerdy Book Club and a link to MARCH BOOK MADNESS! What a fun way to encourage reading with my 7th graders and get them engaged with new books! Here's the link if you also are interested! It looks like I'm the only school in all of California... or the map isn't updated?!?  Either way, I'm excited to bring this to my kids and my school! Join us, or follow on twitter #2015MBM

Here's the link to the original source of information from Nerdy Book Club!

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln!

As we celebrated Abraham Lincoln's birthday last week, my 7th grade students are spending time delving into his work, speeches, politics and.... best of all..... Chasing Lincoln's Killer!

I've read this book twice, but this time, my third, I'm finding that Laura Keene is just a nuisance and I really can't let it go... She just wanted to, "cradle the dying president's head in her lap?" Seriously? I know it was 1865, but seriously? Not only is this a wildly inappropriate question to ask of Dr. Leale while he's trying to save President Lincoln's life, but what real benefit would it have in saving Lincoln? None. period.

Laura Keene 

When discussing this book with my kids they are appalled that Mary Todd Lincoln would stand for this! Another woman coming into the theater box that night to attempt to comfort HER husband. By the time we all got over this fact and had a good laugh at the time era differences we all agreed Laura Keene was simply looking her her 5 minutes of fame that night in Ford's Theatre. 

My kids are stunned to know that my grandma of 90 years had
to memorize the Gettysburg Address in school AND she can
still recite it today!                                    

In conjunction to reading Chasing Lincoln's Killer, we are also reading background information about Lincoln's politics, the Battle at Gettysburg, his Gettysburg Address is going to be deconstructed and analysis of photos from that era. I'm excited to learn with them and experience the learning process along side of them! All of these activities will lead us into analysis of speeches of the Civil Rights Era and creating and writing arguments of our own!
                                                       

PBIS, Science Camp, SWIS, Dude.Be Nice., Campus clean-up.... Oh, my!!!

This week started like any other normal week. It was packed with parent meetings, IEPs, Battle of the Books and, oh yeah, a day and a half of PBIS workshops! Even though it was insanely busy and I didn't know when I was coming and going, I made it through the week and even accomplished a number of things I wanted to get done!

My TO DO list for this week:

1. Pay for Science Camp...  (one of my many duties as the PTO treasurer).

Santa Cruz Mountains/Big Basin... hiking, camping and writing! 

2. Adopt-a-Zone clean-up with my 7th graders...

While cleaning, the students found "Henry" the slug.
Not our class pet. #noclasspets #yuck

3. Organize our tasks of PBIS....

Organizing tasks for the PBIS team. 

4. Attend SWIS training.... (this looks like it's is everything we have wanted in Referral tracking, btw).

SWIS... so excited to start using this.... 2 weeks and counting!

5. Have a little fun with some of my co-teachers and hopefully inspire students to Dude. Be Nice.

Dude. Be Nice.

Well, that was pretty much my week... Here's looking forward to a less busy week... yeah, right!!!

Today is the day....

Today I woke up and did this:

Yep, I went to bed last night thinking about applying and I woke up and applied! I applied for an Admin Credential Program with Sac State, requested the transcripts and have almost completed the supplemental application! If accepted (why wouldn't this happen, right???) I will start in Fall 2015.

Then I did this:

It was a frigid and foggy 40 degrees, but I managed to get out there and walk 3.6 miles this morning. Once I warmed up, I figured I might as well keep going...

I'm feeling rather accomplished, now it's time to focus and get some work done before it's Monday night and I'm panicking about returning to work! Have a great weekend and enjoy your extra day off, if you get MLK Day off!