First Quarter Recap

Hello everyone!

     This year has been a very crazy school year for me and I feel like I finally have things all under control. I'm also taking grad classes to get my ESOL endorsement, am on the leadership team, the peer tech coach team, and technology grant pilot team. Add in my 10 month old kitten Willow and it's been a crazy school year, lol!
 
 We also have 2 new admin, both of whom I appreciate and like so much! It is so nice to have admin that totally get you and understand what it's like to be a teacher, because they both have been.
 
 I also have one of the largest classes in my school, with 31 kids. This has been a very challenging class and it wasn't until the last week of December that I feel that things have finally settled and we are in a groove. It was probably one of the most stressful beginnings to a school year. So many home life problems and personal problems, and many are so low in skills too. I felt like the first few months were just dealing with personal things with them than education, but I know they were learning things.

So, that's me being honest and real and not glossing it over for the blog and making it look like bloggers live in the picture perfect world. On to what we've been doing so far...

      They've learned place value, multiplication, and division. We did a unit on Oregon Native Americans and a unit on animal adaptations.

Some Native American symbols. 

Students researched Native American clothing and housing and recreated in their own way.

We're wrapping up the Oregon Trail in a few weeks.

Students love realia, so this is the shop I set up as they headed out on the trail.

Students built wagons after researching them and designing them.

    The most exciting thing is we are 1:1 this year with Chromebooks and I have jumped in with both feet technology wise. Google Classroom is a game changer for this class and my saving grace. I've cut down on paper in the classroom so much!

   I plan to do some blog posts on how I use Google Classroom and the Chromebooks in my class. If there's anything specific you want to know, let me know and I'd be happy to do a post on that!