Happy 24th

Pioneer Day is one of my favorite holidays. I love the parade, the time with family, and the fireworks. It always makes me feel so patriotic and thankful. There are so many people who have helped to pave the way for me to enjoy all the freedoms that I enjoy each day.

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

Finishing Up

As we come to a close on this years summer semester I think about the work we have all done and how much we have all learned. I took 2 classes this summer session and although I have learned a ton I am excited to finish things up.

This session I took the technology class that we are all taking which really opened my eyes to the world and possiblities with technology in education. I also took 6560 which looked at the businsess side of education and how to work with outside community members.

What do you all think of your classes so far that you have taken. What have you enjoyed the most?

Water sports

So this week we are on vacation in Bear Lake.  We have been having a lot of fun playing in the water. There has been a lot of conversation amongt family and friends about which water sports are the most fun. We have running list. I would love to hear which ones are your favorite. 
Water ski
Wake board
Knee board
Scurf
Air chair
Barefoot
Tube
Water winnie

I have 2 favorite ways to play in the water. I love to slalom ski and I love to play on the water wennie. My brother loves to barefoot. To me that is way to hard on the body. What do you all think?

USA Women's Soccer

I had the opportunity to watch the World Cup for Women's Soccer today and I was saddened by the outcome of the game. I really wanted them to win, as I think everyone including them did. I think that it is so hard to train, sacrifice and work so hard for something only to fall short in the end. They did make some key errors. Giving up that one goal to let Japan tie the game was a fatal mistake. It would be hard to carry the burden of the two defenders who are there to help the goalie. One split second can change everything.

A few years ago I was coaching a men's volleyball team. We worked so hard going undefeated all season, won the Region Championship, and made it to the state final game. We came to play. My boys were ready to be the state champions. They wanted it so bad and for me as their coach after watching them work together for so long I wanted nothing more then to give it to them. Well long story short, we lost in 5 games by 2 points. It was hart breaking. I can still remember the last 5 points of the game in detail. Now as a coach I have learned from this experience and I know that this was a hard reality for my boys to except. We all learned, and had to rise above the lose.

I think that we have all been through something like this or of this nature. Have any of you been so close to something that you wanted so badly but just barely fallen short of the goal? What have you learned? How did you rise above it?

Common Core Thoughts??

I spent this last week at a training for the new educational common core that is being implemented in many of the states around the country. I really like many of the concepts that they are implementing. The Common Core is now going to require that we pull in much more informational texts, so that we are helping students to see more real world application to what we are teaching them. I think that this is going to really help students to reach a higher literacy level. In their English classes, it is going to be interesting to see how students take the Literature books that are being taught and find real world connection to those informational and supplementary texts. We also talked a lot about how much literacy is going to change in other subject areas. Those subjects are now going to also be responsible to include that component of literacy and teach their students to decode their own text from that specific subject matter.

How do any of you plan to make these adjustments in your own curriculum's? Do you think that this is going to be easy, or is there going to be a lot of change in the methods of your teaching?

Book vs. Movie

Thanks to those of you who posted with your favorite books. It was fun to read through your responses to see how we are all motivated so differently with literature. I have a new question for you.....

How many of you like to read a novel, and when the movie comes out, go and see the movie? While watching the movie do you search for comparisons as well as deviations from the storyline?
Example: Into the Wild
The book is very accurate with the true events that it is based on, and the movie actually did a great job of sticking to the story.

This is something that I love to do with my classes after we complete a novel. It really is a treat for the students. It seems in most cases the book is always better.

Do you have any examples?

Let's Get Reading... What's Your Favorite??

Looking back on your wonderful high school years, what were some of your favorite books that you read? List off your top three favorite books and the reasons they rank where they do.

I'll start...

1. The Great Gatsby - Parallelisms between the authors life and the characters is fascinating.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird - A great story with great wisdom.
3. Fahrenheit 451 - The first science-fiction book I actually liked because it made me think outside the box.

And begin...

Welcome to my Blog

The blog is up and running. Excited to be part of the class. Looking forward to a great summer.