The BEST $20 I've ever spent!

       Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend the first annual TEACH Conference here in Jacksonville, FL.  You will never guess who I had the opportunity to sit and listen to during the conference.  The one and only Lucy Calkins!  She spoke about CCSS and her book Pathways to the Common Core and was fabulous.  Then there were breakout sessions where I had the opportunity to learn more about the physiological brain differences among boys and girls that are the major contributing factor as to why our male and female students are so VERY different in class from academic to behavior and in my opinion everything else as well :)  Then after lunch we heard from Bradley Cohen, author of Front of the Class.  He is probably most well known for the fact that he was the "teacher with Tourettes."  He was AMAZING and so, so, so inspiring as he told us about his journey to become the teacher he never had.  Let me encourage you if you ever have an opportunity to see either of these excellent for education people- take it!  When my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday I contemplated turning it off, but I am beyond glad that I didn't!

 

        All of this for the low, low price of $20.  I can't wait to see what next year brings!!!

Oh no! I might be a robot!?!

        I came to a very startling conclusion today and that's right, I think that I might be a robot!  I'm sure that right now you are thinking but Nicole wouldn't you have known before today and I have to admit that there have been signs previously but today . . . YIKES!  I tried several times to prove I was not a robot after trying to leave a comment on one of the awesome blogs and I was unable to match up the letter/number combination correctly.  Now I partly blame my inability to match up the correct letter/number combo. on the fact that "short" weeks tend to kick my b-u-t-t even at the beginning and of course it doesn't help that I have had NO caffeine today (not sure how/why that happened).  So maybe I'm not a robot but you know it's not a good thing when you are having trouble proving that you aren't one.  Here's hoping that you have better luck than I did.     

My FIRST Currently :)

        I can't believe how hard it is to go back to work and keep up with blogging and even blog stalking.  I am excited to say that I have two full weeks with kids (and the new principal) down and I already feel like my school life is so much more manageable than the first day when I wasn't even driving home until after 6 p.m. and then sleeping in my clothes on the couch while I was waiting on our dinner to arrive.  I also am pretty proud of myself for joining one of Farley's Currently parties.  I have been watching them for over a year now and never participated because I couldn't figure out how to edit the page to input my info and today I figured it out all by myself (I'm probably the oldest 31 year old alive).  Better late than never, yea me!!!  So here it goes:

        I am sure that you noticed that I appear to be obsessed with food . . . yeah I go through extreme spurts with that.  As for the student teacher, she starts tomorrow and she seems nice but like with everything else new people always make me just a little bit nervous.  She is a full time student teacher so she will be with me for the next four months and I am supposed to turn my class over to her.  Wish us both luck.  I need her to be great and she needs me to chill out a little.  We'll see :)  My favorite things, duh my husband and dog are wonderful 99.9% of the time, hey nobody's perfect.  Coffee has been a HUGE necessity during the past three weeks and I am hoping to having it go back to a treat and not a need.  As for my tv shows I love to just sit in front of the tv/computer and watch.  I am on the fence as to whether or not General Hospital will continue to be on my play list, it's getting a little crazy again.  Then again I have to see how it will all play out-and the obsession continues.  In a nutshell that's me and the whole lotta nothing that has been my labor day and it's just the way I like it!  If you want to see what's up with everyone else then head over to Farley's party and join in on the fun!