new roles, new goals!

Ahh, oh my goodness I cannot believe it's been so long since we've chatted (or i've talked and no-one listens!) -regardless it's been a while! Lots of stuff has been going on that i'm really excited about!

I recently attended the SNCAE Spring Conference along with Amelia who is the current president on our leadership team for the UNCW-extension chapter. We had a great time, met some amazing people, and learned some great great things. Some of the sessions we sat it on were:

• Constructing and building successful SNCAE chapters- Rodney Ellis


• Becoming politically aware- Sean McKillop


• Cecoming an activist, are we losing the american dream? - Sean McKillop


• SNCAE business meeting, nominations and elections


• Classroom management strategies- Angela Farthing & Tia Shue


• Parent/Community Partnerships -Keyth Harrison


• Becoming the best teacher you can be! -Cindi Rigsbee


• Surviving the First Year-Sean McKillop


• Surviving Student Teaching


• What it takes to be a great educator -Sheri Strickland

The information was overwhelming yet very helpful and beneficial to strengthening your teaching career. I have a stack of papers and notes to go through and organize, next week of course ;). Procrastinaton is a teachers middle name! I've never met so many powerful people in one room and I'm blessed to have the opportunity to work with all of these people in the future!

Also, fabulous news. I ran and was elected the State Secretary of the Student Association of Educators. Running for office was something I thought would be a good idea, but due to my lack of experience, it wasn't something I thought I would get over some of the other great people running. Needless to say when my name was called, I may have teared up a little and had trouble breathing. It's a honor to get to work with so many driven educated people and I plan on making this the best year the organization has ever seen! I am glad to have passed down my position at the university level to very motivated woman, and am excited to step up and take a larger role (that I can't wait to throw on a resume!)

I wanted to share a quick resource that I am so excited to use. This is a blog from a teacher who also has a fitness passion- so she must be smart! She is formulating an idea of having "sight word buddies" using beanie babies (or any stuffed animal). You name the beanie baby "Mr.(sight word)" and put a name tag on the bear. Each week the student picks a buddy to put on their desk and take care of through the week. She also talks about having the students use the sight word buddy in the line up process, yet this has many many many opportunities for disaster (little ones can find almost any way you attack another student!)

http://sneakerteacher.blogspot.com/2010/04/sight-words.html

A final education point..

"MISSING: EDUCATORS SINCE AUGUST 2009. THANKS TO BUDGET CUTS"

May 15 NCAE is holding a rally at high noon! We will be yelling loud and clear to the nc legislation exactly what we think about the budget cuts! There will be tons of local teachers and administrators as well as the NCAE community making sure that the state knows how we feel and if nothing is done they'll have to hear from their educators! I cannot wait, mostly because i like to yell but also because the projection for teacher cuts is 300,000 for next year. THREE HUDNDRED THOUSAND TEACHERS will be cut in the upcoming year, lawmakers need to know that 50 full inclusion students in aclassroom with one teacher is not going to yield educational success, and we aren't going to stand for it. BE THERE! -contact me for more details. I'm planning on lunch, petition, shopping, ya know the usual ;)

Tomorrow is my last day in the classroom-wrapping up my part of the citizenship unit and handing my kiddos back! I'm relieved yet I miss them already. We start serious EOG review next week, so I'll be taking over the math review with them so that'll keep me occupied. I also get to spend some time in my sisters 1st grade classroom, I love my 3-5 kiddos to death but I miss the little ones sometimes! I also get to play with some technology in my girlfriends high school classroom- I swear I'm lucky I can turn a computer on. I'm ready to play with some fancy technology!

I'll be stuck unit plan writing/babysitting all weekend so I'll have plenty of time for posts, I may even be inspired for a video blog, so much fun!