My Love-Hate Relationship with Twitter + Reading Like an Historian Thoughts

So...each Monday a group of Social Studies teachers get on to Twitter and discuss a topic for about an hour or so.  I found out about this at a recent Utah Council of Social Studies teachers conference and I finally got up the courage a little while ago to start my own Twitter account.  Feel free to follow @KimberlyNHawks :)  However, they had taken a break for the Christmas holidays and this was the first time that I felt like I could know what I was doing enough to get involved this time and not make a mess. Problem is I didn't realize that it started at 7 ET time not my MT! Hence the hate relationship with Twitter...I lose track with ALL of the posts.  I get why people have it on their phones, because that could be the only way to possibly keep up.  Though I would not want it constantly bugging me with new alerts.

My love relationship with Twitter is how much I have learned from everyone on Twitter!  Since I missed the chat, I got on and look at a couple of the posts that went through.  If you want to go see it is always #sschat and the moderator tonight was @SHEG_Stanford.  They did a great job talking about teaching ideas with primary sources and helping the students read as historians.  I want to do a quick run down of what I learned and my own ideas since I didn't know the time difference.

Impressions

• Students need to be writing about what they are reading--and it doesn't have to be an essay because we all know that we are SO busy to grade.  There was a def theme of even writing a paragraph is great because you can focus on different things at different times.
• I retweeted the best idea I saw: : frequent quick writes on 3x5 cards. Thesis para on front, 6 bulleted pieces of evidence on back I can see my students actually maybe willing to do this.

My Quick Ideas

• Along the same lines as the 3x5 cards, since I have the benefit of a small class but you could do this in groups too--come up with what the main purpose/thesis of the source was and then have the students chalk write the supports/evidence of that thesis
• I love the site: http://web.wm.edu/hsi/?svr=www because they are set up for the kids to be detectives.  I did The Case of Sam Smiley to introduce the ideas of being detectives.  The kids really got off on the CSI idea of it.  

P.S. Tomorrow there is a #Wrldchat at 8 pm est...so I will be getting on promptly at 6 pm....if I remember :P

Classics Club Readathon Wrap-up

So now that the Read-a-thon is over, I am finally getting on to do a quick wrap up.  I haven't gotten too much farther from last night, I had some deadlines that I needed to meet.  So this will be a really quick post.

1. What book(s) did you read during the event? Sense and Sensibility
2. What book(s) did you finish? Didn't finish it yet, according to my Kindle I am about 24% through
3. What did you like about our event? I liked the excuse and motivation to get some reading done.  With everything that I do for school, I rarely get to read for myself unless I have got a completely free day.
4. Do you have suggestions for future Readathons through The Classics Club? Maybe have everyone start on a certain day and time for their own time zone...for example, everyone could start at 8 am on January 5th their time.  
5. Would you participate in future Readathons? Yeah I probably would

Thank you Wikipedia for the image.
This is a scene from ch. 12 in which Willoughby cuts a lock of Marianne's hair.

Classics' Club Readathon: Sense and Sensibility

http://theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/the-classics-club-readathon-starting-post/

So today is the first-ever Read-a-thon by the Classics' Club.  Now, I have seen these things before and have admired people's determination to read ALL day--they are going for 24 hrs!  I did sign up, however, I molded it to my particular style today.  I had A LOT of grading to do (which btw is still not done--ugh) so my reading of Sense and Sensibility was going to be my break.  It actually worked out very well to do that because I would grade for an hour, read for an hour, grade for an hour.... you get the idea!  I thought that I would take a different break to blog and then maybe get a bit more reading in before bed.

Oh and since I didn't do a start-up post...better late than never...here are the questions for the Classics Club to come peruse and see tomorrow for the wrap-up :)

1. Snacks and Beverages of Choice: Did the pretzels and Sprite thing today
2. Where are you reading from today? Home...all over.  I have the audio, Kindle, and print versions to choose from.  Audio for the treadmill and cleaning portion, Kindle for the eating portion, and print for everything else
3. What are your goals for the Readathon? Get some reading and grading done :P
4. What book(s) are you planning on reading? Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
5. Are you excited? Of course!! I get to start one of my reading goals for the year: The Complete Works of Jane Austen

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

With my job as a Social Studies teacher, I put in a lot of effort to make sure that my students know what is going on in the world.  I make sure that I especially do this at my school because they are somewhat isolated from the outside world as they focus on themselves therapeutically. As a result, I end up watching and reading a lot of news stories--and a lot of variety to meet everyone's interests. 

With this new restart on my blog, I wanted to have something that is a weekly regular thing.  I thought that each Friday I will highlight my top 5 news stories of the week.  I think I'll call it: Five Favorite Front-Page Features.

5. McDreamy buys a coffee company in Seattle---I so want to go there and I don't even drink coffee :P

http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/01/04/16354012-is-dr-mcdreamy-a-coffee-mogul-not-quite-yet?lite

4. One of my fav records: 21 by Adele, is the first record to be the most sold two years in a row

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/2012-record-sales_n_2408517.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment

3. A teenage girl stands up for her rights against the Taliban and she is recovering enough from their attack that she can be released from the hospital.  I admire her determination.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/04/malala-yousufzai-discharged-hospital/1808455/

2. For the first time in history, 1 in 5 Senators are women...a grand total of 20 women were elected and started work this week. With women making up 53% of the electorate, it is about time :) See all of their pictures and their advice for the future generation: 

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fullpage/female-us-senators-2013-advice-young-girls-boys-18107292

1. Sandy Hook Elementary School students return to school.  I am very grateful for the effort of these teachers, because I know that we all do a lot of hard work to create a safe learning environment for our students and it would be hard to go back but I am glad they are getting back to normalcy.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/04/emotional-return-to-school-for-sandy-hook/?iref=allsearch

Photo of Sandy Hook memorials courtesy of:
http://lilysblackboard.org/2012/12/our-babies-the-tragedy-at-sandy-hook/makeshift-memorial-at-sandy-hook-elementary-jpg/

Dear Boys

So...my sister does this on her blog sometimes (which is great btw..see button on the side).  I think it is technically a Wednesday thing for the linky party with the original poster Elise (see button below) but it fits my mood today.  I have kind of promised myself that this blog will not be a complaining/life sucks/ranting/venting kind  of blog---it goes against the whole Inspirefly idea that I have.  I want to be able to inspire people to do something BUT mostly inspire myself to do something.  So today, I decided that I needed to be clever and cheeky about my not so great day.

Dear Whiner,
Though you think that you can talk to your only female teacher like you are the best thing since sliced bread and get me to be super nice to you....not writing your assignment correctly as I have already told you five times...will not get you your way--you have to do it right no matter how much you try to talk me out of it.

Love, your patient teacher ;)

Dear Essay in a Dayish,
Really?! You read the whole book yesterday, did the prewrite today, wrote an essay today, and will give me a final tomorrow because Mom and Dad decided to transfer you? In addition...you expect me to read it right away....ugh you have not learned anything about respecting teacher's time! And you spent about two weeks on your first essay for me about two-three months ago?  I find it very hard to believe that this paper will pass....Good luck!
Love, your skeptical teacher

Dear Men at Work,
Yes I know that I am like the only female professional in the whole building--that does NOT mean that I have super powers of being able to get everything done---but I know what matters and most of you aren't doing it!!! Please just give a girl a break :)
Love, exhausted teacher

K so can't figure out how to get the link to work so it is:
http://www.elisespiecesblog.com/2012/12/dear-boys-its-been-while-no-54.html  

Book Review: The Paper Bag Princess

Yay I made it to day 2!  Thank you for all of you that have started following and have come to look--it does amazing things to one's ego when the stats tell you that people have actually come and read!  I hope it stays interesting.

One of the things that you will learn very quickly from this blog is about my religion. Since this blog will be a lot about my life, and my religion is very important in my life--it is a bit unavoidable. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons. One of my favorite opportunities being a member of this Church is working with the teenagers--specifically the junior high/high school girls. They are so much fun and we get together every Wednesday and do fun stuff.  We talk about the cute boys they see, the annoying homework, the pressures that they face being teenagers in this society, etc. Tonight was no exception.

I had never read this book before, but one of my fellow adult leaders read this to the girls tonight and I saw such a great teaching moment for school teachers but also parents as well!!  So here comes my first book review! Hopefully they all won't have this long of an intro ;)

Title: The Paper-Bag Princess

Author: Robert N. Munsch     Illustrator: Michael Martchenko

Genre: Picture Book

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (For an explanation of star ratings go here)

Summary: This cute book follows the life of a princess Elizabeth who has found her one true love: Prince Ronald.  Problem is a dragon comes, destroys their castle with his fire breath, and runs off with Ronald.  Elizabeth goes to follow her future husband, but she doesn't have any clothes since the dragon burned them all.  All she can find is a paper-bag to wear.  She goes on a long journey, tricks the dragon into falling asleep, and goes in to rescue Arnold.  He takes one look at her and says that she smells awful, is dirty, and really needs to go put real clothes on so that she will look like a princess.  To which Elizabeth responds:

“Ronald,” said Elizabeth, “your clothes are really pretty and your hair is all neat. You look like a real prince, but you are a bum.” They didn’t get married after all. 

What Did I Love: I loved that last line--because he really was a bum.  And that was the point that we brought up with the girls.  It doesn't matter who the guy is, if all he cares about is looks--then what's the point?!  We had a great discussion about the values that Elizabeth showed and the values that they as young women could show and gain throughout life as they prepare to meet their "prince".

What Did I Hate: Nothing :) It was really cute...I am actually considering buying it on Amazon...I can get it used for like a penny.  Too bad I have to pay waay more than that on shipping

Happy New Year's!

Welcome 2013!! I started this blog just a few months ago, and I have really neglected it!  I always think that, "Oh I should blog this, or oh I should blog that." But I never get on and blog.  I blog occasionally at work so I wonder if it just takes that writing drive away (go to http://cedarridgeacademy.blogspot.com/ to see my recent blog). I spend a lot of time on other people's blogs, Twitter accounts, etc. and I sure get a lot of ideas of what to write.  Just recently I was reading a blog that talked about a 365 project instead of a New Year's Resolution.  I immediately thought that I should do a 365 project with my blog. I will be posting something every day on here. So here is my very first blog post of the 365 project!  We will see how long I can keep coming up with ideas.

So to kind of restart this--look forward to book reviews, Pinterest stuff, lesson plan ideas, and anything else I think of!

Picture courtesy of: http://inherheart.blogspot.com/2012/12/happy-new-year-2013.html