Friday Recap: poems, painting and an app

It has been a while since I have done a Friday Recap post; honestly, most weeks I’m just lucky I’ve made it to Friday!

This week I have some fun things that I couldn’t wait to share!  This is what I was up to when I wasn’t blogging:

The first share is an INCREDIBLE poem written by 5th grader, Emma at Anastasis Academy.  The kids were writing poems ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas style, Emma wrote the brilliant poem below about the night before braces. 🙂  Clever!

Twas The Night Before Braces

Twas the night before braces, my teeth were all clear,
not a spot of silver, or a rubber band near

I knew it would be painful and bring on a tear,
but I knew someday they would come off, and I would
celebrate and cheer

I stopped and smiled and looked in the mirror,
my teeth are all crooked and need to be cured

Tomorrow is a bad day and I wish it would pass,
I wish it would happen super duper fast,
Which nearly wouldn’t happen like I have heard in the past,
now I need to pick my colors and make sure they don’t clash

Now Pink! Now Purple! Now White and maybe Red!
Maybe after my appointment, I’ll be happy instead

I shouldn’t be complaining, I sound like a drag,
My dad works so hard for me, I don’t want to make him mad

So I’ll go in with a smile, it might take all my might, so….

Happy Smiles to all and to all a straight bite.

What did I tell you?  We have the MOST brilliant, creative kids at Anastasis! (I’m sure every teacher reading this could say the same!)

 

At Anastasis Academy, each Friday we have a learning excursion.  Sometimes these are field trips out of the building, but this week we had a local artist, Scott Beckley, come to us.

Scott taught the kids how to paint in acrylic using palette knives.  The results were fantastic!  Some students made curvy cartoony pencils.  I wish I had caught more of them to take pictures of as they were heading out the door!

      

Thank you Scott!

 

Did you know Flat Stanley has his own app? Very cool!  You can check it out on my other blog iPadCurriculum.

Wishing you joy this weekend!

Friday Recap: Geeking over new apps, celebrating week 5

Whew, it has been a while since I have done a Friday recap.  Mostly because these days I’m just so happy to have made it through another week that I am celebrating other ways…like by taking a nap.

Anastasis Academy has just completed week number five.  Can I say how incredibly cool it is to see something that you pour yourself into come to fruition?  We have students! We end every week with a field trip learning excursion.  Awesome.

If you are interested in following our journey, you can follow our blogs (yes plural, we each have at least one, some overachievers have two…or more).  I’ve created a bundle that you can subscribe to in Google Reader.  Subscribing to a bundle means that you will never miss a beat…it will almost be as good as being here with us.  This is just the collection of teacher blogs.  Each of our students blogs as well, we can’t share those publicly because we use full student names.  Occasionally I may let you have a peek at some of our student writing by republishing the post anonymously.  For now you will have to take my word for it, these kids are amazing.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and YouTube.  You can be a super fan and like us on Facebook.  If you are ever in town, stop by and let us show you around!

This week I found some super cool apps.  I’m talking classroom changing here.  I couldn’t wait to blog my favorite find which is Demibooks Composer.  A BIG thank you to @ianchia for making me aware of its existence.  I can’t wait to see what our students come up with!  Demibooks Composer puts the power of interactive e-book publishing into the hands of every student.  I am geeking out here.  It is seriously cool.  Hurry up and download it while it is FREE.  I would have paid big money for this app.  Big.

 

Friday Recap: Look where you want to go and steer in that direction- how a blog started a school #missingISTE11

Happy Friday!!  To all of you who are making your way to Philly for ISTE11, I wish you safe travel, fun and learning.  I wish I was there with you! Someone will have to Flat Stanley me so I can pretend I am there with you all. For those who are missing ISTE with me, we have started a Twitter support group 🙂  Use the hashtag #missingISTE11 to find other peeps who can’t be there this year.

The reason I am missing ISTE: Look where you want to go and steer in that direction- how a blog started a school.

 

Happy weekend!

Friday Recap

Three day weekends are a gift straight from heaven!  I could not be more thrilled that we are headed into one of those.  I have been on turbo speed for the past few months and I need a reason to take a forced break- this seems like the perfect excuse to do just that!

Working to open a school in August is hard work, I continue to be amazed at the learning community that is being pulled together and I am excited to see it all unfold!

This week:

I hope you had a meaningful week full of many learning gifts.  To those who finished school this week-congratulations! For those who have some time yet- keep doing what is best for kids!

Happy weekend!

Friday Recap

It has been a few weeks since I have done a Friday recap, mostly because I have been BUSY and haven’t done anything on my other blogs worth mentioning here. Okay, to be honest it isn’t worth mentioning because there has been nothing to mention.  This week I got my act in gear and wrote a post about an absolutely FANTASTIC app over on my other blog, iPad Curriculum.

So, in case you missed it:

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, don’t forget to celebrate moms!

Friday Recap

Once again this has been a crazy and amazing week.  I am inching closer to realizing the vision of opening a school fall of 2011. This week I found the space, and I tell you friends, it could not be better. Truly!  The next goal is to reach our goal of getting 50 students enrolled in order for us to open.  Even if it doesn’t happen this year, it has been an incredible education for me!

Don’t forget that you can win a free subscription to Starrmatica by entering this contest.  You have until the end of March.  I just didn’t want anyone to forget that we are WEEK away from that happening…how did it go so fast?  This is a really incredible prize and it is just so darn easy to enter, why wouldn’t you?

March Madness is here and that means if you buy anything from my Printfection store you get 20% off of any order and 25% off an order of $50 or more. Not too shabby! Coupon codes below must be entered before completing your order.  The sale ends March 21, 2011.

Coupon Code: MarchMad20%

Discount: 20% off no minimum order

Coupon Code: MarchMad25%

Discount 25% off subtotal of $50+

Have a wonderful weekend!

Friday Recap

Wow, I don’t know about you but it has been a week (and I mean that in the best way possible!)  I missed posting yesterday because I just have SO much going on…I’ll have to make up for it next week 🙂

When I wasn’t blogging here, I was:

  • Creating a time line for starting a school in fall 2011.  I am working toward starting my own school.  Funding will determine if we open in 2011 or 2012, in the mean time there are exciting things happening!  We will find out early next week if we have a space for the school (an important detail!).
  • Working on the Learning Genome
  • Working with a school on a social media plan.
  • Attending a Charlotte Mason internship, my reflections are in this post: Education is Life: A call for more fabulous failures

I hope that your week was filled with learning, fabulous failures, and passion.  Happy weekend!

Friday Recap

It has been a LONG week. I got my first sick crud of the year and it took me out.  Today I have my voice back and am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.  I hope you all are avoiding the crud and are enjoying the last days of February.  This weekend I will be at Colorado Learning 2.0 in Loveland Colorado, if you won’t be there with us in person, you can join us virtually by going to http://colearning.wikispaces.com.  I am so excited, I just love these days of conversation and learning!

This week I was joined on my iPad Curriculum blog by 5th grade students at Shipley School in PA. It is great to get the student perspective on education apps.  You can learn more about the students blogging with me here, and read their first review on Britannica Kids Ancient Egypt here.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Friday Recap

Happy Friday! I have had a lot going on this week, I am SO glad to see Friday. Here is what I was up to when I wasn’t blogging at iLearn Technology:

  • Grammaropolis (my favorite grammar website) has an app for the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone! I reviewed it over at my other blog http://ipadcurriculum.com.
  • Last night I presented an idea and project I have been working on since September at House of Genius. It was a fantastic experience, now I invite all of you to be my House of Genius and add your 2 cents at Dreams of Education.
  • I wrote this last week but didn’t do a Friday recap so I’ll share it this week 🙂 A call for education to be more Da Vinci like.
  • I am currently working with two schools in town.  One I am taking from zero technology to a 1 to 1 environment– it has been a fun experience for all of us.  I am helping the other school roll out a social media plan, equally fun experience!
  • I don’t know about you all but I NEED this 3 day weekend.  Can you see me jumping up and down?!  I wish you all a wonderful, restful weekend!

Friday Recap: Math Apps, Free PD, and More!

Happy Friday!  I hope you all had a wonderful week as many of you got back into the swing of things at school.  This week was a busy one with the final preparations for the Reform Symposium Virtual Conference.  I look forward to “seeing” you all there!  Here is a recap of what I was doing when I wasn’t blogging here:

Have a wonderful weekend!