I finally seem to have a day that I can be little lazy. I knew that my September looked crazy on paper and now I realize it was REALLY insane! However things seem to slow a bit next month. I am wondering if everyone else went through some adjustments as they came onto the initiative. One of the biggest is the obvious change in financial planning!!! Wow how that gas can add up. Plus, I am hoping the planning gets easier with more experience. I seem to be going a day at a time and feel like I am barely keeping my head above water. Please don't take my comments as if I am not happy where I am because I can't imagine a better change in my career. This is a great mission and I can't believe I actually get to do it. I am just hoping that those who have traveled the path before me can send some advice my way.

I also have to include a picture of my beautiful nephew, Jackson. He's "helping" Aunt B today. Maybe by the end of the day he will be calling the dogs...dogs instead of "cat"!!!

Katie's Blogging By Herself!

Hello out there! Anybody reading me? If you are, click the comment box at the bottom of this post and please say "hi" or something...Katie is sitting at the computer alone, waiting to see if you will appear...

Any of you subscribe to NCTE inbox? Listed in this week's articles is a piece about 21st century literacies, and it includes goals stating that readers and writers should:


Develop proficiency with the tools of technology;
Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally;
Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes;
Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information;
Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts;
Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments.

And so, my friends, even Katie is moving forward...or at least trying to...

Clueless in Springfield: Who Needs Help With Community Building?

I am now learning what it really means to walk into a building for "year two" and to attempt to appear "fresh." Oh, I know that year two is all about writing, my passion, but I am now facing the challenge of finding new community builders, something that excites and inspires...

With my own students in my own classroom, we seemed to get into a rhythm, and we all knew how to revisit commmunity building. In the arena of professional development, we seem to "rebuild" as we go along monthly. In other words, I am continually looking for something clever and new...

So...what are you guys doing? I have become shamelessly self-centered and could use some fresh ideas. I'll share today's version of Kae's "faces" community builder, though. (Kae is a wealth of generous ideas, by the way...) She supplied me with four cute pictures of different children making extreme faces. The directions go like this: choose a picture (facial expression) that best reflects how you feel in the classroom right now...or best reflects how you feel about some of the strategies we've studied so far...and so on...Participants can quickwrite or simply record on an index card or simply turn and talk...

Last year I ran out of clever ideas for opening activities, so I took Kae's idea and googled weather pictures and asked participants to select a picture that relates to how they feel... This brings up a nice conversation about inferences and metaphors about weather.

Today I shared the "face" activity using pictures of my sweet grandbaby, a totally self-indulgent activity. I have to say, though, that we had a good comprehension discussion about inferences and interpretations with Hailey's pictures. (It also gave me an opportunity to enjoy my sweet grandbaby pictures as well as share a part of myself with the group.)

Oh, well...I hope that anyone out there who may be checking in on our blog might find some help...and share some help, too! I'm thinking about moving on to pictures of my animals...pictures of favorite movie/book characters...etc.

Hello All
This is all you have to do to add something to this great site....You can do it, I have faith.

Looking for Energy and Inspiration?

At this time last year did I feel this busy, or was it simply that I was floating in an outer body zone brought on by a midlife shift in careers? Who knows? It’s a blur. Where does a trainer go to refuel? (...metaphorically speaking, of course, although if you feel like sharing a location for cheap gas...that would be helpful, too...)

So...I'm making a list of what "centers" me:
• Chocolate?...No, I'm trying to give up the "table treats"...
• Meditation?...Ouch...I'm out of practice. If I actually find fifteen minutes,
I nod off, or I feel guilty about what I'm NOT doing...
• Reading?...That's a good one, but I'm still not caught up on my stack of
professional texts...
• Writing?...How quickly I feel rusty, and I need an occasional (and kind and
loving) audience...
• Blogging?...Hum...Yes, I have experienced the brilliant exchange of insights
and ideas from colleagues, but this means I need to cultivate
the practice and find others willing to "check in" occasionally
to read, respond, and share if they feel like it.


So...I'm thinking our weblog could be such a powerful resource for us as trainers. Say that I have a successful day at a school (Yes, some of those are not a blur...), and I want to tell my trainer friends about what happened and what I did. I have the ability to link you to a text I used or video I showed or PowerPoint I created, and so on. You, on the other hand, can make comments, suggestions, additions, pose questions or make corrections. Collective intellect is always better than my own thinking alone.

If you have technology available to you at any of your schools, you might be interested in the Utube clip about the seventy year old man from St. Joseph, MO who joined a first grade class because he wanted to learn how to read. If you click this link, you have to let that video run through and then the pictures of the other videos come up underneath the screen so you can look for the Ellen one. It is 8 minutes long and has a cute conversation with him and he gets 10,000 dollars and is so happy. She talks to him a lot about needing the right teacher to learn to read. I think it was good inspiration to get teachers ready for DRA testing! We closed the day with the two minute clip summary that first shows up when you go to this site.

I'm lucky I have technology available at all of my schools, and I also have people who can help me out with it! Speaking of help, I owe huge thanks to Jennifer who accompanied me to Pleasant Hope last week. She took my group through the steps of running records and gave us an opportunity to practice as part of her demonstration. (I heard a couple of the teachers mumbling in the back, "This is actually interesting!" and "She makes this look easy!") This is something I simply could not have done...THANK YOU, JENNIFER!

So...short of taking another trainer along with you, this might be a great place to seek help, inspiration, and new ideas. Join in! The more the merrier!