Addicted to online back-to-school shopping

It happens each summer, as school approaches I start looking for deals online. This summer is no exception. I have been buying so many fun things for school...

1- A banner for my Forensic Science Class

 



I just love the website http://www.shindigz.com/. Every once in a while they send out a great offer for cheap banners. This is the third one I've ordered from the website and got it for less than $10. It is 18" x 54" (really big) and great quality! I plan to hang it over my doorway on lab days to get the kids excited, and tell my other students not to mess with the lab set-up. With my grant money not only did I buy lab kits, but I also got an inflatable 'dead body', fake blood, bullet hole decals, etc. so I can make the room look like a real crime scene! I can't wait. I will for sure post photos when the first lab arrives!

2- "toys" for my study hall students.

I'm having study hall in my room this year. Usually it is in the cafeteria and students can be spread out so they can't talk or goof off. This year study hall is during lunch so the cafeteria isn't available and I  have to have it in my room. It is hard to get kids to study for a whole hour and not talk, especially when they claim "I have nothing to do". So rather than arguing, I decided to make a bin of little knick-knacks to keep kids busy (and still quiet) when they run out of work. Some of the items I purchased are:

• Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty from Amazon.com - love this stuff but kind of expensive. These two change color which add an extra element of fun.

• Puzzle Balls from Oriental Trading Company - not exactly sure how these work but they got great reviews

• Water Games from Old Navy - these totally remind me of the 80s; I used to love them. Hopefully the kids will too! (these aren't the exact ones I bought but you get the gist)

If you can think of any other little toys the kids can play with alone and quietly to add to my study hall bucket, let me know :)

3- Growing Sea Life Characters

I thought I could use these is an osmosis lab. Last year I used gummy bears, which work great and swell up huge, but kids felt like eating them. This solves that problem. They were a great price at Oriental Trading and should hopefully work well!

4- Pencil Sharpeners

Also from Oriental Trading. I got a great deal on these, $6.25 for 72 of them!

5- Design It Yourself Frogs from Oriental Trading

I love these. They come in white, and kids can decorate them however they want. I always have a 'fun day' on Earth Day and the students love these. Last year I ran out so I used Oriental Trading's Free Shipping time to stock up :)


I also gave in and bought 2 cases of caffeine water from Amazon.com. I am so used to staying up super late (3:30am) all summer, my body is going to hate me when I have to start waking up at 4:45am again for school. Yikes! I am not ready. Needless to say, I will need this stuff! I bought 2 different types this time, my usual Avitae and another brand to try something new.

The shopping didn't stop there, I have a whole box of various supplies I picked up at a lot of different stores. I am not made of money, but I just can't resist this time of year. I just love school shopping!

Ok, well I need to get ready because I am going camping in a little bit. I can't wait! Have a great weekend!

Forensic Science!

As I mentioned before, I'm teaching Forensic Science this year. I have spent all of July reading, researching, and planning my curriculum. For the past 2 weeks, I have been working day and night on my lecture notes for the semester and as of 3am this morning I finally finished!!

I am very proud of my hard work and how great they turned out. I think students will have fun and learn a lot!

I have posted the notes as a big bundle on TeachersPayTeachers. Check them out here.

 



Summer vacation, Lots of pics, and News that I received a grant!

I am loving summer! Just got back from a great trip with my family. They wanted to go to the Outer Banks but they know I love zoos, so as a compromise we stopped at a zoo on the way there and the way back. Both were amazing. I have a goal to visit a zoo in every state, and thanks to this trip I can now say I have been to 14 zoos in 9 states! Here's how I keep track :)

We stopped at Metro Richmond Zoo in VA on the way to NC. It was not at all what I expected, but better! Privately owned and definitely unique. They let you feed any hooved animal in the park, have an awesome sky ride, and a super cool giraffe interaction area. I loved getting to pet, feed, and even kiss the giraffes!

On the way home from NC, we stopped at the Pittsburgh Zoo in PA. I have been there before, but during construction, so I wanted to see it again. Seeing the sea turtles was probably my favorite, but I was also mega excited to get to take my picture with an elephant! I just love hands-on, up close opportunities!

 

The Outer Banks was a lot of fun. I enjoyed spending so much time with my niece and nephew! Some highlights were...

Having a sea turtle lay a nest right by our beach house the 2nd day we were there! We got to see the tracks, nest, volunteers dig up 1 egg to DNA test, then rope the area off. Pretty cool! Wish I could go back when it hatches!

 

 

 

 

 

My dad and I also went kayaking. We went on the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge hoping to see alligators in the wild. Turns out we saw barely any wildlife. I was very disappointed and complaining when we got back to the car... Mother Nature must have heard my disappointment just then because a black bear crossed right in front of the car! It was so awesome and exciting!!

 

On another day, we went to the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. It was a cute little aquarium. They had a Sea Turtle Rescue Simulation my niece just loved. They even lend you cute little lab coats to wear :)

Another activity we did was a guided tour to see the wild horses. Not exactly what I expected either, but neat.

We did go to the beach too. I enjoyed taking walks at night and seeing all the crabs everywhere. I also saw my first ever washed up jellyfish! As a bio teacher I loved this. I brought back a lot of nature souvenirs- shells, mermaid purses, part of a horseshoe crab, and even whelk egg case (not pictured). Can't wait to show them to my students next year!!

Well, those are the highlights from my trip! Now it is back to reality for me. I have one more month of summer left and A LOT of planning still to do. I so far have only completed 2 chapters of notes for my forensic science class! I really need to kick it into high gear! I did get great news though, which I now realize I forgot to post on here. I received a $3000 grant to buy lab materials for my new forensic science class! I ordered so many lab kits, I think the kids will have a blast!!!

I did also go school supply shopping yesterday. You know you are a teacher when you go through the checkout line with 15 boxes of markers, 5 calculators, boxes of pens, pencils, highlighters, etc. I hate spending my own money, but I feel like I have to. I'm still looking for colored staples though, can't remember where I bought them last year but they made me happy and are worth the extra change :)

Ok well, hope your summer is going well! School will be back in session before we know it! Take care.

First week of summer

Hello Summer! Hope everyone is enjoying their time off.

I've had 2 days of class already this week. Monday I learned about integration of handheld technology in the classroom. Some of the websites and apps I learned about were

• Textnow
• Cel.ly
• Google Drive
• Polleverywhere
• Remind101

I used Remind101 last school year and it was awesome. If you are a teacher and haven't signed up yet, you need to!

I also learned about QR codes and am excited to use them this school year. How cool that I can make a QR code and it will take students/parents right to my school webpage. How might I use this you ask? I'm going to put this code on the student syllabus. Also, I plan to put it on stickers and give them out so students can have them on their notebook for easy access. I also plan to use this when I make internet assignments, instead of typing the URLs, they can just scan the codes. So cool! Try it out:

I made this QR code at http://www.qrstuff.com/. If you are an app person you can find one here http://www.qrdroid.com/
My other class was about tapping into the power of iOS mobile devices in the classroom. I have been stubborn and haven't bought any apple products yet. In fact, this class was my first time using an ipod touch. Crazy, I know! It was very informative though, and I caught onto everything super quick. We used QR codes again, and even did a classroom scavengar hunt/research project with them. Very cool idea. It makes me wish I had a classroom set of ipods or ipads for my classroom!!! If you are lucky enough to have them, or just want to learn more, check out the website the class instructors shared with us: http://tinyurl.com/WCSipodpd

I didn't have class today, it was supposed to be a 'fun day' for me. I had plans to go out with a friend to lunch and shopping, but she wasn't feeling well and cancelled. Since I didn't have anything else to do, I decided to work on my webpage. I was running out of space and needed to edit and organize files. After working for about 4 hours I accomplished a lot! Here it is:

 

 

I have another free day tomorrow, not sure what I am going to do yet. Friday is my final technology class, this one is about making a Google Website. I'm excited :) Then Saturday I am volunteering at the zoo, and Sunday I am going to the New Kids on the Block / Boyz II Men / 98 Degrees concert with friends. Should be a fun time!!

It's summer!

Summer is finally here and I couldn't be more excited!

It was sad leaving school this year though, knowing all the changes we have in store for us next year. We have lost a lot of staff to retirement, new jobs, and RIFs. My two best teacher friends at work won't be there next year, and I am super sad about that. It is going to feel very lonely!

I am teaching some new classes next year though. Because they had to cut so many elective classes with the RIFs, the have added electives to the core areas. I am teaching 2 new science electives- forensic science and zoology. I have A LOT of prep work to do over the summer to plan these courses from scratch without materials, but I am feeling up for the challenge. I hope to make the classes really fun and informative for students and hope I do a good job with them! I have requested a free textbook for each so hopefully the company comes through and helps me out!

So besides doing LOTS of lesson plans over the summer I am also...

• taking a few workshops on Educational Technology
• volunteering at the Akron Zoo
• going on vacation with my family in July to the Outer Banks
• and hopefully finding lots of time to sleep in, visit with friends, let out my creativity by painting and making art

Summer is my time to relax and refresh. To all of us teachers, I hope the summer goes slow and is enjoyable! Have a good one!

Teacher of the Year and Dissections

I'm feeling very blessed to have won Building Teacher of the Year for our high school this year. I know I work really hard, but what an honor that my coworkers see it too!

The year has flown by, we only have 7 more days of school until summer! My summer will still be full of school work though, as I am teaching two new classes next year and need to develop the curriculum from scratch. If anyone teaches Forensics or Zoology and would be willing to share materials to get me started, that would be awesome :)

These last few weeks all of my classes have been studying animals and body systems. We've been doing a lot of dissections, with only the fetal pig left to go. Biology classes dissected grasshoppers and perch. AP Biology dissected squid, shark, snake, pigeon, cat, and pregnant rat.

Here are some photos to share, more can be found on my school website at http://demo15.schoolspan.com/myroom/abrams/3P6SXW7Q?catid=4NXH754A

 

 

 

Hope everyone finishes off the year with a bang!

Spring Break Update

It's spring break! You'd never know it from the weather outside. Monday we had 4.5 inches of snow. The schools not on spring break this week all got snow days! Lucky ducks :) Here is the view out my window yesterday morning.

Life has been so hectic lately, and work has been kind of stressful. Our district officially RIFed 13.5 teaching positions for next school year. At the high school, most of our elective classes were cut- no more industrial tech, family consumer science, and 1/2 Ag, 1/2 music, 1/2 art, etc. Because we are now short on electives, they are having us core teachers add elective courses to our schedule. I've always taught Biology and AP Biology, next year I will be teaching those PLUS Forensics and Zoology. They should be interesting courses, but we don't have books for them and obviously don't have money to buy any. I'm a bit stressed at teaching a new course, and no textbook adds even more stress to that. Yesterday I ordered some books and videos off of Amazon to help me plan this summer. I have a feeling I am going to keep buying stuff out of my own pocket so that I feel confident teaching the new classes. I'm also planning to post anything I create to TeachersPayTeachers to help me supplement all of the costs.

With April coming up I have also been preparing for Earth Day. It is the one day of the year where I give my students a break from the normal class structure, and we do crafts, play games, and have fun instead. I went a little overboard buying stuff out of pocket for that too, but I just couldn't resists. Yesterday I even designed and purchased a banner from http://www.shindigz.com/. It is a great website with really great quality banners at a decent price! I got one for 1 penny last year during a 24-hour sale! It was awesome! If you ever want to shop there, please comment with your email. I would love to refer you and get some extra points! Every little bit helps! Anyways, here is the banner I created, I can't wait to hang it up.

Tomorrow my 'fun' spring break continues and I am having surgery. Just a minor procedure, but still not a fun way to spend my spring break. Oh the things I do to prevent myself from having to miss work!

Anyways, I hope all of my fellow teachers have a great spring break and get the rest they need to make it through the last few months of the school year! Take care.