Blessings to Count! What a Great Math Activitiy!

At Hyde Park with the Roosevelts!

Happy Thanksgiving!  Counting blessings right now! Today we had a real rainstorm!  The trees are soaking it up!  Our daughter, Halley is home from graduate school for a break!  So happy to have her home!  

What a great trip Jeff and I just finished.  Started with a great day in Albany, New York on Friday the 13th.  Super fun group of teachers spending the day exploring math fact fluency.  

Jeff and I are on a mission to accomplish visits to all the Presidential homes and libraries.  On this trip we were able to visit FDR’s home and library in Hyde Park, New York.  Loved it and learned so many details about his four terms.  What a first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was!  Also visited the Vanderbilt mansion in Hyde Park.

The next day we took a city tour of Salem, Massachusetts.  What a darling town with an amazing history!  At one time, Salem was the third richest city in U.S.  We then visited the JFK library!  The view is so beautiful.  Disappointed that the Cuban missile exhibit was closed.  Still need to learn more about that time that was my childhood.

Math Fact Fluency class in Hartford!

Monday was the Math Fact Fluency class in Boston and Tuesday in Hartford.  Loved both groups.  I have really missed being in both those cities.  Used to spend more time there and it has been hard to get them in!  Loved the professionalism that I see with the teachers!  So wanting to do right by children.

The last part of the trip was the NCTM Regional in Nashville, Tennessee.  Wow!  What a conference!  It was so fun!  Got to spend an evening with Erin who is a friend of our daughter.  She is a Acquisitions Editor for Corwin Publications.  Had such fun connecting with Catherine Beals who started as a teacher in our area and now lives and works in Boise area in Idaho.  She delivered her research from her dissertation.  It was such a helpful session!  I had so much fun with both my groups!!!

Well, time to think about what we are having for Thanksgiving!  Love being home…….

Happy holiday!

Summer is here!

Just finished the third week of summer travel!  Started in Stillwater and Moore, Oklahoma.  Then on to Burbank, California.  Just finished Sublette and Wichita, Kansas!  Every workshop has been filled with happy, wonderful teachers giving up their precious summer days for staff development!  How blessed to spend time with such dedicated professionals!

Wrapping up my new book called Bump It!  The book is filled with Bump It games for every skill in mathematics.   I am so excited because children just love these games!  So many exciting things happen when you play the games!  Children become highly motivated to play which then improves their fluency with the skill!  Look for the book in time for the new school year in August!  If you have not played Bump It with your students, you will be blown away!  If you have attended my games class taught by me or one of my amazing Kim Sutton Associates then you have met this motivating game!

What summer plans do you have?  Hope that there is lots of rest and relaxation.  Make sure you set aside a half hour to make a class concentration board for the new year!  Concentration is another powerful class activity because it works on working memory, coordinate graphing on a Cartesian Plan and whatever skill you put on the cards!

These concentration boards can be purchased at Creative Mathematics CLICK HERE!

 

Mathematically yours,

New Year! New Attitude!

Happy New Year!  How can it be another new year?  Wow, feels like another year passed in the blink of an eye….about to have a big birthday at the end of the month.  It has really caused me to think!  Jeff and I have decided that we need to start taking some of our “bucket list” trips!  Went down the Grand Canyon in a raft for 7 nights in May and just finished a trip down the Danube River visiting Germany, Austria and Hungary.  Loved both trips for very different reasons.

I was thinking before Christmas!  What if 2015 was a year of fresh starts, new beginnings and a whole new level of gratitude?  What if we found a way to enjoy and be present each moment of time with our students?  I just changed the calendar in my classroom and thought about how easy it is to wish time would fly by and how that thought keeps us from thinking about the moment that is now.  

Are you rested and refreshed and ready to face this new year?  If you are go face it.  If not, pretend you are.  Sometimes we learn to fake it and soon it becomes real!

Mathematically yours,