Happy weekend!

I officially took the weekend off! I spent zero time on school work and it was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! I didn't blog stalk, I didn't plan (I am out so much this week there was really no purpose), I didn't research, I didn't read, I didn't even check my email which is very unusual for me.

While I love everything about teaching and technology these first few weeks of school have been stressful and exhausting and it was so refreshing to just take a step back and enjoy the weekend! Now I am obviously feeling a little overwhelmed that tomorrow is Monday and my to-do list is no further than it was on Friday when I left school but I had a relaxing weekend and I think it will make this week so much better!

Friday night my husband and I had a date night and went out for dinner. Then we enjoyed a fire in our new fire pit outside. On Saturday I spent the day with Alex, The School Potato  while my husband helped a friend build a fence. Alex and I walked around her town at an art festival with Lilly, Gremmy (my puppies) and Sammy (her dog)! We had a blast and it was so nice to hang out without talking school or feeling like we had a million things to get done! Today I took Lilly and Gremmy to my parents and we spent the day outside! Fall is in the air and it was gorgeous weather!

Tonight I was feeling a little guilty and my growing to-do list got the best of me! I picked the most "fun" things on my list and decided to take an hour to devote to it! I just uploaded the pictures I've been taken over the past few weeks at school to the Shutterfly account that I created and wanted to share at least one picture of 1st graders working on iPods.

Look how excited (ok you can't see their big smiles but you can see their eagerness) and how engaged they are! I think I mentioned this activity a few posts ago but I'm not sure. 1st graders are learning about American symbols so I created 5 QR Codes, each linked to one of the American symbols (American Flag, bald eagle, Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument and Liberty Bell). They scanned the code and then stuck the matching label next to the QR Code. This was their first experience with iPods and QR Codes. Once they finished the matching activity they voted on their favorite American symbol which integrates with another social studies objective (voting) and two math objectives (reading/interpreting a graph and comparing quantities using greater than, less than and equal to).