Spring Teacher Blogger Meet-Up Blog Hop

One Amazing Weekend!

Two weekends ago I met up with a great bloggers and teachers from Indiana and beyond!  Over the weekend we had great fun with collaboration, a teacher swap, drinks, laughs, and much more! Take a look at the weekend below!

Teacher Tool Swap!

The tool swap had to be one of my favorite activities of the weekend!  I lucked out and won the mother load of all prizes!  A guided reading survival kit!  Take a look at all these fun items.  A big shout out to Adventures of Room 129.  Some of my favorite items in the basket are fun pointer fingers, guided reading question cards, essential question dice, spot the word flashlights, and these are just a few of my favorite things!  I must say after bringing the basket into my classroom my students begged to come to small groups and use one of those "awesome" reading tools!  Thanks Cierra!

Give Away Prizes and Sponsors

What is better than door prizes and give aways!?!?  I was lucky to win a Crystal Springs gift card!  After looking at the catalog a million times, I am going to go with the part, part, whole math cards!  This is a new way of teaching addition to me this year.  After teaching with Everyday Math our district switched to Envision math.  I was so excited to see this concept in an easy wipe off game!  Thank you Holly Ehle and all the sponsors for making our weekend so memorable. 

Leaving full :) 

Top three take aways from the weekend...

1.  I left French Lick feeling so full of excitement and renewed energy!  Just what I needed after a long overwhelming winter.  As teachers we know it gets overwhelming at times.  Not knowing if the light at the end is a train or the sun.  This weekend getaway reminded me how much I love teaching.  It was so nice to be around other inventive teachers who also love what they do.  Remember to take time to reflect and discuss with other what you love about what you do!

2. After listening to others discuss how they fit in blogging I realized I do have time and ideas. Gregg from the Kindergarten Smorgasboard inspired me to at least find time once a week to post.  This guy has amazing time management, posting once a day!! 

3.  I love posting pictures and many times look at other bloggers and wonder how do they make those pics look so cute?!?!  After the tips and tricks session I left with an app that is super helpful!  Best part..... IT'S FREE :)  To write on a picture, edit, and create designs you must download Phonto.  When blogging I struggle with formatting the text, pictures, fonts, and links. Another blogger shared the program Microsoft Live Writer.  In Live Writer you can write your blog post, edit, arrange pictures, edit pictures, and use your own font!  The one problem I found is I have a MacBook and its not compatible.  Even with that... It has not stopped me from trying to find a comparable program! I found a few but not with all the bells and whistles of Live Writer.

Farewell From French Lick :)

Overall what a great weekend and experience! I can easily say I can't wait for the next meet up.  I made so many new friends, learned new tricks, and left ready to teach!  Thanks to Holly Ehle who set the whole weekend up!  

Hop on over to the next blog for more great ideas and chances to win!

Prizes to WIN!!

Be sure to keep hopping to enter to win some great prizes at the end!!!!