Three Things

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Twitter:

1. Ilana Horn (@tchmathculture) had a great idea to ask the #MTBoS to tweet their favorite or most popular posts of the year using the hashtag #MTBOS2015. I tweeted both my favorite post and most popular post and got lots of people visiting my blog!

2. Some teachers in my district started a monthly chat (#D100chat). It's been great participating and connecting with teachers across my district!

 3. Love seeing a tweet like this one by Martin Joyce (@martinsean). It's so cool to be able to recommend resources to teachers from all over!


Resources and Blogs:

1. If you have iPads in your classroom you just have to try Class Kick. My favorite for having kids working and giving timely feedback.

2. My students absolutely beg to do Kahoot! I like it too, but try to limit our use to once every few weeks. I think it could lose it's novelty and I don't want that to happen. One word of caution-- it's a game where accuracy and speed are rewarded. Be cautious with the speed thing. Being fast does not equal smart and I don't want my students to think that speed is what I value. Kahoot is best for quick questions that don't require a lot of computation. Questions such as "is it prime or composite" or "what operation would come first" or vocabulary questions are best. 

3. Are you on Facebook? Like the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM) page! I post content for it and would love to get more likes! Plus, the content I share is a pretty good mix of math education articles, funny memes, and math puzzles/brainteasers.



Professional:

1. Just blogged about ed tech myths. I thought about that post for a while and spent a few hours writing it. I'm pretty proud of it and hope you like it!
2. I need to get planning for several conference presentations I'm doing in January and February! A few are about the same topic, so at least I can prepare something and use it several times, however I need to get going on creating my presentation!

3. Thinking a lot about the difference between kids as learners and adults as learners. I'm always trying to improve as a math teacher, but I definitely feel more comfortable in that role. As a math coach for teachers, I'm just starting that journey. It's a little out of my comfort zone because I just don't have as much experience with it. 


Personal:

1. I announced on here and on Twitter that my family is growing! I'm pregnant with my second little mathematician due June 6th. I was pretty sick in the beginning but started feeling a lot better after 12 weeks. I'm currently almost 18 weeks. No real cravings except for orange juice-- I can't get enough! 

2. Do you read other types of blogs besides education blogs? I do! Here are some of my favorite fashion/lifestyle blogs: The Small Things Blog, Franish*, Putting Me Together, The Mom Edit
(*I borrowed the "3 Things" format from Franziska!)

3. I'm redecorating the nursery and changing our guest bedroom into Natalie's "big girl room." I'm trying out a few wall decals from Etsy. I just ordered them, so I don't have pictures yet. But here are the decals that are on their way: 
Chicago Skyline in gray for the nursery

Fun Tiny Confetti for Natalie's Room

Playful Cat, in Gold for Natalie's Room, because, why not?! :)

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