Join us and Amanda Mullen for a back to school Seesaw session on August 23 from 3:00-4:00 pm EST.  This event will focus on the advanced options of Seesaw Plus and 4.0.  We will also highlight the Seesaw for Schools features. Want to check out Seesaw Plus and get 1 month free? Scan either of our codes to get started!

Not ready for the advanced session?  Just learning to Seesaw? Join us on August 18 from 3:00-4:00!

Interested in attending in person (Maryville, TN) or virtually? E-mail Courtney or Alyson for info!

Why use Seesaw? Here are 100 ways! Thanks fellow Seesaw Ambassadors for this awesome graphic!

ISTE Denver 2016

I had the amazing opportunity to present, with my colleague Amanda Mullen, at ISTE Denver 2016. I am beyond blessed to have participated in this event. We learned so much by being presenters! 

Our trip started out great...I was excited to be going to a new city, Denver, that I had never been to before and to present at an international conference which I had also not done before:

But, I need to tell you that I am absolutely TERRIFIED of flying! About 20 minutes into our flight, we had the most awful turbulence:

Yes, those are real, actual tears. Poor Amanda! She had to basically babysit me for the rest of the flight!

After landing, we went to register and we found where we would be presenting. It was so cool to see our session on the board! We are such nerds! We had to get our picture with it!

These are pictures from our sessions! Look how many people there were to listen to us! We had 150 in each of our sessions (we presented twice)!

Here we are in the Exhibit Hall with our "Presenter Badges"! I'm not gonna lie, I felt special! LOL

If you ever have to opportunity to present at a conference, please do it! It was an amazing experience that I am not ever going to forget!

Oh, yeah, and did I mention that I saw my teacher crush, Ron Clark? LOL, don't judge me. I get a little crazy when I see him. He has changed my teaching life beyond what words can express...

Ron Clark!

In July, I had the awesome opportunity to present twice at ISTE 2016 Denver. While there, I was able to visit the Classflow booth. Guess who was there? RON CLARK and a group of his extraordinary students! Let me just start with a few pictures:

 Yes, I dabbed with Ron! Watch out Cam Newton!

My first ridiculous picture, but sadly, not my last!

I love this picture. It will totally be printed and put with my first one (below) from two years ago:

#runners

#runnersforlife

#getoffthebus

I don't know about you, but when I get the chance to see/talk/admire my teaching inspiration I get crazy and giddy! I may/may not have asked him to attend my session at ISTE 2016 on twitter! Ron Clark had such an impact on my teaching and my life. Words cannot really express it! If you have not visited the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, please put that on the top of your to do list!

 Amanda Mullen (@amandarmullen) and I totally had this group of students take their picture with us! So amazingly polite and mannerly! Beautiful girls inside and out!

Also got to chat with Junior Bernadin (@JBernadin) and Dr. Camille Jones (@drvcjones). Amanda is in the bottom right hand corner...I guess I got a little excited!

  

I know this is another ridiculous picture, but I couldn't help myself! 

This extraordinary young lady tried to help me win a trip to visit Ron Clark Academy again by working out a ridiculously hard math problem! We were so close! #wekilledthatmath
#maybemrclarkwillreconsider

Mr. Clark if you ever read this, I hope you know how many lives you have touched, especially mine. Our school, John Sevier Elementary, will forever be changed by the example you set for us as visiting teachers. We now have Superhero Squads based on your house system. Every student has a colored cape that stands for a Super Power! Our Superhero Squads have changed the climate of our school! I, personally, was reignited by your passion and love for teaching. It stirred and lit something in me that will never be extinguished. Thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart.
-Alyson
#noonecancatchme

Ready to Read: Selecting High-Quality & Appropriately Complex Text for Read Alouds

I attended the TN EDU Regional Educator Summit in June. It focused on close reading strategies and repeated read alouds to boost student comprehension of complex texts. It was rewarding to know that we do many of these on a daily basis during our ELA instruction through our Novel Studies.  However, it was eye opening to learn we could grow our Ss vocabulary EVEN more through repeated read alouds.  Guess what, novels don't lend themselves to that!

We will continue to use our novels to deliver high complexity text, but we are now looking into purchasing text sets from Scholastic. Can anyone say grant? We can!  TLC said it right, we "ain't 2 proud 2 beg." LOL Here's a link to our scholastic wish list:

Grade 2 Text Sets

Check out the notes I created in Notability:
Regional Educator Summit Notes