What a whirlwind of a weekend around here. Friday morning I left for Phoenix bright and early (seriously before the sun even thought of rising) and when I got there I had the whole day ahead of me, what was I to do? My room at the hotel wasn’t ready yet so I decided that breakfast was on the menu. Off to Yelp! to find what to eat that might be interesting to try. Well, I found this AMAZING little restaurant called NCounter and oh my heck was it FABULOUS! Not only was my Chorizo and Eggs flavorful but so was the Passion Fruit Tea! Definitely recommend this place and will be back when in the area!
After I got a little nap at my hotel I had to do some driving around to grab some last minute supplies for my booth (candy of course). After a trip to 3 different Walmarts to get what I needed I was set for the next day. But before any of that could occur I got to meet up with my amazing teacher buddy Marie Cote (or as some of you may know her Sweet Tea and Squats… hehe). Marie is an awesome mom of 2 kiddos and a teacher at a charter school in
the area. We grabbed dinner (and drinks) at Pita Jungle and had a grand old gab session. Too bad we live so far apart! A great night was had by all! 🙂
The next morning was the morning of the Arizona Association of Teachers of Mathematics Conference and boy was I ready! I presented and exhibited at this conference last year and knew it would be great to come back once again. Bright and early (again… seriously was up at 5:30am) I awoke to head to Arizona State University (via Starbucks of course) to get my day started. Got the booth set up just fine although I forgot a tablecloth and I totally forgot to take any pictures.. DOH!
My session was during the first breakout and I got to talk to a ROOM FULL (we had to bring in extra chairs) of teachers about how to get students to go beyond just “notes” in their interactive notebooks. I told every teacher in there, “If we do not get students to communicate their thinking based on the lesson provided then we as a teacher can not be sure they have mastered the skill at hand.” I know this sunk in wtih many of them because I was seeing many of them write this down as well as getting questions about how to encourage students to communicate their thinking. This has honestly become my favorite workshop to teach despite it being something that the teachers have a lot of reflecting themselves to do afterwards and it takes extra planning, it is what makes Interactive Notebooks WORK!
And this conference wasn’t complete without a 
FANTASTIC conference put on by Mr. Que and Mr. D of Music Notes Online. Seriously I was on my chair dancing along with the I Did My Homework Song and if you aren’t already using this in your classroom then what’s up with that? Grab the Motivation CD today and you need to get to using it!
I personally used this in my classroom on Friday’s when my students turned in their homework and if they had at least attempted the homework for the week they got to stand on their chair and dance along to the song. The one rule was that both feet had to stay on the chair at all times! That means they could do the Stanky Leg but couldn’t do the Superman.
Whew! Such a great day overall and I loved every minute of it! Glad to be back home and getting ready for my next conference coming up in Oklahoma City in October.
