Five for Friday- April 6th Edition

 Hello friends! Sorry I've neglected this poor little blog. I've been a tad busy with a million things recently. But I promise you more than one post this week! =) I'm linking up with Doodle Bug's Five for Friday linky party to show you five things about my week.

I spent Thursday through Sunday of last week at the CAL-ED (California Educators of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) conference learning all about Common Core and Depth of Knowledge. Lots of new acronyms and fancy new terms. The technology workshops were my favorite. It was a good weekend, but by the time I got home on Sunday night at 11:20pm, I was exhausted. It took me all week just to recover.

Last week the tech department came and installed my fancy new flat screen 40 something inch flat screen tv, sound bar and dvd player. I love that it's mounted to the wall and can easily pull out and turn towards which ever area of instruction were in. They tried really hard to get it hooked to my Elmo document camera, but to no avail. I will keep trying. It seriously feels like Christmas around my room.

I've nearly spent my $500 tech grant. It seriously feels like Christmas with so many goodies and new things to use. On Friday we opened up the flash drives and labeled them with the student's names. They are so excited to have one of their own. Now it really will not matter which laptop they end up with during tech time.

My students made silhouette signed art for the CAL-ED conference art gallery. I LOVE how they turned out. They look really nice hung above our calendar area.  Speaking of calendar..... I spy Spring Break on the calendar!! It's going to be here SOON! I cannot wait!

We are in full test prep mode around here. California has ditched the STAR paper/pencil test and we are taking the SBAC CAASPP assessment in a few weeks. I've been spending some time each day with the 3rd-6th graders just getting to know the test format and what to click on through the practice online tests. They are no where near ready for the test content, but at least they will understand how to take the test. The reading portion is going to kill them. You have to answer each question before you can move on. You know, in full sentence explanations..... essay style.  It's going to be a fun couple weeks around my classroom. Thank goodness it's just a field test.