My New Assignment and the Author's Craft!

Please excuse my absence.  It has been a whirlwind of a week for me.  In fact, if I don't make any sense at all or ramble, I am so very sorry.  I just had a dental implant placed yesterday, and I am on a cocktail of medications right now.  I am just a TAD jittery at the moment.  {Maybe more than a tad!}

Anyway, last Thursday I had the pleasure of presenting on the author's craft at our county's annual literacy workshop.  I have been presenting there for three years, and I LOVE it!  I seriously love it more and more every time.  I love getting to meet teachers from all over the county, and I LOVE being able help other teachers.  Here's how it all played out:

Regrettably, it was raining on Thursday, so I had to fold my anchor charts to keep the marker from running.  It makes me a little bit sad to look at the creases in the pictures, but life will go on.  :)
As you can see, I had a lot of help with the charts prior to the session.  Stella is half-monster.

Here's a sampling of few of the slides from my PowerPoint presentation.  Hopefully you can find a few helpful nuggets that you can use in your own classroom.  :)

Outside of the workshop, life has been pretty busy.  Like I said, I presented on Thursday, and we flew to Chicago on Friday for a wedding.  We spent the weekend with old college peeps.  I don't have many photos to show for it, so hopefully our friend Eddie comes through for us.  He is always the designated photographer.  :)  I only have this one really grainy, sad-looking photo of Mr. Wonderful and I.  Despite it's obvious flaws, I love it so much that I am going to share it here, even though the quality is totally pitiful.  Ha!

We flew back on Sunday, and by Monday morning, I was having a titanium rod drilled into my jaw.  {I have had QUITE an exciting week!} Seriously though, if anyone reading this ever has to have a dental implant, let me just go ahead and ease your fears.  It's not so bad.  Really.  This is coming from a high-strung, really anxious person.  So, truly, it's fairly simple.  :)  It took twenty minutes... and the anti-anxiety meds totally did the trick.  I was aware of everything that was happening, but I honestly did not even give a hoot.  At all.  For me, the implant was necessitated because I had one adult tooth that never developed.  So, once I had the baby tooth pulled, I had to wear braces to ensure that there was enough space for the implant, and now here I am.  Now, I won't even go into how my insurance didn't cover it, because that IS anxiety inducing.  Especially since I have to have a second procedure in a few months, and that will be equally expensive.  The good news is... I am one step closer to normalcy and not having to go to the orthodontist, dentist, and maxillofacial surgeon constantly.  It's seriously like Christmas! Now I'm just enjoying my liquid diet... which has included ice cream.  :)  I'm also pretty sure that I've slept more than I've been awake in the past two days... aside from when I went to team planning yesterday immediately after my surgery.  Besides that, I have been basically out for the count.  I am pretty sure that this is the most I have relaxed in YEARS!  It's not in my nature!  Hahahaha!

Anyway, besides all of that hoopla, I have been spending LOTS of time with my sweet dogs.  That is a job in itself.  I forgot how much work puppies are.  It's been the best of times, and the worst of times.  For sure.

Now, for the news.  I mentioned a few weeks ago that I will be doing something slightly different next year.  I have a new assignment!  I am really excited about the change.  :)  I will be departmentalized again, and I will still be teaching language arts and social studies.  However, next year, instead of having two groups of third graders, I will have one group of the top 25% of our third graders and one group of our top 25% of fourth graders.  Basically, that translates into all of the kiddos who are identified as gifted and students who have the highest scores based on a giant matrix of data.  I am really excited for the challenge, and I am really excited to have several of my students again next year.  I can't wait to share this new adventure with all of you!  :)  Happy Tuesday!