First days of class

I will have to say that in the years that I have been teaching, this has been the best first day by far. I felt that the "getting to know you" activity that I did with the students was a success. In the past years I have not felt as positive as I do today. The students were laughing, creating, and having a good time. They learned new things about each other and I learned information about each student. It goes to show you that you are never too old to play with Play-Doh. My students are in high school and they were totally engaged. They loved it. I want to thank and give credit to Dave Burgess the author of "Teach Like a Pirate" for the great idea. The idea from his book is what made my day such a success!

I am really excited for the rest of the year. This group of students seems to be a great group of kids. I can feel their positive energy and I hope to build on that through the days. I can't wait to see what our year has in store for us. I see a lot of learning taking place for me and for them!

Getting Started...

I could spend a whole lot of time playing around with the layout of this blog page. I had to stop myself and start to write. That is the purpose of the blog. Right?
Anyways, the 2014-2015 school year is just about to begin. My brain hurts from all of the thoughts and ideas running around like crazy in there. New things I want to implement this year like standard-based grading, blogging in the classroom and being more like a Pirate! All the while bringing in NGSS into the mix. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy where do I start!
I hope through these reflections and possible feedback from the superstar fellow educators that are out there in the world I can have a productive year for me and my students.
Off on another tangent, because this is how my mind is going the night before I am due to report for the beginning of the school year, I have started the journey into blogging. I feel this is the biggest hurdle for me, making that initial post. So here it goes and they can only get better from here on out, right?