Saturday, June 14, 2014

Summer and Garden!

Summer is here! Yay! Although I have to admit, I really don't feel 'finished' organizing the art room or my storage room. But unfortunately I may not get another  opportunity for quite some time....like pre planning in August maybe?  Since the last day of school for teachers, we have had an EOC or End of Course Exam Item analysis meeting that was quite tedious and lasted the entire day.  We piloted the exam that we wrote test items for earlier this year.  The EOCs are required for Florida's teacher evaluation system.  We only had time to review and correct the items on the kindergarten test, most if which were statistically deemed too easy.  I guess this meeting was such a challenge because 1. It is difficult (impossible) to write a multiple choice item to test a performance based subject like the visual arts 2.  We all know that this test is of no benefit whatsoever to students.  We were told that the county could not afford or have the time to assess students using portfolio or or alternative methods.

We also had training on Office 365 at my school for all the pilot digital school teachers which was great! I love google docs and found out that office is allowing for similar collaboration on projects and documents.  It was great.  We also want to become Cerrtfiied by common sense media by teaching five digital citizenship lessons this year, so we were coming up with plans for that.  

Outside if school. I have been busy trying to paint and fix up various things around the house to get ready to possibly sell it and find something with more space.   I have painted the living room and kitchen so far....but I still need to paint the bathroom. I also need to do some major purging/organizing in the garage.  Fun times!

I also am a working on my two small gardens in the backyard.  I have added several plants and veggies and am excited to see their growth.  I know there is some type of vine fruit or veggie growing on he flowering side(melon or squash) and finally some cilantro! Yum 

Harper's Ferry