Back to School ..... And Being Busy

Wow, I haven't written anything in awhile. It's been a crazy couple of weeks here! We've been getting ready to head back to school and getting ready for our exchange student. Does anyone else feel like they're running around like crazy?

We had our first teacher development days last week. Lots and lots of information in a very short amount of time. I found out that I'm now working in all three of our schools this year (High school, middle school, and elementary). This means that I'm going to be doing a lot of work! For those of you who don't know, I teach Spanish to middle and high school and I teach computers to elementary. I also found out that my class sizes jumped up a bunch this year! I'm really excited. I have spent a lot of time in my room lately. I keep seeing all these adorable classroom reveals. I wish mine was that cute, but since I have 2nd grade through 12th grade I have to keep it toned down a little. High schoolers don't think it's all that cute, Lol. Here's a before picture

We've also spent some time with family! We were trying to get as much fun time in as we could. This is from Six Flags. We try to go as often as we can.

Lastly, we've been getting ready for our exchange student. This is our first year having one and I was really nervous! I think it's going to be an amazing experience for all of us though. This was us yesterday at about 7:30 in the morning impatiently waiting!

This was yesterday afternoon! We wanted to make sure that his first meal gave him a real taste of St. Louis so we took him to Imo's Pizza. I think we're going to have a great year!

Hopefully everyone is having a wonderful start to their school year too


Kim

Social Media Lesson, Back to School Fair, and a Surprise in the Mail!

So, it took me way longer than I had hoped to finish, but it's finally done! Thanks to all those make up ball games and the boys making it to the championship game, I spent a lot of time at ball fields this past week and a half. I really think this lesson will be good for the students. They put so much stuff on social media and I don't think they realize how much! (My own children are in the same grades as some of these kiddos, so I've seen what all they post!) I included safety tips and settings for many of the popular apps and I put in some scenarios to talk about after the presentation. I also made bookmarks to remind them where to start on some of the apps for security! I included a short worksheet that could be done together or individually. I prefer to do them together so we can talk about what we learned. It's in my TPT store and half off ($2.50) until sometime tomorrow!

Today we went to the back to school fair our community has. I've never been to one of these before, but if your community does it you should definitely go. I felt bad at first because I was getting supplies for my kids that I wasn't paying for myself. However, the people were so nice and I saw so many people there. My kiddos came away with a lot of the things that they will need for school! Seriously, this was just one of my kiddos haul!

Last, I got an awesome surprise in the mail yesterday! Who doesn't like mail,right? Awhile back, I won a giveaway from Tallahassee Sunday on Instagram. I had mentioned that I would love to have one of their signs with a map or globe for my classroom. This is what I got yesterday.

It's adorable, right? If you're looking for something for your classroom, you should definitely check them out at https://www.etsy.com/shop/TallahasseeSunday. Look at all their amazing ideas on Instagram at tallahasseesunday.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend,

Kim

Periscope Linky

Hey everybody! Greetings from the extremely hot and humid state of Missouri. It's been a couple of really miserable summer days here. Add to that all the wonderful make up ball games and awards ceremonies we've had because of the rain (for what seemed like an entire month), and I am one very hot and crabby mom.

So, Periscope has kind of taken over the teaching world this past week. (Or the teachers have taken over Periscope, whichever you like better!) Sheila at www.sheilajaneteaching.com has organized this wonderful linky so that the #Periscope teachers can all hook up and be listed in one place! What an awesome idea!

I'm new to the blogging world so I'm definitely excited to be a part of this linky. I did my first Periscope on Sunday and told three interesting things about myself. I was absolutely terrified! Why is it so easy to stand in front of people and talk, but the idea of the camera just makes me freeze! I'm sure it will get easier the more I do it. One of the hardest things for me was to not watch and answer all the comments as they came in. I kept wanting to look down and read them! Note: Watching your Periscope back is extremely humbling! That's ok, though, we're all beginners at some point. Right?

I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to use this in the classroom. I think the technology is wonderful but I'm a little concerned about the comments. I know that I can limit to only people I follow, so maybe that's the way to go. It would be a great way to share classes. Maybe have two classes in different areas read the same book and do a book talk together? I'm not sure yet, but I'm hoping I can work something out.

I hope everyone has a wonderful evening and thanks again to Sheila for having this linky!


Kim

Social Media

Periscope is definitely getting noticed this week! I've been stalking all these wonderful teachers to hear about what's been going on at TPT Vegas. I think it's absolutely amazing and I've been playing with it to see what all it does. I'm planning on making one of my own, but first I have to get the guts to go on camera!

Anyway, all the social media buzz got me thinking. If we, as teachers, can get so excited about social media imagine what students do. As adults, we know how to handle social media, but kids don't always handle it correctly. I know that they're still using all these platforms, but I thought maybe it would be a good idea to teach about social media safety!

This has been a lot harder than I thought it would be! I want to make sure these kiddos know what kind of information they are putting out there, so I've been doing quite a bit of research. It's actually kind of scary. (The app Tinder is apparently recommended for ages 12 and up. Umm, I don't think so) The picture below shows which platforms I'm going to target. According to my own teenager, these are some of the most popular ones that she knows about. I also researched a little online to see what are the most used apps. If anyone has other ideas, please leave a comment.

I am hoping to have this finished by the middle of the week, but if anybody is familiar with Missouri, you know we've had lots of rain. That means I have lots of make up baseball and softball games. (I've had 3 baseball games in the last 24 hours. We won them all! Yay!) I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of cheering this week.

Have a Great Day,

Kim

Welcome to My World!

     My name is Kimberly Obenauer and I am a multi-grade, multi-subject teacher.  I've been wanting to start a blog for awhile now to be able to reflect and connect with other teachers about things that work and don't work in a classroom.  I'm kind of an oddball teacher.  I have students from 2nd grade to students in 12th grade, so I get them all! I enjoy it because I never really know what my day is going to be like! One hour I have my littles and then I go straight to high school seniors.  It keeps me hopping!

     I've been so inspired this week by connecting with teachers on IG and Periscope that I felt it was finally time to start my blogging journey! Teachers are a rare breed in this world.  We always want to help each other succeed!  I've been watching and learning so much this week that I want to be able to continue that!

     A little about me! I teach Spanish to middle and high school students and I teach computers/keyboarding to 2nd through 6th graders.  I love reading other people's blogs.  I've found that I follow a lot of K-2 blogs.  I think it's because I introduce a new language to students.  Surprisingly, a lot of the strategies that work well for teaching K-2 to read and write work well for introducing Spanish too! It's like starting all over again in a different language.  I love working with the younger grades in the computer lab.  I'm trying to figure out how to introduce all this new technology to some of my upper elementary this year while keeping them safe online. This year I'm also going to be a cheer coach! As a person who is quiet in front of people at first, this is going to be scary!

     I'm also a mom! I have 4 wonderful kiddos. Two boys, Two girls.  My oldest will be a sophomore in college this year. He recently decided to just up and move to another state to go to school.  My next one is a girl and she's going to be a junior this year.  My youngest boy is going to be a freshman (where does the time go?)  The youngest of the family will be going into 6th grade.  I'm lucky that my own kiddos go to school where I teach so we get to spend a lot of time together.