First Book of the Year 2014

The amazing Sheila over at Book Journey is having some fun with THE FIRST BOOK OF THE YEAR that she hosts each year. It’s a chance to pick a book that you’ve been wanting to read (or reread) and bring in the new year with it.
I’ve decided to ring-bring in 2014 with:

The Program by Suzanne Young.

The Program (The Program #1)

by Suzanne Young (Goodreads Author)

4.02 of 5 stars 4.02  ·  rating details  ·  5,238 ratings  ·  1,050 reviews

In Sloane’s world, true feelings are forbidden, teen suicide is an epidemic, and the only solution is The Program.

Doesn’t that make you want to read it? I know it does me!! 🙂

Here’s a little bio from Goodreads about the author, Suzanne Young:

Suzanne Young currently lives in Tempe, Arizona where she teaches high school English and obsesses about books. She’s the author of A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL, A WANT SO WICKED, and THE PROGRAM. Learn more about Suzanne at www.suzanne-young.blogspot.com

UPDATE-I started this book today, and it started with a BANG!

My husband took this picture of me and my ipad. It only took us 314 times to figure out that oh, I can change the background color so it won’t show up as just whited out!! 🙂 Even though I will ALWAYS prefer holding an actual book in my hand when I read, I do have to say that being able to immediately download a book to my kindle and then being able to read it on my ipad or iphone is WONDERFUL. It makes me love technology THAT MUCH MORE! 🙂

 

Oh yeah, that’s NOT a furry animal on our coffee table-it’s a hat that my husband LOVES to wear. Even if he does look Russian in it. 🙂

What’s the 1st book you will be reading this year???

New York Children’s Book List 2013

Great children’s books from 2013. A list created by the NY Public Library.

Make sure when you go to this site that you look in the right corner of the page and toggle back and forth between the list and covers view. Oh, how beautiful are those covers! They just make my heart melt!

New York Public Library 100 Children Book Title for Reading and Sharing

Thanks, Maureen, for sending me this link on Facebook today! 🙂

LOOK HOW PRETTY BOOK COVERS ARE. I’ll never understand why some people don’t like to read! 🙂

Run, Read, Teach

RUNNING

2014 is going to be an awesome year for running!

If anybody needs a spreadsheet to track your running/walking miles-HERE YOU GO! It’s sort of cute if I do say so myself! 🙂

#500in2014 Spreadsheet

READING

Don’t think I’m going to meet my Goodreads Reading Challenge for this year. Goal was 200, and I’m on book# 175. Oh, well. Will shoot for it again in 2014!! 🙂

 

TEACHING

I can’t wait to tell my 6th graders next week that we will start blogging in mid January!!!!!!!!! I’ve already set up a blog for us at Kidblog. We will take about 1 1/2 weeks to learn all about blogging before we dive in. 

Wadley 6th Grade

 

And there you go. A short summary of my current thoughts on what makes me who I am- I RUN READ TEACH. 🙂

Either you ran today or you didn’t

I ran. But look at what a foolish tweet I sent out afterwards!

Just an ordinary mistake in the life of Shannon on twitter. Can you catch it? Hint-hint. I run slowly.

Waited a little late 2get a run in,pulled off a 2 miler12:55. #runteacherrun I’ll have 2 do this a lot 4 #500in2014 pic.twitter.com/OBQ8o4a19t

— Shannon Clark (@shannonclark7) December 29, 2013

500 in 2014

2 years ago I made a resolution/vow/goal to TRY and run a 5k. My husband laughed. Said I could never do it. I showed him.

I used the FABULOUS Couch25k program and ended up running 440 miles that year. (2012).

I went from 163 pounds to 126. In 4 months.

THEN I stayed at around 128-132 lbs for a looooong time.

Enter 2013. Yes, I DID run a half-marathon at Disney World. My husband was very proud of me. I was proud of me.

But then I let life AND laziness get in my way. I slacked off of my running.

In 2013 (even with my half marathon) I’ve only run 145 miles. FOR. THE. YEAR.

OMG.

So, with that being said, 2014 is just around the corner.

And I’m gonna get my run back on. I pledge to run 500 miles in 2014. Yep. Gonna do it. 🙂

A great group of tweeps on twitter have started the #500in2014 challenge on nike +.

I’m in.

And guess what? My husband didn’t laugh this time. Because he knows I can do it. But he DID say I couldn’t do it. Even though he knows I can do it. I think he’s trying for a little reverse psychology. Best motivation ever. It was the last time. 🙂

I’m taking this 144 lb slacking runner girl and turning her into a skinnier (haha-you thought I was going to say 126 lb girl) running girl.

Just call me the Road Runner. 🙂

Library Party

I need to have a library party tomorrow. Or Monday. Or Tuesday. But definitely before January 1st.

Why you ask?

Because my goal this year was to read 200 books. I mean I even put it out there on goodreads.com.

AND-I’ve only read 173. Yikes!!

Yes, I know that the BOOK POLICE will NOT come banging on my door. And the GOALS DETECTIVES won’t be investigating.

BUT-I set this challenge for myself, and by golly I don’t want to fail!

Changing our mindsets about technology

Technology is here to stay in our world, and we need to embrace it in our classrooms. Here’s an article with some tips for teachers who use technology-or actually who teach students how to use technology. 🙂

http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2013/12/17/ctq_tolley_tech.html?tkn=TSNFC4jLP9RIKSbFJR6HfMGqCCU7coKtkPCf&cmp=ENL-TU-NEWS2

Biggest shift of Common Core

I ran across this SHORT little article on twitter the other night about the biggest shift of common core. It probably needs to be shared with ALL teachers across America. It might put an end to the regurgitation style of teaching that is so prominent in many classrooms. You know where we teach ALL of the content to the students, give them a study guide, and they take a test on what we poured into their little brains. GUILTY as charged of having done this in the past.

This year I am REALLY trying to change HOW I teach and HOW they learn. Is it hard? YES. Do I want to give up sometimes? YES. Am I doing it completely right? NO.

Am I trying? Yes. 🙂

How have you changed your practice since the adoption and implementation of common core?

Here’s the link to the article:

http://www.educators4excellence.org/news/2013-12-biggest-shift-of-common-core-is-not-what-we-are-teac

Christmas 2013

It’s been a great day with family and food.

I made these with the pic collage app on my phone. Super easy!

Rest time!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

A Peek at My Week-Holiday Break

 

 

 

 

I decided to link up with Jennifer over at Mrs. Laffin’s Laughings for her weekly linky party. It’s a chance to share what your upcoming week looks like, and since it’s Christmas break right now I’m hoping to accomplish a few things around the house. Hopefully. 🙂

Here’s one thing I’ve already done. Yes, it took me a looooong time to get this done. I put the diplomas for my master’s and EDS in frames and hung them in my office/library/junk room. 🙂

Done!

 

I need to finish painting the bottom left frame, take the gosh awful sticker off of the top right frame, and then I want to paint over the yellow gold color that DOESN’T match my 2 shutters. I’m going to paint over it with a brown color.

 

These files need to go somewhere. Trash. Filing cabinet. Bonfire. Somewhere. 🙂 I rearranged my little office and just threw them down. Does anyone else ever do stuff like this????

 

Some other things on my to do list are:

*****upload all of my pics from an old laptop AND my old southern linc memory card to Shutterfly. It’s a free website for photo storage.

*****put up curtains in my little office and in my workout room

And of course, I’ll be spending time with family tonight and tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What have you got planned this week? Are you trying to organize anything around the house??