We have been working on addition and subtraction.

What a crazy week last week was! Between MLK day, a snow day and then my having to be out on Friday, I feel like I’m really missing my kids! Your child may have told you I wasn’t in on Friday because I was working with other teachers from across the country. I traveled down to Washington D.C. for the January session of the TeachPlus/NEA fellowship, where there are 53 early career (0-10 years of experience) teachers discussing issues facing us and helping to make changes in our profession for the future. To say I’m blessed to be a part of this group is an understatement – this group of teachers is not only inspiring but truly a group that makes you want to do better in everything you do in the classroom. They are thoughtful, committed and energetic about teaching and learning. It didn’t matter than I had to get up at 4 a.m. to catch my flight Friday morning, I loved every single minute of it.

We have begun writing in our winter journals.

Whenever I go to a conference like this, I am always thinking about our little school. And I don’t say “little” to demoralize us – it is just a fact – and you realize how unique our situation is when you start interacting with teachers from across the country. 38,000 kids in the Jefferson County School District in Colorado, 12,000 teachers in Montgomery County Schools in Maryland…and here we are reaching for the same standards and seeing many of the same issues right in our close-knit community. We should be proud of the work we do each day in the our school by the sea. (By the way, Nahant looks awesome from the air! Very distinctive!)

Now I’m all jazzed and can’t wait to get back with my kids but – WHAT – we have to wait one more day until we can be together! The Johnson School teachers have important work to do tomorrow that impacts our students’ learning, so I will hold on to my enthusiasm and see everyone bright and early Tuesday morning. Remember, the PTO ice skating event is tomorrow if you are looking for something fun to do outside of the house, since I just read this screen time study on kids today in the NYT. Good food for Thought. 🙂

Ms. Purdin

PS: Here’s another great article from the Huffington Post Education Blog by one of the fellows from Massachusetts about Common Core and Kindergarten: The Common Core In My Classroom.

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This morning Foggy was up to her chin in the covers!

A snow day? I hope everyone is enjoying this extra “vacation” day! It always amazes me all the things I can get done during a regular work day when I am in front of a computer! Good day to get all those “little things done.”

Today I did a google video hang out with 5 other teachers from the North of Boston area for a project we are working on. It got me thinking there may be a time in your child’s school lifetime or in my teaching lifetime that when snow days happen there will be a way to keep the learning going through our digital world. (Tweet assignments, post your essay on a classroom blog, take a photo of what you did and link it to this hashtag…) It would definitely change the meaning of a snow day!

With that in mind, here is a snow day challenge for all my little friends out there.

1. Have a parent take a photo of you playing in your yard, helping to shovel, making a snowman, drinking hot chocolate or being all cozy reading a good book or something else fun you did and email it to me bpurdin@johnsonschool.org. We’ll look at them on the ENO board and do some writing when we get back to school!

2. Look through magazines or catalogs and see if you can find something that starts with each letter of the alphabet! Cut and paste your own alphabet strip!

3. Practice counting from 1-74 (the number of days we’ll be at when we get back to school!)

4. Turn the TV off for a little bit and draw, do a craft, make play dough or read a good book!

Hope to see you soon!

Ms. Purdin 🙂

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