Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Liebster Award!!

Ms. W. from over at Tales of Teaching in Heels ever so kindly nominated me for a Liebster Award! (Update: And I was also nominated by Erin at Miss Lifesaver, so a big thank you to her also!)
This is an award to recognize new bloggers with less than 200 followers. I just started this blog in Feb. (and admittedly have not been blogging as much as I should) and am now up to 20 readers. Hopefully soon I will hit 50 :) So thanks, Ms. W. for the nod!

Below you'll find my answers to the 11 questions she asked of me, 11 random facts about myself, and my nominations for 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers. To accept my nomination, you should answer the questions I've typed below, post 11 random things about yourself, nominate 5 other bloggers with <200 followers and notify them of their nod.

Here are the 11 questions she asked of me with my answers:

1. How long have you been teaching? This year will be my 6th year of teaching (wow!)
2. What's your favorite teaching/coaching moment? Rapping Shakespeare with my students was definitely fun ;)
3. What's your favorite blogging site? (it doesn't have to be related to teaching)
As a new homeowner, I like a lot of DIY/home decor blogs. One I read frequently is Young House Love.
4. Which store is your favorite place to buy things for your classroom? I like a local teacher supply store, as well as Hobby Lobby.
5. What advice do you wish you got as a new teacher? The first year will be tough and will probably make you cry at times, but just keep swimming. It DOES get better!
6. What three things are always in your teaching bag? green & purple pens, highlighters, calculator
7. What teacher inspired you as a student? My high school band conductor (I was a huge band nerd!) Her love of her students and her passion for teaching was so inspiring. She treated us like we were her own kids and truly was invested in our success and our lives. I still keep in touch with her today and will never forget her.
8. What do you love most/worst about teaching? Most: Interacting with kids and when they "get it"
Least: Grading papers on weekends!
9. What's your favorite piece of technology to use in the classroom? How do you use it? The Smart Board I just got installed in May! I haven't had a ton of time to use it with students yet, but so far I have annotated articles with them on it, which was cool.
10. How do you plan to incorporate the new Common Core Standards this next year? I'm on the CC committee for our district, along with my dept. chair. The first thing we are going to focus on is changing the way we do vocab. No more vocab. workbooks with random word lists. We are now focusing on tier 2 words from the lit. we read, as well as tier 3 words that come from our reading selections.
11. What do you love to do when you aren't teaching? Read for fun, travel, play with my dog

Aaaaand my questions from Miss Lifesaver:
1. How do you seat students in your classroom? I let them pick their own seats the first few days of school, see who their friends are that they choose to sit by, and then make sure to NOT sit them by those kids.
2. How do you solve the dreaded "I can't find my pencil" issue? Each student gets 3 freebie passes for the semester to use when they forget supplies or homework in their locker. Once they have used those passes, they owe me a 10 min. detention to go get forgotten supplies.
3. What's a typical lunch for you at school? Leftovers from dinner the night before or a big salad
4. What one technology do you want most for your classroom? It had been a Smart Board but I finally got that :) It would be nice to have an ELMO.
5. What hours do you typically work in your building? 7:30 to 3:30 or 4
6. Do you see yourself teaching the same subject/grade in 5 years? Maybe, maybe not. I have always been interested in teaching at a community college.
7. If you weren't teaching, what would you do? I would LOVE to be a full-time author!
8. What is the best TPT resource you've ever purchased? n/a
9. Whose blog are you always excited to read and why? I love to read all the other secondary blogs, just because I feel like they are so much more rare and it's something I can really relate to.
10. How much do you collaborate with colleagues? Quite a bit, esp. teachers teaching the same courses as me.
11. What is one thing you hope to improve on as a teacher this year? Improving my questioning techniques and incorporating even more technology

11 Random Facts about myself:
1. I grew up dancing competitively.
2. Because of dancing for so many years, I have really strong toes and can pick up stuff with them.
3. My favorite U.S. state is Hawaii.
4. I've never left the country yet :(
5. I actually like vacuuming.
6. I'm an only child.
7. My favorite holiday is the 4th of July.
8. I've been married for two years next week!
9. I think my dog is my child.
10. I have a Master's in Writing.
11. I like school so much that I cried on the last day of Graduate school.

My 11 questions for my nominees:
1. How long have you been teaching?
2. Did you ever consider other careers besides teaching?
3. What do you like most about your school?
4. What's your favorite lesson/unit you have taught?
5. Name 5 things always on your desk at school.
6. What's the hardest thing about being a teacher?
7. What's the best vacation you've ever taken?
8. How many schools have you taught in total?
9. What is the most essential item/thing you do to make it through the school day?
10. Describe your favorite outfit you wear to teach.
11. What are your favorite hobbies?

And my 5 nominees are:

Go check out their awesome blogs!


2 comments:

  1. How funny! I actually nominated you too. Set it to post this morning, but I'm just now getting around to contacting my nominees! Well, I'm glad to see you participated anyway!!

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  2. Congratulations on your award! I just started a teaching blog, so it is nice to see up and coming bloggers gaining readers. I would love to share resources with you!

    thecurlyclassroom.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete