Goodbye sweet summer, hello new school year!

Ride on Pacific Coast Highway in California

Cinque Terre Italy

It has been the most amazing summer of travel and family time. It's so hard to get back to work, but  I  sit here in my classroom I'm finding myself truly excited for this school year.

 I have transformed my classroom into what I like to call a "coffee shop" feel. I have scavenged and purchased and re-purposed fun chairs and tables to create different kinds of seating for all different kinds of learners.

 I have pictures of my trip to England and Italy in 8x10's around the room.  I have surrounded myself with my favorite things and memories. One of my favorite pictures is on the door of my classroom for all to see as they enter. It's a picture of me in a "loving life" moment as I turned a corner on the trail to see Corniglia, one of the "five lands" of the Cinque Terre in Italy. It epitomizes how I feel when I am happiest.

Hiking with my daughter in Breckenridge, Colorado

A teacher friend was visiting my "new" room and told me she heard at a conference that my kind of room has a name. I can tell you that I have not researched this and I am not following someone's grand new philosophy on learning. I am going from my gut on what I would like as a learner; options.

Do I think that having a room like this will enhance learning for my students? I'm not sure, but I am certain that they will feel as happy as I do when they come to my room. Happy students, happy teacher equals a great place to learn!

I am going to encourage my students to use the tools I provide to teach themselves through questioning and research. I want them all to realize that with creativity and resourcefulness that they can travel the world and make meaninful connections to what they learn in my classroom. I want them to have hope that it can happen and now is the time to set those goals for life. So I will use my travels and life experience to motivate and excite the kids. I want them to be able to have converstions with people about the world whether they've traveled anywhere or not.

Our world is getting smaller because of technology and I want my students to feel a part of of it. I saw this shrinking world first hand while visiting our old home in England. Everything seems more "Americanized" from fashion to language to cars to TV shows and movies. England is not so foreign anymore.

How will my students teach themselves? The same way that I do before I visit a new place, whether it be a small town in Missouri or a far away country in Europe. I saw on twitter recently "Why is it that when adults google something it's considered being resourceful, but when students do we call it cheating?" Kids have to learn how to find answers. "I don't know" has become "Let me look that up.....right now....on my smart phone."

I certainly am not suggesting that we don't have our students memorize or study for a test. I am not saying we should give them a quiz and let them google the answers. Students need to learn and retain new information. They can't walk around with a smartphone and google everything. They can't have an intelligent conversation or score well on the ACT if they google everything. I'm just suggesting that learning on their own by researching  and learning how to do this is the first step in internalizing new material. It gives meaning and ownership to what they learn. Nobody spoon fed it to them, it's all theirs. I want to be the guide with the tools to help them!

So we will research and question and learn and share in a comfortable environment where kids are free to move about and there is no "front" of the classroom. I'm diving in and we will learn together! Let's go 2014/2015...I'm ready for ya!

It's truly a hodge podge of seating, but it's all "wipeable" which is important when you have lots of 7th graders!

I feel so happy walking in to my room every day!

San Diego and the dream bike ride.

I've decided to use this blog as a travel journal now that we are back from Italy. I love to travel and want to have these memories and be able to share them with the kids should they travel more some day.

San Diego in a nutshell was perfect! The weather is always 70 and sunny and the beaches are gorgeous.

I went with Jay on a business trip.

 Our first day we rented bikes and rode my dream ride up the coast. We drove to Torrey Pines and found some free parking along the street and rode to Carlsbad where we had a brunch at a cute little place along the road that we researched ahead of time. I believe it was called "The Daily News" or something close to that. The ride was simply amazing and everything I wanted it to be. Jay got frustrated with the many stoplights but I was riding hard so as not to completely bore him so I enjoyed the break!

The next day I got to drive to La Jolla and explore. It was so cool to just drive in to this beach town, find a great parking spot along the road and get out and walk. I saw kids at beach summer camps, got to see the seals and the coves and found a great restaurant called Cody's that I just walked by and decided it looked great because of the view and the quaintness of the place. I had crab cakes benedict that were to die for! I would love to visit this place again!

Riding up Pacific Coast Highwy

It was a short trip but the fact that we packed so much into one trip was great!

The one thing I learned about myself is that I don't require a fantastic big fancy hotel, but I do like it to be in a nice part of town, close to many things I want to do and not be gross. The place we stayed was a Holiday Inn Express with no outside windows and although the bed was okay, the AC was just noisy and icky. I figure if I can manage in a tiny place in Rome that is not much bigger than the beds, then I'm allowed to complain. But in Rome we could open the windows to the outside on both sides of the tiny room. There was a decent bathroom so we just didn't need much else.

The fact that I got to experience San Diego and my dream bike ride with my husband of 22 years is not lost on me. It's at the top of my list of fabulous things. Get out there and travel with the ones you love. This world is big and we have a short time here. Go for it!