Good Morning, Baltimore!

After almost four luxurious hours of sleep, we're awake and hitting the streets of Baltimore!  Since neither Susan Simpson (from my UCONN cohort, who flew in late last night from Houston), nor I have the right to sing in public -- or the shower, for that matter -- we are just singing in our heads.  Oh, and hoping we can then erase the song from the continuous loop in our brains for the next four days.

It's already an amazing conference.  Get ready, Donegal.  We're going to be blogging, and coding, and inter-webbing with Al Gore.

Okay, maybe not Al Gore.  But with somebody.  Soon.

The Te@chthought Blog Challenge for today:

 Nov 13 What do you do to take time out for yourself?

It's odd that this question hits on the first day of a conference where I will be immersed in all things Gifted Education for the next four days.  To be honest, since my time at UCONN, a lot of my personal time is still an exploration of topics, strategies, and reading related, or potentially related, to curriculum and instruction.

It's not that I'm trying to be Al Roker.  I'm pretty sure there's no world's record for continuous absorption in Gifted Education.  I'm willing to bet, though, that most teachers find themselves obsessing, or at least mind-wandering, when they read an article, hear a song, or see a reasonably-reasonably priced gnome that reminds them of the people in their classrooms. 

Today's sessions all featured technology.  Brian Houseand contributed to pages and pages of notes for new ideas.  (Watch out, Junior High!)  Listening to the Montana tales of Tamara Fisher -- and finding her resources for using standards with gifted kids -- was a godsend.  And Ian Byrd will be the topic of emails to my elementary peeps for the wonderful resources he has made available for teachers.

So what do I do when I'm not "doing gifted?"  Most recently, it's been finding alternative ways to use some of the cool resources -- like using my cricut to cut fabric letters for church banners for Advent this year.  (And even that call to play with fabric wanders into my classroom every now and then.  Did you ever hear the acronym EGFA?  It was big in the middle school a few years ago.  -- why, yes, I can decode it for you:  Exploring Geometry through Fiber Arts.  Yes, folks, we were quilting.)

After a day of Gifted Ed immersion, tonight I will take time for myself -- a hot shower, some tea, and The Big Bang Theory.  Because even when I take time for myself, the G/T population follows me. 

I'd like to say it's a sickness, but that means I'd want it to end (which I don't) or that I'd have to write subplans (which I don't, as long as I can keep the fever of gifted!)

#reflectiveteacher