Category Archives: Day in Sentence

This week, Day in a Sentence shifts over to Jo’s site and her theme is appropriate enough for many of us in the United States who may be moving into vacation time. She is asking that we consider the concept of “transition” in our Day in a Sentence. Intriguing, right?

Come join us by heading over to Jo’s blog and adding your own reflective sentence. We’d love to have you in the mix.

Peace (in sharing),

Kevin

This week, we turn back to Voicethread to share out our sentences. You can do it with video, audio or just type in your Day in a Sentence. We hope you join us over at our voicethread. You can get there by following this link or by using the embedded Voicethread down below. Spread the word. Let’s see if we can fill up the square with voices.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

How is your day? Your week? Consider joining this week’s Day in a Sentence. Just reflect on your day or week, boil it down to a single sentence, and then use the comment link on this blog post to share your thought. I will collect and publish all of the responses over the weekend.

To entice you to join us, I created this short Pivot Stick Figure Movie for you all. Consider it a welcoming invitation:

Peace (in your days),
Kevin

This week, Days in a Sentence had a numerical element to it, and as always, the contributors were wonderfully creative:

Anne arrived at a conference after many hours of traveling. I hope she blogs about the event.

After school on Wednesday, I drove 3.5 hours to Melbourne to catch the MH138 flight to Kuala Lumpur from terminal 1, gate 10 for a 7.5 hour flight, on a plane that was only 2/3 full, which landed me in KL at 545 hours for a 10 day break with 6 days long service leave and 3 days of MS Innovative Teachers conference.

And Nina, too, is conferencing this week. You just have to love the name of Webheads in Action.

In the 72-hour online marathon of the Webheads in Action Online Convergence I have so far logged 24 hours about evenly divided between Learning Times/Elluminate and Second Life; we are about halfway through.

Jo’s equation here is a struggle for her as she juggles kids and computers when the numbers don’t quite add up.

My smallest sophomore class has 21 students + I have 3 student computers in my room + the 1 available computer lab is closed for testing + the library houses only 13 computers and was only open to me for 2 days (due to testing) = 1 huge headache from finagling resources to get research projects done.

Ken goes the route of using numbers for words in his creative way. Which, of course, is what I always expect from Ken.

This has been 1 busy week that, 2 put it bluntly, has 3 aspects to it that will bring 4th at least 5 separate issues, the 6th derivative of which precedes the 7th as you might expect by the same margin that exists between 8 and 9, and if you feel there should be a 10th part to all of this, then you subscribe to a pre-20th century concept, that of decimalisation.

Ykes! Janice is hit by the Number Plague this week.

33 is the number of sleepless hours I’ve spent this week worrying about all the math concepts my grade 6 students still don’t know, and 3 is both the number of school days and the number of math periods left before the dreaded EQAO test that will remind them of all that they do not know, $450.00 is the amount of money I’ve spent so far trying to get rid of a ridiculously annoying plantar wart on my heel, 10 is the number of weeks I’ve been visiting the foot doctor hoping for said persistent wart to DIE, 49 000 000 is the number of dollars I did NOT win in this weeks lottery, and 5 is the duration (in seconds) of my long heavy sigh as I think about all these things!

Illya sees two plus two equaling four, even if the first two may not quite equal the second two (confused? read on).

Out of four days of vacation, I happen to be in bed for two of them, leaving two more to have fun on, hopefully.

Paul also gets creative with the number-word conversion system.

1 day left 2 the 3 day weekend be 4 the last 5 weeks of school.

The countdown for Art is underway.

The last 5 days of school I find myself more restless and ready to leave than many of my students.

The ol’ Email Timekiller hit Connie. I know that one all too well.

After three cups of black tea, pondering which of my 34 overnight emails to respond to before 8:30, I notice a pattern: one email led to 2 others, which led to 3, then 5, 8, 13, 21; suddenly I feel dizzy like I’m spiraling into the day as a Whirling Dervish.

Gail P. has little ones moving up. I love seeing her and her students in our building. They are darn cute.

17 kindergartners from my class will move on to 4 different grade 1 classrooms in 25 more school days, or is that 24 now, but who’s counting, right?

Bonnie was all about digital story celebrations earlier this week as her ongoing work with a local school paid dividends when the kids shared their work with their families.

I created a digital story focused on celebrating the digital stories of 76 very cool 6th graders but when the numbers were counted officially , it was really 79 digital stories of 79 6th graders with the support of 2 classroom teachers, a tech teacher, a substitute teacher and one HVWP TL.

Thanks to all of you for sharing!

Peace (in the number line),
Kevin

This week, Day in a Sentence became Day in a Question. I’ll just let the questions speak for themselves this week. (What? No answers?)

• What impact did I make on the lives of the twenty-one WCCA seniors who graduated Friday night? — Cynthia
• When much of what we have taken as truths are being questioned, how do we prepare our students for an uncertain future? — Mary F.
• Through what hoops will the state make us jump in order to make sure we haven’t left any children behind? — Chris
• Why does it pour when it rains? — Eric
• Do I avoid a stressful situation I seem to have extricated myself from (a football team worthy of a box-office dramedy screenplay), or jump back in with the promises from them that it will get better? — sara
• Is the craziness surrounding Portfolios really worth the product? — April
• Who helped you in your learning this week? — Tracy
• What are the elements of a class’ atmosphere that the students would say are most important for a feeling of safety-in-learning, collaboration, creativity, comfort, joy, and risk-taking in learning? — Connie
• What is the sound of 100,000 teachers not clapping? — David
• If I stop engaging with the Luddites, then how can I help my organization move forward? — Kathryn
• At this time of the year I always wonder if being in a child centered project based classroom this year will really prepare my kids for the lecture based teacher centered classrooms of high school? — Paul
• How do you put aside a “blah” week and start anew? –– Me.

And two sketchcasts from Jo and Ken:




Peace (in collaboration),
Kevin

Welcome to this week’s Day in a Sentence — which is turned on its head to become Day in a Question.
I’m using Sketchcast this week for my introduction. Sketchcast was around for a while, then offline, and now (thanks to a reminder from Larry), it seems to be back. The site allows you to create a virtual whiteboard video of sorts. (Although it does seem to be quirky still, as an earlier version with audio failed to play. So, this one is a “silent movie.”)
Anyway, your job is to boil down your week into a single question (an essential question, if you will), add it as a comment to this blog post and I will gather and publish all of our reflective queries over the weekend.

Peace (in sketches),
Kevin

Ken (aka, Blogger in Middle Earth) is taking the reins of Day in a Sentence this week, so please considering heading across the world to Ken’s blog and adding your thoughts. His theme this week is Day in a Comic, which could means a funny reflective sentence or, literally, a Day in a Comic.

So, of course, I went the comic strip route, using ToonDoo for mine.

Peace (in sharing),
Kevin

Greetings!

Here are this week’s Days in a Sentence:

I guess I will start with myself. I am off in Denver this weekend with another retreat with the National Writing Project. But at home, we have a new family member (not two-legged). So:

I’m in Denver, thinking about the web, while back home, a Duke the dog has joined our household, no doubt thinking about food.

Art is already seeing something down the road … is it the light? Uh oh.

As the year begins to draw to a close, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Lynn was hoping to lighten the mood a bit — seriousness followed by fun.

Test prep has cooked us all – it’s time for some Friday games!

wait a sec … is sara playing football? sara?

is it bad that my own football coaches have asked me to buy armpads to lessen the panopoly of bruises i’ve collected?

Summer poked its head into New England last week … hot hot hot …. and Mary saw its effects on her students.

This week’s weather has been a rollercoaster ride of 900 one day and 600 the next, which sapped the energy of our most active students.

Spring’s push forward brought some reflective moments for Eric. Our thoughts are with you. Keep the memories of good times with you, friend.

Despite the trees joining the spring revolution with their blooming leaf flowers, this is a sad week for me as I celebrate my no longer here mom’s birthday.

Mary Lee uses a good metaphor to catch the season and its pace.

May approaches ever so slowly (snail style)…then WHOOSHES past (gazelle style) before we can process the fact that it is finally here!

It sounds like Matt is sitting in an intriguing position.

I’ve gone from no options to too many.

Bonnie has returned from her annual sojourn to Israel and quickly got back into the teaching.

I’m back from Israel, embracing jet lag and deal with my no service Iphone before I hit the road to Dover Middle School for lots of 6th grader digital stories to push to the finish line. I’m exhausted just writing into my day, but it’s good to be home, no matter what!

Larry sounds a bit like me. And you?

State testing — ugh!

Barb, like so many of us, is looking ahead and balancing the calendar with tasks and finding one comes up a bit short.

Wondering how everything is supposed to fit before the end of the school year, trying to compact and compile, dealing with antsy students taking the Indiana achievement testing again for the third time this year, I finally got my PGP for teacher evaluation summarized last week and I am beginning to see the “light at the end of the tunnel”. Oh, beautiful spring!

Gail P. is making the adjustment back. Somewhat.

Mind and body are lagging after a wonderful week in the American Southwest.

Hmmm. Now, Paul has an interesting question. Very interesting. (I say, give her her space and withdraw as a follower, but that’s just me)

Wondering if I should stop following my fall student teacher on twitter when she starts to give her a place to ask questions and complain about me without having to worry about my reaction?

April conjures up Rod Serling (cue: theme song and odd plot twists)

Not one single meeting after school hours this week; have I entered the Twilight Zone?

Anne M. had a special moment — a special connection with her son recently.

As I teach in a small prep to year 12 school, I have taught all of my children, but how special it has been to actually teach with my son on the same staff for four months whilst he was home in Australia. (Sadly he has just flown back to London)

Ken and I have been writing poems all of April over at Bud the Teacher’s blog. So, I can feel for him with his sentence:

It’s been a long week finishing April;
While I’m not averse to verse I’m versed out.

And Cynthia brings a smile to my face (as usual) with her devious plans for sweet revenge.

The seniors skipped school Friday, but do I have a surprise for them when they return to English class Monday: we will be together two periods in a row because I’ve agreed to help out a teacher who’s wife is having surgery and we will finish Macbeth before the fifth hour bell rings.

Peace (in your days, too),
Kevin

PS — Ken will be the host for Day in a Sentence this coming week.