P20 Conference 2018: Looking Forward to Another Awesome Experience!

Along with my awesome coworkers, I accepted the Rilla Award this month.

Another P20 Educator Conference is almost here, and I'm excited to be presening Faith and the Public School Teacher twice! My first session is July 10 at 11:10 a.m., and my second is on the 11th at 1:30. I'm psyched to update my presentation using some of my newly-acquired tech skills and bring encouragement to a new group of teachers this year. Yes, you can hold to a personal faith and teach in the public school! The only trouble is, there are so many other great sessions going on at the same time. I will just have to get the notes! P20 is such a great conference and the keynotes are awesome every year. If you're in the Twin Falls, Idaho, area, sign up!

After taking a year off blogging, there's lots to catch up on. Here are some of the highlights of my teaching life and God's work in my personal walk of faith heading into summer.

• Reading the book of James with my kids
• Seeing some of my freelance writing efforts come to fruition
• Attending a writing conference from the Idaho Writers Guild
• Revising unit plans to fit the Understanding By Design (UBD) template (webinar here)
• Taking "Behavior is Language" class
• Accepting the Rilla award from Silverback Learning Solutions with my school
• Gearing up for the P20 conference at the College of Southern Idaho (see above!)
• Adding fun products to my TPT store
• Gathering engaging resources from around the Web to use in my classroom this year
• Creating and sending a summer survey to my students using Google Forms
• Catching up on reading great books (find me on Goodreads!)

I also have to share that it was a great blessing to lead my first-ever prayer walk before school started last fall. Another teacher and I spent half an hour or so walking around the school campus and praying both silently and out loud for the year ahead. It was wonderful to know that a sister in Christ was praying with me, sharing the burden of seeking grace for our students, staff, and community. It was a year of successes in so many ways, and I love that "two or three" of us (okay, it was two) gathered in His name (Matthew 18:20) to ask God for that at the beginning. Let me encourage you to start something similar at your campus. Remember that it's legal, and it can be a great blessing. Check with your administrators if you have questions.

It's so good to be posting again! 

Blessings on you,

Amy

More Reading:

Conference Fatigue? Six Strategies to Avoid Burnout at Education Conferences

Learning Through Writing: Choose Your Own Adventure

• Want the slideshow? It's yours! Go to https://goo.gl/c49wS5.

Revising a Unit

10 Ways to Be a Teacher-Leader

Shoveling a Path Through the Snowdrifts for New Teachers

P20 Conference 2017

Amy at the P20 Conference

The P20 Educator Conference at the College of Southern Idaho is going full steam ahead, and I'm excited to share my presentations. This morning it's Faith and the Public School Teacher, followed by Choose Your Own Adventure tomorrow afternoon.

In today's session I'll give away a copy of Words to Live By: 52 Words That Lead to an Extraordinary Life, a wonderful devotional book by Linda Gilden and my friend Dalene Parker. Don't miss Dalene's first book, Christian Teachers in Public Schools: 13 Essentials for the Classroom.

Looking forward to an awesome conference with my fellow Idaho teachers! May the Lord bless us as we gather tools and strategies for the coming school year.

Words To Live By

See you at the Idaho Super Conference: Learning Across All Dimensions

School is going full steam ahead, with new faces, new adventures, and new blessings at every turn. I'm so thankful to have an enthusiastic freshman class this year. It's also been a blessing to see my youngest child enter Kindergarten and make new friends. My high school field trip to see Shakespeare's First Folio has been approved, and my advanced literature students and I are loving reading Fahrenheit 451!

One more blessing to add to my overflowing cup this fall is finding out that my two session proposals for the Idaho Super Conference have been accepted. That means I'll have a roomy ninety-minute presentation on Faith and the Public School Teacher, and I'll be giving my Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-inspired narrative writing presentation to a wider audience.

Join some 1500 teachers at Timberline High School and White Pine Elementary in Boise on Oct. 6 and 7 (state teacher in-service days). Registration closes Sept. 14, so be sure to sign up now. Professional development credit is available from Boise State University.

Writing and Publishing Narratives Using Digital Technology
Description:  In this session, teachers will learn to apply choose­-your-­own­-story structure to narrative fiction or nonfiction writing. Using Google Drive, teachers will learn to link story pages to form narratives with alternate endings.

Faith and the Public School Teacher
Description:  Can your faith coexist with your professional life? New legislation and news headlines may shake things up, but by identifying your stance on faith in the classroom, you will face the turbulence of our changing world with more confidence. In this session, teachers will learn what the law allows and expects of teachers who hold to a religious faith; take a look at teachers whose actions have come under scrutiny; and share appropriate ways to live out faith in the public school environment.

Planning to attend? Let me know in the comments! And join me on Facebook to chat with me and other teachers who'll be there.

Free Ninth Grade Vocabulary Presentation with Lots of Images to Help Kids Learn Words

Words 1-50

As the summer winds down (I can't believe I'm saying that!) I am finally getting to my vocabulary reboot. The one I promised myself I would accomplish this summer so my students don't have to endure bland, rote, pictureless vocab instruction for one more day.

Although I certainly haven't finished the project, I'm off to a good start at last. The list I'm using as a base for freshman vocabulary comes from 100 Words a High School Freshman Should Know on vocabulary.com. Some words on the list seem fairly basic (like camouflage), but can students use the word camouflage to describe the pattern of fur on a wildcat, or do they think it only applies to a military-inspired, splotchy green pattern of fabric? And for ESL students, this may be the first exposure to the word.

Words 51-100

Here's my Vocab 9 presentation in two parts, free for you to use in your classroom. I don't own the photos in the presentation, so be sure not to use it for anything but educational purposes. If you share the slides with a colleague, please attribute it to me, Amy Ballard here at ChristianTeacherPublicSchool.blogspot.com.

This is only part of an effective vocabulary curriculum. I hope it helps engage students visually with words that might otherwise seem abstract. Be sure to let me know how it goes!

Enjoy!