It has certainly been a restful and enjoyable Christmas Vacation.  I had a nice surprise email from a former student wishing me a happy new year.  Always love that!  I have papers to grade, not looking forward to that, but I will get it done in the next few days.

I have had some difficulty turning off my teacher brain again.  I have been researching interactive notebooks.  It looks like a great idea and I am planning to begin using some version of it for my classes.  At the beginning of the year I have asked for a binder as a notebook, however the research I have found on the interactive notebook has all been spiral notebooks.  I will have to make due for the rest of this year and rethink it for next year.

I found a really good teacher webpage for using interactive notebooks in class.

https://sites.google.com/site/mrsbergovoy/interactive-student-notebook-isn

It is already December 3.  Progress reports for the second quarter go home next week.  Where has the time gone? I can't believe we are half way through the second quarter.  With Christmas around the corner and progress reports not done, my teacher brain has turned on..partly to distract me form those darn progress reports, partly because that is who I am.  I began surfing the internet to get some new inspiration. I found a new to me graphic organizer called PERSIA, and blog post about using it.  Can't wait to try it in class.

• Political: Who is in charge?
• Economic: How do we make a living?
• Religion: What do we believe?
• Social: How do we relate to one another?
• Intellectual / Arts: How do we learn? How do we express ourselves?
• Area / Geography: How does where we live impact how we live?