Summer Cooking

It seems that all great ideas I've come across have refused to come to fruition including my big plan to make use of my plethora of cookbooks this summer. I had this plan to use one cookbook a day and make something from it. After all, I did have the entire summer off! However, now that I am looking at the front end of my final week of summer break, I was attempting to modify this claim without giving up it's purpose. (Purpose: My husband does not understand my need to purchase a cookbook when anything you could ever want is on the Internet. Hence, my need to demonstrate through superior cooking - my need for my current cookbooks and a deliberate attempt to tempt him into insisting I buy even more!)

So I will claim that I did make use of my Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays cookbook to make three delicious recipes; Dulce de Leche Brownies, Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream and Three-Meat Lasagne. We had houseguests coming and these seemed like excellent, convenient items to have on hand.  All three were huge hits and so I'm inspired to continue.

So, in addition to starting a brand new position on August 3rd (more about that later), my new plan is to try one new recipe a week. That's reasonable, right?

Look for my cookbook list coming soon.

Dulce de Leche Brownies - my 2nd batch was much prettier, but I didn't take a picture of it. That will also be part of my goal - better photography!

Gamification Part 1

I've been reading Lee Sheldon's The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game and I am so excited to begin implementation of a game-based environment in my Tech Lit classes. As I tend to jump into things head first, I am making an attempt at reigning myself in - a little. The next unit my students will be working on is a Road Trip project in 8th grade. I've started a spreadsheet to chart potential XPs (points)  making sure the important learning objectives receive the most points. The back end of this is a bit arduous - mostly because I keep adding things and rethinking how it will play out with my students.

The basic objective of the game is to plan a 10 day road trip starting from our school/town. The students need to travel no more than 10 hours a day, stay within a budget - I'm thinking $1000 - $2000 budgeting for food, gas, lodging, and document/journaling their adventure. I will also have daily point awards such as - find a state or national park to stop and have a picnic and a short hike today, - find a national landmark along your travels today etc. I'll also be giving additional awards for progress along the way - farthest point traveled by day 3, best food posts, most stops along the way etc.

I will do mini-lessons as we go along each day including - Internet Searching, Research Techniques, Spreadsheets used for Budgets etc.

We won't start this unit for a couple of weeks (I have students every other day and we're in the middle of a computer hardware unit currently.) so I'd appreciate any feedback, suggestions, ideas etc. 

Switching Gears

Now that we've packed up the garden, it's time for me to switch gears. Expect new posts to reflect more of my professional experiences as well as splashes of life in the Midwest.

A couple of current projects:

I've started an Edublog for my 7th grade students. If you get a moment - please click on the image below. The kids are tracking our clustermap pretty carefully and have been SO excited when we get new hits from places outside of Anamosa.
We'll get some of their postings going by the end of the week.

 

As a "new" teacher I am required to put together a teaching portfolio based on the Iowa State Teacher Standards. You'll find it below. 

 

In addition to the two sites above. I'll be updating our wedding website shortly. ;-) 

Coding with 8th Graders

I've been working with my 8th grade students to get started with Coding through Code.org. They have been very successful! Code.org provides some direct-instruction lessons but most of the lessons are computer-based and students work at their own pace. They learn from short tutorials but also from their peers as they work through more difficult situations.



Those who finish early go in to Khan Academy and are working JS Programming. They are also doing well with that. I can't wait to see where they'll go next!

Family Vacation 2014 - EUROPE

We had such fun touring France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.  Here is a quick photo highlight tour.

Paris -

 

Hike on our own to see Sacre Coeur

 

Walking tour during a music festival in Paris

 

Seine River Boat Tour

 

Ste. Chapelle

Beaune, France

 

Wine tasting in the cellar

 

Lauterbrunnen Valley, Switzerland

 

Tremmelbach falls - neat video of it here (ignore the music)

 Munich, Germany

Hofbrauhaus!

 

Lots of really good beer!

Venice, Italy

 

Piazza San Marco

 

 

Grand Canal - Gondola ride

Outside of Florence, Italy (Tuscany)

 

Our whole tour group

 

Cooking lessons

Florence, Italy

 

Amazing views of the city from the top of the dome

 

Front of Duomo

Rome, Italy

Colosseum 

 

The Forum 

 

Vatican

It was a wonderful trip!

Then we came back to a sewer filled basement, but more on that next time. :-)

Garden 2014 is Planted!

Last weekend we were able to get the bulk of our garden planted. Whew we're tired again. We divided it into 4 sections just like last year. Here is what we have so far -

Section A:

• Mexican Sour Gherkins (275 seeds) - we really like these
• Cucumbers (2 mounds)
• Celery
• Two types of Kale
• Swiss Chard
• Butternut squash
• Cantaloup
• Watermellon

Section B:

• Sugar Snaps
• Snow Peas
• Green Beans

Section C:

• Brussels Sprouts (3 varieties)
• Broccoli
• Acorn Squash
• Zucchini
• Egg Plant

• Coming soon - Sweet Potatoes 

Section D:

• Tomatoes - a variety
• Jalapenos
• Mini bell peppers

• Coming soon - More Bell Peppers

     N
W      E
     S

 The south side faces towards our house. 

 

This is looking from the corner of NE corner of Section B - fence is for sugar snaps.

SW corner - broccoli plants

 From the SW corner  Section C- broccoli plants

The good news is - winter seems to still be here....

So I promised myself this winter I would do a better job of keeping up on the blog. Clearly this was a failure. It has been a long and painful winter for this quasi-California-girl but I'm hoping spring really is just around the corner. We had a beautiful weekend and if things go right, I may even get to plant the garden sometime in the next 2-3 weeks!

I've started some plants in the basement this winter, and while I did not plant half as many as last winter, I also haven't killed any. Coincidence?

Here are some quick garden highlights - 

We've started about 6 tomatoes and 4 Brussels sprouts. Keeping our fingers crossed they make it another couple of weeks before being transplanted in the garden.

The wood chuck is back (thumbs down) and everything is starting to green-up (thumbs up)!

 

 We have 3 whole asparagus shoots coming! - We transplanted 20+ yr-old asparagus from Dustin's great-aunt Gerry's garden last fall and we may actually get to eat some of it this spring.

 

We also put a truckload of compost (2000 lbs) on the garden last weekend and have tilled it up. Now we just need things to warm up so we can plant!

Stay warm my friends. Spring will (eventually) get here. I'll make a list of our garden plants in the next post.