Minutes (Lori G.)

It seemed very quiet as we all made our way to the beginning of our last week together.  What was it?  Were we exhausted from the last 2 weeks?  Many of us are also taking night classes this summer so that’s a good possibility.  Were we still celebrating the 4^th of July?  Another good possibility.  Many of us spent time with family and friends, swimming in the pool or lake, overeating and staying up late.  Or are we finally realizing that our time here together is coming to an end.  The discussion of cleaning our spaces and taking everything home was sad and seemed unreal.  Is it really coming to an end already? 

 

I brought a sausage, egg and cheese casserole, biscuits and fruit for breakfast.  I must give credit where credit is due.  All I did was wash and cut the fruit and carry it to the room.  My sweet husband made all of the rest for us.  Thank you John! 

 

Our morning writing inspiration came from Lorie J.  She shared some pages of Jan Karon’s book on how she came to be an author in hopes of inspiring some of us to pursue our dreams of being published.  (Karon was 50 when she sold everything, moved, cut expenses and began writing.  It’s never too late!)  Thanks for the inspiration to follow our dreams, no matter how old we are or where we are in life.  It’s a lesson that we can all follow. 

 

We also listened to some personal inspiring music during our writing time.  Alyson’s mom’s piano CD called MOONLIT was beautiful background music and quite inspiring.  The reading from Lorie and the music from Alyson said the same thing; you’re never too old to follow your dreams.  What a great setting to write in.  Alyson, our hearts are with you and your mom and we hope you have fun earthquake proofing her home together.  We miss you. 

 

We had a quiet morning working on the e-anthology website, creating our posters or reading.  The only problem was Whitney would not share her GingerMan cookies and finished the whole bag herself.  (She was later caught in the fridge stealing someone’s milk to wash it all down!)  Does anyone see a pattern here?

 

John, the paparazzi man, continues to get in everyone’s face, trying to get that perfect picture.  We must not be a very photogenic group because he won’t stop.  Maybe we need to pass around that magic lip gloss.

 

Many of us stayed in the room for lunch and enjoyed talking to Dr. Brabum our lunch guest speaker.  She led a very informative talk on reading and vocabulary instruction.  Many of us took notes and have ideas of ways to incorporate what we learned today in our classrooms in the fall.  Thank you Dr. Brabum for sharing some time with us. 

 

After lunch Lorie J. did her TIW on helping students see mental images and making connections to stories.  She read the children’s book When the Relatives Came,   by Cynthia Rylant.  We shared images we saw in our minds from the story and then wrote our own stories, trying to create those images for our readers.  Some of our images will stick with us for a long time; the shotgunner who stopped the drug runners, the Wally World adventure, and anticipation of the arrival of family are only a few. 

 

Art lead us in a lengthy, but informative closing at 2:00.  (no, we didn’t get to leave early, Art just wanted to use the tech cart before it had to be returned at 2:30, and he used every minute).  We learned about blogs and wikis by watching a video.  Then he gave us a few great websites. 

www.freerice.com  -  answer the questions correctly and rice is donated to hungry people around the world.

www.zamzar.com  - use this one to convert files (ex.  From YouTube to wmv that you can watch in your classroom.) they will convert it and send it to you for free if you can wait for it. 

http://pandora.com – free music that is tailored to your likes. 

 

We then had reading time to work on pieces for SunSource or e-anthology. 

Whitney tried to dismiss us at 3:15, but John, being the leader he is, made us stay until 3:30.  

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