I really didn’t know how to title this post but in the end this title seemed best. When I started this blog I thought of it as my contribution to all the people that mentored me and helped me through the years. Those first few years out of grad. school are a steep learning curve. I also wanted to help all the people starting jobs without materials. My stockpile was the only thing I started with some times. So this blog is a Thank you of sorts and a Pay Forward type of activity. Little did I know I would get so much back from my thank you. I’ve enjoyed the comments and suggestions people have made. I have followed links people have left and found a wealth of information and materials to add to my own. I have felt a kindred spirit from people across the United States. I have been honored by the nominations. Sometimes this blog is the validation that I chose the right profession. So Thank you to my readers.
This is the “This and That” portion of the post. I noticed I am coming up on 94,000 hits. Of course some of those hits are probably spam but even that is something. Someone thinks I am spam worthy. I often wondered when I started if anyone was actually reading and using anything. Then Pinterest came along and a flourish of new speech blogs and sites. I found that people actually wanted to link to me. This was good because that meant more readers. Well there is a point where you can become to successful and things start to falter. I started this blog using two free services: WordPress and Keep and Share. As with anything that is free there are some sacrifices such as advertisements you don’t have control over and a limit to bandwidth for things like downloads. There have been a few times where my bandwidth has been exceeded and people have not been able to do downloads on Keep and Share. I think this may become a problem in the near future. To handle larger loads I would need to pay for a subscription. I have struggled with how I may make this site self sufficient so it doesn’t come from the family budget.
I don’t like the idea of making a pay site because that goes against my initial intent. I really want people to feel like this is a sharing place and not a place they are pressured to buy materials. I decided teachers pay teachers may be my solution. Some of my activities could really use some updating and some people may like a colored version rather than the black and white. I will keep the black and white versions here and people can go to teacher pay teachers for an updated colored version if they like.
I am starting to update the Concept Development Activities in the Vocabulary section. I use them in my Kindergarten, RTI or push -in model. I added penguins to what use to be the Musical Chair Activity to make the cards more child friendly. Hopefully the pictures will help children who do not read.
The Musical Penguins for Concept Development is Free right now for a starter. I also posted the Train Sequence for Concept Development for a small fee. So go check them out and get a free download in the process.
For those of you who read all the way to the end, here is a reward.
The best thing I came across this week was from Chapel Hill Snippets http://chapelhillsnippets.blogspot.com/. On her November 18th post were directions on how to lock the screen of my iPad so students do not suddenly switch from their communication board to Angry Birds. This is a must have for many of us.
