{Tears} & Release 'em!

Today was our Kindergarten musical - "Go Fish!"

All morning long the anticipation was building - after lunch the students could hardly contain themselves.  Thankfully, I was able to finish up Charlotte's Web (we'll have our Cracker Jack movie party on Monday - thanks to Abby's Unit) just before the performance at 1:00pm.

Let me just say, our music teacher is AMAZING!  My kids loved every second of rehearsals & preparation for today's extravaganza - and let me tell you it was an EXTRAVAGANZA!

My teamie {who like me, is addicted to TpT & blog-stalking} found these A-DOR-able masks:

• Fish
• Seahorse
• Shark
• Jellyfish
• Starfish

Since there are 5 classes, we each took a mask template & each kid made a mask.  We were sharks - they were so STINKIN' cute singing about "We're sharks, Leaving our Marks!"

The tears occurred because a parent requested for me to see if her husband {who is deployed in Afghanistan} could gain access to our WiFi.  Her husband was wanting to watch the musical via Skype/FaceTime.  I got right on that, filled out a ticket, & wanted to MAKE IT HAPPEN!  Guess what - it DID!!  I love our IT dept. - they usually get the "fix it," "this isn't working" types of calls - this one allowed them to stretch the limits of our technology & truly use technology to bring a father/son together!  I was in tears & so were my teamies, guys it was so MOVING to watch 1st hand.  This is an amazing family, which I've blogged about before - not surprising I get to blog again about them today & say that I am BLESSED to teach such WONDERFUL students.  I LOVE my job & moments like this make everything worth it!

After the pictures, a jelly/Swedish fish snack, & commotion - parents were signing out kids in droves!  I had only 12 kiddos left for the afternoon.  We went to our Library afternoon enrichment {Miss King enjoyed R&R with a Sonic strawberry/limeade slush - thanks to the wonderful Mrs. Lewis in 5th grade, who surprised me with this special treat, thanking me for always "loaning" her the supplies she needs (labels, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, hot glue...you name it, it's in my closet-o-shame!).  Honestly this "treat" couldn't have arrived on a better day!}.

Then it was recess & we had outdoor class - to release our butterflies.

This one was really friendly - he didn't want to "fly away" -

We enjoyed our afternoon outside drawing our butterflies in flight - while I read Waiting for Wings by: Lois Ehlert.

It was a great post-musical afternoon!  It's getting to that time of year when I am getting nostalgic/emotional about letting them go - does anyone else do this?  Don't get me wrong...we all could use summer vacation & our days can be crazy, chaotic, & occasionally AWFUL - but we're a family & I have bonded with them, it is exciting to see how much they've grown.  It's also kinda hard to let 'em go - well, I still have 3 weeks to enjoy them until I promote my Kinders to Firsties!

Where has the time gone?

Miss Kristan King :0)

The IT Guy Lies!

Umm, I have been to countless trainings involving "technology."

In fact, technology trainings are my LEAST FAVORITE!  Mostly because they cram 40 people, at various skill levels of technology, into a room with limited WiFi and then ask us to update, look up, and find sites...then we can't because "the server is jammed." DUH - that is because you can't have that many people on WiFi in one given area & not crash something.  HEY Genius, I KNOW THAT & I don't have an IT degree!

Or, they ask you to update & have log-ins ready prior to the meeting...then, they give us the info. 20 mins. before the meeting starts or the log-ins aren't given at all!  I get it, we're teachers {we're busy}.  So we come to the meeting thinking "I'll have time to do my homework there, before the class starts!"  But, we don't and then YUP, you guessed it, the server is jammed because we're all trying to create our accounts in the first 5 mins. of the training - they NEVER start on time, so we all think we can squeeze it in before the speaker gets started.

*Rewind to 4:00, 15 mins. into our Thursday staff meeting!*

So all of this happened in our Safari Montage training.  I managed to update my Java & still log in, but it was touch and go for awhile!

Then, we were PROMISED that Safari Montage wouldn't do that annoying 'buffering' thing that YouTube does!  Guess what?  THE IT GUY LIES - Safari Montage DOES SO buffer, just as annoyingly as other streaming resources!!  UGH!  So basically I spent 1 hr. & 1/2 learning a NEW & IMPROVED technology resource that works almost identical to YouTube & can't be counted on to be consistent or reliable when streaming videos.

So, I will still save all my videos as .mov via Quicktime.  Do you know how to do this?  Just copy/paste the URL from the site {YouTube for example} into www.convertfiles.com & select .mov from the save as option.  The website does the work for you & now it's saved in your files, for future reference!

I am able to play these directly from my Mac to my flat screen TV, via an Apple adaptor & HDMI cable.  I can also use Airplay via my Apple TV too - which is a great resource for using apps like Skitch, Doceri, & Evernote & projecting them from my iPad to my TV.

Good luck!

Miss Kristan King