0 ELA Common Core Bulletin Board + Expanding my Blog!

I am lucky and blessed enough in the school district I'm currently in to have a special ed co-teacher who works with me as well as an amazing teacher assistant. I wanted to share the great work she did on a bulletin board for (Thanks, Becky!) Although I consider myself very thorough as a teacher, I sometimes am not the most organized or most artsy-creative person in the world. That's where my co-teacher comes in! I wanted to design a bulletin board that reminded students how to build an argument according to the common core- making a claim and using evidence to prove it.






I have also been teaching my 8th graders strategies I learned from the book Writing Analytically by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephens (a book we used for professional development in the district I was in last year). This asks students to look for repetitions, binaries and anomalies in order to analyze a text. Believe it or not, the 8th graders are doing a great job with it.

Cooking adventures- healthy 'pepper pasta'

Lately I have really been thinking about expanding my blog from just teaching ideas to a broader view of my daily life including recipes, food, fitness information and workouts. I know there are a million blogs out there, but I enjoy doing it and want to weave writing (why I became an English teacher in the first place) into my life. It is a goal I have set for myself and I don't want to give up on it just because 'there are a million blogs out there'. I am really having a tough time thinking of what to name my blog! I want it to let readers know what I'm blogging about- cooking, working out and teaching. I think I can appeal to more people and get more people to read my blog if I also blog about these things. In the past year I have been teaching myself to cook as well as adopting a healthier lifestyle and I want to incorporate those things into the blog.



My first 5K



I am having such a hard time thinking of something..but when I do be prepared for my blog to be changed from just lesson plan ideas to a place where you'll find recipes I try out and workouts and ideas for health and fitness.

Any ideas for a blog name?!?!?

0 Spooky Tell Tale Heart Lesson for Halloween

'

I've been planning for WEEKS and stressing out just to make sure I could do this lesson on Halloween. Things got a little derailed when we had an unexpected 'weather' day Tuesday due to the hurricane that didn't really hit us. But I was still able to do the lesson today on Halloween.

For the last three lessons we've been reading Edgar Allan Poe poems and studying his life. Today we read "The Tell Tale Heart" and watched a short You Tube Video that went long with it. The website  Knowing Poe has a great interactive audio along with text for this story. The students followed along and listened to the story and did 'sticky notes'. The interactive on the website allows you to add comments as you go along, so I would stop every now and then and ask students to share a comment. I really wanted to do this on the Ipads and students could have listened to it and done their own comments individually.....but you can't get Adobe Flash on Ipads and that's the program the website used :(

Then we watched a short You Tube video that was a 10 minute adaptation of the story. The kids enjoyed it and pointed out the differences.

Then we answered some close reading questions that I made up. This was one of the first items I put on Teachers Pay Teachers, and it is my best selling item! Check it out!

Tell Tale Heart with Questions

Maybe I should have charged more than a dollar! Happy Halloween

0 IPad Apps for the Classroom

Today was a professional development day and I was able to play around with my Ipad and test out different Ipad apps to use in the classroom. Our grade level has a cart of Ipads to sign out, and the sixth grade in our school is actually getting 1:1 Ipads. I'd love to get 1:1 Ipads someday but right now it's not a reality, so I have to make do with what I have.

Here is a list of the ones I found most useful:

Voice Thread:
Voice thread allows you to record voice and make notes about a video or snapshot. It really doesn't do anything that amazing, but it's the creative ways teachers are using it that makes it cool. I plan on having students take snapshots of their narrative essays, and record their voice reading it and making comments on it.

They will do this for all their major assignments throughout the year and at the end of the year they will have a 'digital portfolio', with all their pieces of work and voice recording explaining the work.

You could also use it for class discussion about text- but it would require all students have their own Ipad and email addresses. You could take a picture of the text and have students write comments as you read. Here's an edutopia article regarding more you can do with Voice Thread.



QR Reader:

This is a rather simple one that most people have heard of. You can embed a code into a certain QR, then have students scan the QR code with the Ipad and it will go directly to the link/video/website that the QR links to.

This isn't much different than just giving kids the website or directions to find the video, but it's much easier and avoids the headache of students not typing in the address right, not following directions, etc.

You could do a scavenger hunt of QR codes around the room/school and have students do a sort of 'mobile' web quest.




Show Me:
Basically another avenue to annotate and record over pictures and/or diagrams. The only thing is you can only work with one 'slide' as opposed to many pages. This would work well if you wanted to record yourself doing a math problem in action or explaining a concept to students. You don't have to remember what you said each time, you can just record the notes and the conversation.
You can just this for white board notes and not have to re-write the notes for every class. This might be a good tool for teachers who teach in a lot of rooms.



If you have great Ipad apps and ideas that you are currently using in your classroom, please comment below! This is just a sampling of what I even did today...I know there are many more!

0 Peer Conferences: Are they worth it?

Today we did peer conferencing in class with the narrative essays the students have been writing. Many times I've done peer conferences and realized after the lesson that it had absolutely no value and was a complete waste of time. The students are not teachers. Sometimes they don't give the best advice. Sometimes they give REALLY bad advice to each other.

For example, after peer conferencing in a lesson last year, a student showed me her paper. She asked me if the word 'I'm' needed to be capitalized because her partner had told her that it wasn't. Every time she had used 'I'm', her partner had drawn a big slash through the capital I......head slap.

And then you get the usual useless advice that students give each other like "It was good!" That doesn't really help anyone.

I've been training students to give comments to each other based on the items I've taught them and based on the rubric provided for their narrative essays. Using Angela Stockman's model of 'Warm and Cool Feedback' (see more about this here), I framed questions on an anchor chart that students will use to give feedback to each other on their essays. Examples for narrative would be:




Warm Feedback:

I liked how you used ________________________ to hook the reader.

Your dialogue in (this part) of the story was great.





Cool Feedback:

Could you maybe start your story with _____________________ instead?

What did you learn about life from this experience? (prompting students to come up with a theme)




These sentence frames allow students to give specific advice on the items on the rubric. Therefore when students go and make changes, the changes they make will automatically make their essay better ACCORDING to the rubric and the actual graded items.

My narrative common core rubric, as well as others can be found here.

What are your thoughts on peer conferencing? Waste of time, or worth it?

0 Teachers Pay Teachers Experiment

Many people have mentioned to me over the past couple weeks about the teacher who became a millionaire by selling lesson plans online.  When I heard about this, I immediately thought about Teachers Pay Teachers. I know about it from doing this blog and visiting other blogs where teachers link to their TPT accounts in order to sell products and the ideas they have on their blogs. I have never been one to actually pay money for lesson plans for worksheets, as I really prefer making my own stuff. I will occasionally download stuff from TPT when it's free or really inexpensive (only if I REALLY want it). 

 
I figured I might as well go ahead and set up an account because I know there are a lot of teachers who like downloading or copying things that are pre-made. Since I'm already doing this blog I figured I'd give Teachers Pay Teachers a shot. I put up a couple things last week just for fun...and I actually got two sales so far! Woo hoo! 

I don't plan on making a million dollars.....but this is a way I can share some of the stuff that I talk about on the blog. I just recently put up a worksheet I used to help students find how writers use language to convey emotion. This is original work- you have to be careful what you put up because you can't sell something copied from someone else obviously! Well....we'll see how it goes! 

0 Amazing Common Core Standard Checklist!

I can't really take ANY credit for this amazing idea I'm about to share....it was ALL my co-teacher's idea. I asked her permission to post it because I am obsessed with it. My co-teacher was wondering if there was a way to track how many times we had hit each standard in lessons, as well as pay attention to those we focus on more than others. We were looking for a simple document with all of the common core standards but couldn't find one. Then she came into my room with this outrageous creation:

It's kind of hard to see but she cut out the list of standards for each category (reading literature, reading informational, writing, speaking, listening and language) and glued them on to large piece of construction paper. Then she laminated it. To the right are spaces for me to tally when I hit a particular standard in a lesson. I can keep track of it every day. THIS IS GENIUS AND I'M OBSESSED WITH IT!!! 
 

Here's a shot of the whole thing.

Since these are laminated, I can erase and start all over next year! I just thought of the idea to use a different color for each marking period, so I can track which standards I hit each marking period. This will help me when I'm building my curriculum next year. Since it's my first year in this position, I am still building my curriculum as I go along. Next year I can determine which standards I want to fall in which marking period and make sure I hit the important ones every making period. 

AMAZINGGGGG!!!! That is all.

0 Common Core Lesson: Providing Evidence

There is a lot of emphasis on students providing textual evidence for answers in the new common core curriculum. This has been the meat of my curriculum and lessons for the last month. It's surprising to see the shift from prior knowledge and inference skill level questions now back to the basic find it in the text questions. Personally, I think the latter are easier for the students so I'll welcome the shift. 

Along with the shift to text based question and answers is the shift in complexity of text. Students are being expected to read more complex and higher level texts. Included in the exemplars, and which I did end up teaching last week, is Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The look on my students' faces when I told them they would be reading part of a book that I read in college was priceless!

Going along with the narrative theme, I chose an excerpt from An American Childhood by Annie Dillard. I used this excerpt to guide students into providing evidence for claims they make about a character.

Outside of foldable

I used this excerpt and read with students while they completed their sticky notes. We talked about personality traits and focused on Annie, the narrator and author's, personality. I used the 'What does it say, what does it mean, why does it matter?" comprehension strategy and had students make a foldable.I find that this keeps them engaged as opposed to just having them write it down on a sheet of paper.

Inside of foldable, not sure why it won't go the right way...

On the inside flaps, students wrote:

What does it say: They provided an actual quote from the text to support their inference about Annie's personality. 

What does it mean: They made an inference about Annie;s personality. 

Why does it matter: They extended their thinking to consider why this was important to the plot. 



Students are getting used to providing reasons and evidence for claims they make as they are reading. Hopefully they will continue to get better at this as the year progresses.

0 Sticky Note Fever!

Wow...haven't put up one post since school started. Things are going great, but pretty busy and overwhelming. I've talked on my blog before about sticky notes and using them to assist with reading comprehension. I did it with my middle school students a couple of years ago, but did not continue with my high school students last year. It worked out really well for the middle school students and allowed for authentic and engaging conversation about the books we were reading, so I decided to start it up again. First off, I asked every student to bring in one pack of stickies. I think I'll have enough.....

  

 During the first lesson in order to teach students the different comprehension strategies to use while doing sticky notes, we analyzed each class's notes to determine which strategy they were doing the most often (prediction, inference, question or connection). 

 

Each class had a different spattering of strategies used.  The sticky notes will be used to assess student comprehension and use of active reading strategies while reading text in class. That's all for now....stay tuned for more from the beginning of my year!

0 Inspirational Quotes for the Classroom

Hope everyone is having a great first few days back. Just wanted to blog a little about how I have been decorating my classroom. I keep finding so many cool things on Pinterest and there's not enough room on my walls for everything I want to put up! Like I said this is the first year I've actually gotten to decorate for real. I like to use quotes from literature since I'm an English teacher. I've put up a few and I keep finding other ones I want to use! I also like to put up humorous things to show my students my fun side. Here are some that are in my classroom now:

Harry Potter!

Hanging on the door...haha

Hunger Games! Some students recognized this the first day!

Of course...T Swift

lol

I'm sure I will find tons more...just actually find some from my favorite book To Kill a Mockingbird that I have to put up.  What quotes do you have in your classroom?

0 Three best ideas from conference days....

 "Classroom teaching…. is perhaps the most complex, most challenging, and most demanding, subtle, nuanced, and frightening activity that our species has ever invented….The only time a physician could possibly encounter a situation of comparable complexity would be in the emergency room of a hospital during a natural disaster."-Lee Shulman

This week has been a huge blur. Monday started with teacher orientation followed by conference days today and tomorrow. A lot of information is being given out to me in such a short amount of time...which makes for a very overwhelming week and sleepless nights. However I am discovering amazing new resources and tools that I hope I can start implementing in my classroom soon. Here are my favorites:

1. Charlotte Danielson Rubric:
Some schools are using this rubric to fit into the evaluation piece of the new teacher evaluation system. Reading performance indicators on the rubric on each 'domain' of teacher performance, I can easily understand what I can be working towards; and which behaviors to change. For example, one aspect of the rubric is "Demonstrating knowledge about how students learn".
An unsatisfactory behavior for this is :

The lesson plan includes a
teacher presentation for an entire
30 minute period to a group of 7-
year olds.

I chuckled at that one. A distinguished behavior for this category is:

The teacher plans to provide
multiple project options; students
will self-select the project that best
meets their individual approach to
learning.

I just think this rubric really spells out what actions indicate effective teaching. 

2. My Big Campus: my district will be using this website and I can't wait to learn how to use it! You can do blogs, wikis, post homework and even have online tests! I am so excited. I have always wanted to make a 'school facebook'....and this application would basically take the place of that. 

3. Edutopia: This is a great professional development resource that I had no idea existed. There are countless videos and webinars on every aspect of education. Watching some of the videos I was amazed at the activities some teachers were executing in their classrooms around the country. I no longer have to go to a day-long workshop to get professional development. 

It's good to know I am getting something very useful out of the time I've spent at conference days. Can't wait for the kids!!

 

I've also started a teacher Twitter account...follow me! @MissBurgwin

1 How to set up your classroom to support the Common Core Standards

       I've been pretty busy last week and this week preparing for the first day of school and setting up my classroom. I've actually NEVER had my own classroom so this is all new to me. I've never had to deal with organizing, putting up posters, setting up different areas of the classroom, etc. I feel like I want to have everything perfect and set up before the first day but I know it's not going to happen. I have found a lot of great ideas on Pinterest, and I know I will find more as the year progresses. I just always had an idea in my mind that I would be so organized and have everything set in stone about how my classroom will run and what it will look like, but it's not the reality. You try things...then it turns out it didn't work. You can't just have everything set and expect it to work. 

    This year I am focusing on setting up my classroom to help students adjust to the new Common Core National Standards. All the teachers I know are going into major stress mode about these new standards! A couple of important things I've noticed about the shifts for literacy are the emphasis on text-based questions and answers, close reading and non-fiction. So my students will be enjoying a very non-fiction heavy year :)

 I found (then made) this poster on Pinterest to emphasize students to pull evidence from the text to support their answers:

 

I also designed this poster myself to highlight key words to help students with analysis, summarizing and reading strategies:

I've also been using the sticky note strategy for a couple of years now. The first year I did it I had a poster with sticky note starters and students used it frequently when stuck. That poster got ruined in the many classroom moves I've had to do over the years, so I wanted to design a new format for this display. I ordered the poster in the middle from Really Good Stuff, then I created the sticky note starters and cut them out in 'think' bubbles.

                                                          

Another new thing I am really excited about in my classroom is my 'missing work' pocket folder. I have NEVER had my own classroom as mentioned before and therefore was in many different classrooms so couldn't really have a 'hub' for students to grab work if they were absent. I can FINALLY have a station for students to self-advocate and get missing work when they are absent. I ordered the pocket chart from Really Good Stuff and labeled it with the days of the week. I always have piles of extra copies after doing a lesson so I am planning on just putting the copies in the corresponding folders and students can grab what they need and then ask me after school for clarification on certain things. Let's just hope that A. students use it and B. I can keep up with adding things!

I took the picture before I added the days of the week

I hope to continue to find new things that support the common core in my classroom! Until then I am anxiously awaiting the first day of school. Only a week and a half left!!

0 First Day of School Activities!

I can't believe there's only 2 1/2 weeks until I start school again! Summer went by in a flash, as usual. It seemed like it was even faster for me because I had a move and I will be starting my fourth English teaching job in 5 years! God forbid I am at a school for more than a year...and this is not by choice! Anyways, I have been brainstorming and planning for activities for the first day of school. I decided to do a variation of a couple of things I have done before.

First idea: 'Toilet Paper' Ice Breaker Activity
Many teachers (especially middle and high school teachers) will start out the class describing the syllabus and going through the rules....yawn. I plan on covering that material, but starting off class with something a little more fun.
I'm planning on having instructions for students as they come into the room for them to locate the roll of toilet paper at the front of the room and take 'as much as they think they need'. This creates a humorous and confusing atmosphere as some students try to roll out the whole roll, and some; trying to look cool, take a couple of sheets. The directions are purposefully ambiguous. After all the students are in the room and everyone has their TP, I will let them know that for each 'square' of TP, they have to write down one fact about themselves.  Some students will groan when they realize they've got quite a biography to write!

After giving students time to write, each will share. I will share a fact about myself too, but will save most of the important info for the second activity.

Second idea: Get to know the teacher listening activity
This is a great idea to let your students get to know you and allowing them to practice their listening skills. Just prepare a short biography of yourself (or create a '25 fun facts about Ms./Mr._______________) with accompanying questions for students to answer. You could even have them guess the questions to some of the answers before you read the bio to see if any of the students can correctly guess facts about you. Or, tell students to take notes as your read the bio. Optionally, allow students to look at the questions and answer them as you read it a second time. Then have the students work with partners to make sure they got the answers to all the questions.

Those are two activities I will be doing for the first day of school this year; will let you know how they go! I'm sure they are a million more creative things a teacher could do but I find these simple and they don't rely on intricate technology or expensive supplies!

0 ABC Review

It's finals and Regents time! What ways are you helping your students review for their final? Believe it or not I've finished regular instruction in both of classes and started reviewing for the final. This was one fun way that I reviewed the literature we read in class this year. It is called ABC review. 

Students were put into groups of 5. I gave them each a piece of large white butcher paper. The students write the entire alphabet down the left side of the paper (grouping XYZ together). Students had to think something for every letter of the alphabet from any of the pieces of literature we've read this year (characters, literary elements, titles, themes, authors, etc).

Student Example

A section of the ABC review

           When they were done, each group shared their poster.

This can be adapted to any grade level or subject! Great for general, fun review. You could even have each group do a different piece of literature exclusively; then have the groups jigsaw. What other ideas could you use the ABC activity for? Post below! 

0 Greek Gods Facebook/Resume Project

Most of my students are on Facebook...or at least know what it is. It is important to me to find ways to connect to my students and find ways to motivate them. Technology is definitely something that is ingrained in students' lives....and mine! I'll be the first to admit I'm not capable of putting down my cell phone any more than my students can. Using technology is sometimes limited in my district, so I do what I can. This project was something I adapted from various ideas I've heard and seen on the internet and from other colleagues.

This project began our unit on The Odyssey (a unit I initially dreaded). It turns out learning about the various gods and goddesses and reading and teaching the myths was very interesting! I started the kids with a Prezi presentation on the Greek gods. Students were given a packet with descriptions of various gods and goddesses that were important to the narrative of The Odyssey. Students had to choose one of the characters and complete a Facebook page or a formal resume for that character. I gave them examples of each and time in class to complete the project. I limited the amount of time given to work on the project in class...I've been noticing students like to waste time when given time in class to do work.....so....I stopped giving them so much time. Students did really well right off the bat with the project! They already knew the parts of the Facebook page (wall, friends, info, photos, etc) and they used the resume template to complete the resume. Students had to be creative to think of a character's email address, contact information like phone number and address, and skills and abilities. Students who chose the Facebook option had fun creating the 'wall' with conversations with the other gods and goddesses.


I think they did well with this because it was something that they could relate to. Even students who normally don't complete work got right into this. The project could literally be adapted to any book and any character....or even people in history. Here are some student samples:

Medusa's Facebook Profile

Resume for Hera

Rubric for the project was :

Creativity/Neatness: 5 points

Effort/Participation: 5 points

Amount of info given: 5 points

Accuracy of info given: 5 points

There are also actual websites that allow you to make a mock Facebook profile. I didn't have access to computers for the class, so I just had them draw the profile out. But if you can get your class to a computer, I'm sure they would love these tools too!

My Fake Wall

Fakebook

0 A Time to Kill & To Kil a Mockingbird

Everyone loves Samuel L Jackson! 

So one weekend while I was watching TV and A Time to Kill came on I couldn't help noticing the parallels between it and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

A Time to Kill and To Kill a Mockingbird have similar themes/events:

  
Similar                                      Different

• A white lawyer defending a             ATTK is set in the (80's)?
  

 black man.                                TKAM is set in the 1930's.

• Involves a rape (alleged one           IN ATTK, there actually is
  

in TKAM)                                   evidence a crime was

• Both men are tried with an             committed.
  

all white jury.                            In ATTK, Carl Lee gets found

• The white lawyer is terrorized         not guilty; Tom Robinson
  

by the community.                           is found guilty. 


All in all, they have parallels that are worth studying. 

I didn't think I would have time to watch it in class, but then decided to tie it in with one of the Common Core writing prompts we have been doing all year. The writing prompt for the fourth marking period is an informative. My original idea was to have them to a compare and contrast paper on both works, but then decided it was too easy for 10th graders. Then I decided since all semester we have had sort of a 'court' theme (12 Angry Men, To Kill a Mockingbird), we would watch A Time to Kill in conjunction with reading an article about the court system, then I would have students write an informative paper on how a criminal trial was run and the important parts of the justice system. 

 
Here is the prompt:

Informative Essay Writing Prompt

Name:_______________________________________

Write a response of at least 1.5 pages and referring to at least one outside print source:

How does a criminal trial work? What are the different roles in the courtroom?

Students read an article I found online then filled out a graphic organizer:

 

Guided Notes: Juries and Trials- Fill out and use this sheet for your informative paper.

Five Facts: About juries/how a jury works	Five Facts: Roles in the courtroom

Students filled out these guided notes which later helped them fill out a template to complete the informative paper. They used the article as well as the visual of the movie to write about the parts of the court system, how a jury is picked, and how a criminal trial proceeds. Students then had to cite the article in their informative paper.

 All the students love the movie! As do I.....if you've never seen it.... do it now! Here's the trailer:

0 Graphic Novels

I had a crazy idea back in December when I was out for surgery that I wanted to do something fun during Romeo and Juliet. Reading Romeo and Juliet would definitely present some challenges for my ninth graders, and I had planned on photocopying some acts from the Spark Notes graphic novel version. A graphic novel is basically like a comic strip format with character dialogue and pictures. It made it way easier for students to understand the story.

To introduce Romeo and Juliet, I had students study different types of love. I then decided that they would create their own graphic novel based on one of the types of love- unrequited love- since Romeo and Juliet had unrequited love. Originally I wanted to make the groups myself, but I figured this project really needed students to open up and share ideas and I wasn't sure if they would participate as much as if I let them make their own groups. I also thought if I grouped on heterogeneous behavior and ability I'd have one or two people in each group doing the whole project while everyone else just sort of 'hitchhiked' along.  So......I allowed them to make their own groups for the project. It worked out fine. Obviously there were some issues, but for the most part students cooperated. I had one group in one class that didn't complete the project...not bad.

Going along with new common core standards, students had to create a narrative with all parts of a fictional narrative plot (setting, characters, conflict, climax, resolution) in which two people couldn't be together for SOME reason. Students were allowed to be creative with WHY the two people couldn't be together. I allowed probably about three half-class periods for them to work. At the end, they had to do a group evaluation to grade each group member's participation and effort. I thought it was a fun project that the students actually enjoyed. Here are some samples....

 The above story was about two characters who were going to different colleges after high school....but then in the end they ended up together again!

This one was about two people who couldn't be together because their parents wouldn't let them....similar to R&J.

My favorite one, which was too long to take pictures of, was about a girl who fell in love with an illegal alien from Canada. He got caught in Minnesota without a Visa and was taken to jail. In the end he learned his lesson not to sneak into the U.S illegally. And she was happily in love with her 17 cats.

I don't know if I'll do this project again. I don't think it was rigorous enough for all the time it took. It was fun, of course, but I'll have to brainstorm different ways to make it more challenging. I was thinking of replacing the narrative in the beginning of the year with a project like this while we're doing short stories. Or maybe making it an individual project. I thought overall the project was a success. I really just want to find different ways for students to enjoy my class and be motivated.

0 My Vacation

I am dancing around the idea of changing the theme of my blog to more than just teaching. I'll start by sharing a day in the exciting life of a teacher on mid-winter vacation.

It's Sunday night and I'm procrastinating making my lesson for tomorrow morning....grades might be due this week...I'll deal with that tomorrow. I didn't even so much as look at my school bag over vacation! Should I feel guilty? I kind of do- however- it's supposed to be vacation, right? Which means no work. I did however do some work in the kitchen.

I started out my vacation by a lovely, three hour drive to Olean, which is always fun. And for those of you who think there's nothing to do in Camden haven't been to Olean.  There's the park in the summer but I didn't want to go hiking in February. The most interesting town near Olean is called Elicottville, which we traveled to on Monday. There's a fancy brewery.

Not as good as Hoop Duerr's of course.....

On the way back we visited the Salamanca Casino. Me and Hasky aren't really the best gamblers. Were both extremely cautious with money so I suggest if you want to have a good time at the casino to not go with us. I toyed with the idea of playing a couple of rounds of roulette but in the end it's not worth it. Hasky won $13.00 on the slot machines. lol .

Since I had free time during the day while Hasky was at work...of course I was trolling around on Pintrest and found this healthy dessert blog, Chocolate Covered Katie. I went shopping for baking supplies and experimented with a couple of different healthy desserts. First I made chocolate chip cookies but only had white flour.

 They were fluffy and absolutely delicious. But I didn't really feel like they were healthy. The recipe said 23 calories but I didn't see how this was possible. I still ate a few. Then I went to the store to buy wheat flour. These ones were still good yet more grainy since made with whole wheat. But I was more confident in their healthfulness which allowed me to eat more of them.

So I had all this wheat flour left over and tried to experiment with different things over the weekend. All were delicious. Friday night we had home made whole wheat pizza.

Home Made Dough

Ready to go into the oven!

Finished product- yum!

Then Saturday morning I made whole wheat flax waffles with chocolate chips. So delicious! I bought this whole big bag of flax and was googling different recipes to use it in.... and I wanted to try more with the wheat flour so this was perfect. They were so good! And so much more filling than regular waffles. I ate one with some agave syrup and was full. The agave syrup only has 60 cal per table spoon as opposed to regular syrup that has 200. 

 

 A lot of these recipes I found on Pintrest- which is amazing! I am addicted to it. It's turning out to be really handy for finding and saving recipes.

That was the exciting life of a teacher on vacation! Now it's back to school