Summer Job!

First of all, I just have to say....

I love my new blog layout!  

Hats off to Megan from A Bird in Hand Designs! I would highly recommend her to anyone!  I chose her custom blog plan!  She was so helpful, patient and clearly talented!

Thank you also to Lady Coco at GiftSeasonStore for my sweet little bird!

As a teacher, what do you do in the summer?

As a young teacher, I work!  I long for the day when I can take my Kodaly and Orff levels in the summer.  This year, my summer job is the best!  I am currently teaching at Summer Academy, a camp for high potential students in the Twin Cities Area.

In February, I wrote a course called, "Movie Magic!" The basic premise is learning how to compose in Garageband and create music videos in iMovie.  I have 21 incredible students!  We have already learned how to add sound effects and background music to a silent (Minion) video using Garageband, selected poems to use as lyrics for our song and tomorrow we are meeting with a professional composer!

Kidblog

One major way Summer Academy communicates with families is through blogs.  I decided to host my blog through http://kidblog.org/home/.  I honestly couldn't be happier!  What's great about kidblog is you set up a page, create a class list, assign passwords and that's it!  The kids don't need an e-mail to sign in, you don't have to send them an invitation code or anything.
Each student get their own blog!  They can post on their own blog that is connected to the mainpage.  They can add photos, links, video, tags, you name it!
You also have complete control.  Right now I need to approve any posts and comments before they are published.  The students are going crazy!  The camp ended at noon today and students are still posting and commenting on each other's blogs at 7pm!

Feel free to check it out!
http://kidblog.org/MovieMagic/

The limitations are 100 MB of storage and 50 students.  If that isn't enough space, you can upgrade!  I am not sure this blog is the best option for the fall with 600 students but maybe each "student" could actually be one class?

~  Do you have student blogs?
~ What is your favorite way to communicate with families?
~ What do you do in the summer?
~  Please feel free to comment below!

Thanks for reading!