What's on your mind

School is over for the year 2016! Time for a well deserved break. I hope all my students and their families have a wonderful Holiday and I hope all the teachers take time to have fun over the break and not spend too much time doing school work. See everyone in 2017!

As Christmas gets closer I noticed that the Christmas specials are coming on for a second time. Rudolph was on CBS the day after Thanksgiving and it is on again this week. Some highlights for this week are: Grandma got run over by a reindeer Monday night 8pm on the CW the great Christmas light fight is on at the same time on ABC The Grinch that stole Christmas is on TNT Wednesday at both 8 and then again at 8:30 Disney's prep and landing is on Thursday night at 8 on ABC The Annual Hollywood Christmas parade is on Friday night at 8 on the CW Then to end the week on Saturday 8:00pm -  I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (2003) (ABC) 8:00pm - A Christmas Carol (1984, George C. Scott) (AMC)

I am so excited to watch all the Christmas specials. Last week I watched Santa Claus is coming to town. (One of my favorites) and now I am really in the mood for more. Tuesday night Rudolph is on CBS and then Thursday FREEFORM station begins their 25 days til here are the first two days on FREEFORM Thursday, December 1 (6:00pm-7:05pm) The Year Without a Santa Claus  (7:05pm-9:15pm) National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (9:15pm-11:20pm) The Santa Clause (11:20pm-12:55am) Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (12:55am-2:00pm) Rudolph's Shiny New Year Friday, December 2 (2:30pm-3:35pm) The Year Without Santa Claus (3:35pm-5:10pm) Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (5:10pm-7:15pm) Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) (7:15pm-9:20pm) The Santa Claus  (9:20pm-11:25pm) The Polar Express  ABC is playing Charlie Brown Christmas on Thursday night. Thats the one I will be watching.  ABC is also bringing back its holiday tv show of the great light fight. I en...

Wednesday November 23rd (11-23) is Fibonacci day. Norton high is celebrating this day with a scavenger hunt and prizes. During the day students will look for pictures that represent Fibonacci sequences and golden ratio. When a picture is found, take it off the wall and bring to the math office to collect the prize. Only 15 prizes will be awarded. Have fun!

Today is the hallway decorating contest at Norton High. Since I am a senior class advisor I am a little partial to that hallway. The senior color was red so the theme is HIgh School Musical. I especially love that the seniors got the English teachers to each play a part, Ms. Birkett is awesome as Sharpay and Mrs. Akerman is the real deal as Ms Darbis.

This is my favorite time of the year as far as sports at Norton High are concerned. I love winter sports season. We have hockey, basketball, wrestling, swimming and indoor track. I enjoy watching all of them! The week of December 5th is when it all starts. Thursday December 8th we have Track at 5:30 and Swim at 7:00 both at Wheaton Friday December 9th the boys basketball team has its first home game Saturday December 10th Hockey has its first game at 7:00  I plan to be at all of these games. GO LANCERS! Here is a memory from last year

Friday night I traveled to UMASS Amherst for the first time. What a beautiful campus! at least the part I saw was quite nice. I went out there to watch a hockey game. RPI came to town. A former student of mine plays hockey for RPI and I always enjoyed watching his games when he was in high school so I decided to go watch another game while his team was in Massachusetts. College hockey is a little more intense, but that is a good thing. Its a little more exciting to watch. I hope my students know that when they leave high school I do not forget about them. I love when students stay in touch. I wanted to go watch some of my former HS soccer players, but I did not get to any soccer games at SNHU or Stonehill this year. I will next year. If a student gives me his sports schedule I do my best to get to a game. I really do enjoy watching sports especially when I have someone to cheer for.

Halloween is the start of the holiday season. You have Halloween then Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Sometimes Halloween and Thanksgiving get overshadowed by CHRISTMAS my favorite part of the holiday season is all the specials on television. Since Halloween is in one day that means Christmas specials will be starting in one day I will post some of the times and channels for my favorites here. If you want to find complete schedules you should check these websites. https://www.tvguide.com/special/holiday-guide/calendar/ http://www.mostlychristmas.com/tvsched.php This week you can find plenty of Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel

Instead of going to school today I went to Gillette Stadium to attend the 2016 Mass Cue conference. This years theme is Global Connections-Digital Learning. I learned about some exciting apps to use both personally and in my classroom. Some of the highlights include making animations using Powtoon, using my google webpaint, and making 3D presentations using emaze. I will probably spend the rest of my day and night playing with all my new tools.

Everyone who knows me is aware that I love watching sports and that includes going to Norton high sporting events. Tonight I got to watch a former student play in his first college hockey game. Bobby Trudeau's hockey game at RPI vs. UVM was live streaming so I watched, Games are so much more fun to watch when you know someone that is playing. Now I have to check his schedule and see when he has a game close to home that I can go to. So glad he let me know about that game.

Summer is over and now it is time to get ready to return to school. This will be my 31st year teaching. WOW!  I am looking forward to a fun year with a wonderful group of students. I look forward to teaching Pre-Calc for the first time in 5 years. I love teaching trig identities.I am also looking forward to another exciting year of Norton Lancer sports. See everyone Tuesday morning!!

Enjoying your summer? I sure am! I have done lots of day trips to both new places and some of my favorite places. I started the summer off with my annual trip to Yarmouth to find all the sand castles. Every year Yarmouth has their "summer kickoff" celebration which includes sand castles at businesses all over town. This year there were 43 and I found all of them. These are a couple examples. I highly recommend that you go see them one year. The sand sculptures are completed by the 4th of July so I always go in early July before any bad weather can ruin them. I enjoy being by the water so I do spend several summer days at the canal. I find it very relaxing to sit by the water and watch the boats.  I consider it a plus if I get to see the railroad bridge go down Water was definitely a theme for me this summer. One town in Mass I visited with my daughter was Rockport. There is a road called Bearskin Neck which has shops on both sides of the road and at the end of the ...

Another year is almost over. Only one more term to go. But before the year comes to an end we have April vacation. Two more weeks and we have a week off. I am looking forward to a little time away from school. I just hope we have some spring weather to enjoy that week. I will be flying down to Fort Benning, Georgia, to watch my son graduate from Basic Training. I am so proud of the man that he has become. I haven't seen him since December 30th so I am glad we are on vacation so I can spend more time with him. I want everyone to enjoy their week off and be sure when you return to school you are ready to get back to work.

Vacation is over, I am a little sad about that, but only 8 more weeks and we have another school vacation. I had a good break. I did a little bit of school work but I made sure to give myself plenty of "fun" time. I spent one day at Wrentham outlets spoiling myself. I picked a day that was sunny and pretty warm so I could enjoy walking around. I spent one day down the cape exploring old country stores. My favorite thing found in these stores were the signs. I laughed so hard reading them. These were a few of my favorites. And I enjoyed a Norton hockey game and a boys basketball game. Now time to go back to school,

I am a teacher that loves to take her kids on field trips. I wish there were more places I could bring high school math classes. A favorite trip at school is math day at Six Flags and it's time to start planning that trip. I love making the video I show to classes to introduce the field trip where I include lots of pictures from past trips. I plan to spend this vacation week making that video. The hardest part is picking the songs to go in the video. I usually use the song from the six flags commercials but I am getting sick of that song. Anyone have any suggestions?

My Advanced Math Topics class is watching the movie "October Sky" and studying the world of quadratics and trigonometry applications. This movie is such a great example of how determination and hard work can pay off. I hope that in addition to learning the math from the movie my students also get the message about how hard work will help them go further in life. Never give up.

We are all back to school and in the learning mode again. One more week and we start our midterm exams. That means we have almost hit the halfway point of the school year. Can you believe it? Most of my students are seniors so this means only half a year left in high school. I hung up my senior brag board yesterday so I hope the seniors stop by and sign. This is a giant sheet of paper on the wall outside my office where seniors can write their name and all the colleges that they have been accepted to. This is my way of helping them celebrate their great accomplishments. The halfway point of the year is also the time that I have to start planning our six flags trip. The date for this years math field trip is Friday April 29th. Mark your calendars.