Saturday, July 17, 2010

San Antonio Math Conference

I have wanted to go to CAMT (a math conference) since I became a teacher. This year was my first time to go, and it was in San Antonio AND I got to go with some of my favorite teacher friends:

Mrs. Olive, Mrs. Allen (who was also MY 8th grade math teacher), and Mrs. Davis


Mrs. Olive was VERY excited to find her name on a street sign, so we had to pull over to get her pic

Our hotel was in a FABULOUS location. It was right on the riverwalk AND attached to a mall!! We were thrilled and decided we immediately needed to shop and play dress up our first night:


I am really surprised we didn't get kicked out of the Disney store...




Then we went and ate at a Mexican restaurant that came highly recommended. After walking a million blocks in July heat we made it. The food was great, the service not so much.

The next morning we got up and went to our classes. Of course our fearless leader volunteered to help in one of the sessions:

One of the best parts of the conference is the exhibits they have in the exhibit hall!! I went crazy and bought a ton of cute teacher shirts and even one for Carson!!!







Kind of hard to read, but says "Queen of My Classroom"

For any of my teacher friends that are interested, most of the places carried shirts for all grades and subjects!! You can visit their websites here, here, here, here, and here.

I also found a booth with an item that I am going to write my next grant for: Math Sing-Alongs!! I love singing to my kids in class, even though I don't have a great voice, and it really helps them remember how to work their problems. Kay Smitherman wrote hundreds of songs about math to familiar tunes. Her workshop was our absolute favorite of the whole conference! We spent an hour singing and laughing! I also lucked out and got to be her helper, so she gave me a free cd!!

Her songs were so catchy that we caught ourselves singing them later in the day. This one was our favorite:
I love addition,
I love subtraction too.
Counting by 5's is just what I like to do.
I love to estimate,
Yes math is really great.
M- I love it.
A- I love it.
T- I love it.
H- I love it.

Yes, I am well aware of my extreme dorkiness.

Our last night we ate dinner at Pat O'Briens and sung along at their piano bar. We had a blast!!

We got a bunch of great ideas, and really enjoyed ourselves, but I was definitely glad to go home and see my boys! My mom was extra nice and stayed at our house to help Brian with the boys while I was gone.

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