Thursday and Friday we were out of school because of winter weather. It began raining and then sleeting early Thursday morning, and by about 6 AM it looked like the roads were going to be getting bad fairly quickly, so school was cancelled for the day. As it turned out, the temperature rose slightly, and we just had a misty rain most of the day. The roads weren’t at all bad, and Lisa and I got out and ran some errands. Late in the afternoon the temperature starting dropping and the snow began. The snow was heavy for awhile, and starting sticking to the roads, but by 9 PM the snow was pretty much over. The temperature continued to drop into the 20’s, and of course the roads did get slick, so we didn’t have school today either. I have enjoyed these two days being out of school. Since school was called off yesterday after I was completely ready to go, I got an early start on the day and accomplished a lot early. I spent time on a new unit I am planning for school called Contraption Challenge. In this unit my students will be working in groups with a set of materials to build a Rube Goldberg type machine. This is an idea I got from a session I attended at the National Science Teachers Convention last spring in St. Louis. Managing and grading the work on this unit is somewhat overwhelming, but I think I have a pretty good handle on it now. It will be a sort of experiment, and I may decide not to do it again next year, but it looks like it could prove to be a great learning experience for my students.
I have been having some technical difficulties posting and trying to insert photos in my blog. In case you noticed that my last post had a smaller font, that is one of the problems I had and couldn’t fix. I may end up needing some help from the younger, geekier, generation in my family. I took some pictures of our hike on Sunday, but could never effectually put the pictures in the post without it messing up the writing, in fact that is what messed up my font to begin with. I also have taken some pictures this morning of the snow, so I will try to get those pictures posted, but I can’t make any promises.
Will Lisa not help you with these things? I bet she could help figure out how to do what we talked about. If not, I may come over there again this afternoon and maybe I could help you then. My big photo shoot for the day was canceled because one of the people meeting me there lives out in rural Rogers and couldn’t get out of the driveway this morning, so it’s been moved to Monday.
By: nopockets on February 1, 2008
at 5:19 pm
I just got Lisa out of bed (reading not sleeping) to help me, but she couldn’t really help. She did use Photoshop to make the picture smaller, but it was still way too big. We also don’t know what to do about the font. I have played around with it for quite awhile this morning. I have downloaded Picasa and started a Picasa Web Album, but in order to use Picasa to post a picture, I have to have a blog with Blogger instead of WordPress.
By: covingtonfamily on February 1, 2008
at 5:32 pm
Blogspot is really easy to use if you decide to switch.
I have gotten a lot of school stuff done as well. But, no matter how much I do, it seems like there is a ton still left to do!
By: Carol Huneycutt on February 1, 2008
at 9:12 pm
Ann, I’ve got a lot of problems, trying to comment on some of the blogs. I can on yours, but not on Carol’s. I also commented on James and Allisons. I’m enjoying reading the blogs of other people but am not interested on doing one of my own. Mother
By: Shirley on February 2, 2008
at 5:00 pm
Finally! James helped me figure out how to fix the problems I was having. Now I have pictures, and my font is back to the original size.
Thanks James!
By: covingtonfamily on February 2, 2008
at 5:05 pm
I could have helped you, but I guess you got help from James already. I use Picasa to make my pictures into an HTML file (under the folder menu in Picasa). This is where you can compress the size. I usually either choose the webpage size or the e-mail size.
The when I’m browing to upload pictures, I upload them from “My Picasa HTML” folder.
By: Susan on February 3, 2008
at 4:35 pm
I think James showed me a different way to do it using Picasa, but I may try your way next time.
By: Ann on February 3, 2008
at 9:53 pm