And life goes on . . .

Do you remember, like me, when time seemed to stand still?  And slowly, somehow, as we get older, each year moves faster?  Each moment lasts a few seconds shorter?

I was just thinking last night about how I miss morning snuggles.  My youngest is 3 1/2 and the morning snuggles are suddenly less than 30 minutes each morning.

It’s in moments like this that I reflect on what has happened the last year, 3 years, 5 years.  Its nothing less than AMAZING!  And God has been so good to bring us through a lot.

And then, this afternoon, I got extra snuggles.  I just stopped and watched the movie and enjoyed. 🙂

Keep on dancing, even in the rain!

The Lewis’ Are Heading To Mexico

Hello family and friends!  Bob and I have some wonderful news to share with you.  We have been selected to be part of a six member mission team from our church to serve in Mexico for about a week in the beginning of August.  We will be helping to repair church buildings, leading VBS in the community and lending helping hands at the orphanage run by the church.  We expect hard work and exhaustion, but we also expect God to bring huge blessings to these children we will have the opportunity to meet.

We are asking that you please keep us in your prayers over the following months as our timeline will be rapid and our funds must be raised quickly.  How you can help:

Prayer ~ first and foremost.

• Please pray for us and the other four team members.
• Pray for our families, our children and those who will be caring them as we are gone.
• Pray for the hearts of those we will meet that they will see the love of Jesus in us.
• Pray that we will be open to God’s leading as we embark on this adventure.
• Pray for our fundraising ~ each team member has to raise $1030 to go on the trip.  This means the following for Bob and I:
  • $2060 trip cost for us
  • Extra cash to pay for 10-15 meals during our travel days to and from Mexico.
  • Current passports, which Bob and I must both obtain before we can leave.
  • Any other miscellaneous expenses along the way.

Thank you,

In Jesus’ love and leading,

Bob and Megan

Chrissy

Sierra

Meg and Bob

Bobby

Logan

I cannot believe how quickly time flies by.  I am almost halfway through the second semester of my Master’s program.  Looking at what classes to take next fall.  Bob is now the manager at work.  We have almost been married 6 years.  Bobby is finishing up his first year of college.  Chrissy is getting ready for Junior prom.  Sierra is cruising along in 7th and a teenager.  And Logan is three going on ten I think.

Just a few photos to show how everyone is doing these days.

 

All photos taken Summer 2012 by Kathryn Holthouse Photography.

Doing a small part to help

In our local schools, the administration is moving forward with Senior Projects, even though the state is not requiring it at this time.

This is the project from one of our students.  I have had the privilege of meeting her as her substitute.

Her dream is to spread the word and help people understand and try to treat other children with similar issues with patience and understanding, especially their peers in school.

So here it is, in her own words.

Christmas Break

♪ ♫ “No more school, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks!” ♫ ♪ Well, for a few weeks at least. Time to regroup, enjoy time with family and reset for the new year. I’m always amazed at how much faster time seems to go by the older I get. I just finished up my first two graduate level courses, on my way to earning my teaching license with all God’s little surprises along the way.

Going to use the next few weeks to reorganize, and try some of the many pins on my Pinterest that I keep saying “I need to try that later!”

Not sure what life this blog will take at this point. I think I’ll try to keep it updated with neat things I learn at school, and crazy things I learn at home.  For now, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you in 2013!

Cramberry

Cramberry (https://cramberry.net/) is a web-site that offers online flash cards.  They offer two separate versions, Free and Pro.  The main difference is the number of cards you can view per day. In the free version you are allowed 30, while the Pro version is unlimited.  At only $9 per year the Pro version is very reasonable, but its nice that they offer the Free version also.

There are two main ways to get flashcards from the site.  You can create your own set, based specifically on what you are studying.  Or you can use a set that someone else has already made if it fits your needs.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosefirerising/3357787301/

 

 

My preference from a teaching perspective would be to have students create their own sets for a couple of reasons.  The first is there are occasions where someone else’s set has errors so if they use it, they will be learning the information incorrectly.  The second is that while they are creating their sets, they are also studying the information.

While studying the site automatically shuffles the cards.  When you answer correctly, it takes that card out of the stack.  When you answer incorrectly it puts that card back in your stack.  This takes away the ability of the student to “cheat” on how much they know when quizzing on their own.

Blender and Bloom’s

The free technology I’ve chosen for today’s post is Blender’s downloadable software.  This is an amazing site with more examples in their gallery than I can even wrap my head around.  It’s amazing how artistically talented some people are.

But, on to the educational stuff.  This software allows the user to created a virtual 3-D model of any project they are currently working on.  The fact that its free is outstanding as most schools don’t have the budgets to purchase necessary software and I’m pretty sure this would fall into the “extras” column at any board meeting.  What I see this software providing is a means for higher level STEM collaborators to engage their students in building a project, yet cutting down on the actual materials (read money) and space needed to perform some of the experiments.

This is a software that I would definitely need someone with more hands on knowledge to assist me in, but the possibilities rattling around in my head are endless.  Not only could a STEM collaboration class use this, but physics and any higher level art class if the school is lucky enough to have one.

This software would allow a physics class to create a lab based on a book problem.  They could then virtually build the lab, apply the laws a physics, see it played out and alter their variables.  This would take Physics (a traditionally hard class that I believe is due to the lack of ability to act out the problems) and bring it to life before student’s eyes, all inside a classroom.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/opencurso/5342971855/

Education and Technology PowerPoint

Technology and education from meganslewis

UFindlay Mission Statement

Spongelab

Spongelab is an awesome interactive science technology site that I stumbled across in my research.  It is free to sign up for and has so many uses I haven’t been able to explore them all yet.

The first thing you see when you enter the site is the Build a Body interactive lab.  This application lets you choose a body system and walks you through placing the correct organs inside a human model.  But you must have the correct anchor organ in place first.  For example, in the skeletal system, you cannot connect the scapula (shoulder blades) and sternum (breast-plate) until you first connect the clavicle (collar-bone). And yes, I was also singing “the shoulder bones connected to the arm bone” by this point.

There are applications on animals and plants, DNA and cell division.  You can search for an interactive lesson by topic or knowledge level (Beginner, intermediate and advanced.)

On top of all this, there are portals to create lessons, borrow pre-made lessons and communicate with other educators for ideas.  You can save specific lessons and set up sites for your classes to access.

The ability to make this optional or mandatory is awesome.  To be able to provide a physical model to visual learners on some difficult subjects, without having to have a full size anatomy model, is priceless.  Especially for a teacher looking to provide opportunities to a small budget school in the ever-increasing world of budget slashes.

His Excellency plays Spongelab’s Build-A-Body, a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation Award.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marsdd/6839757070/