When was the last time someone rolled out the RED CARPET for you as a teacher?
If you attended the 2017 Spring Teacher Blogger Retreat, your answer is two weeks ago!
We love to celebrate teachers and all school staff for the celebrities they are, and that is exactly the purpose of this event. This year was no different, and we want to share with you all of the fun and celebration that happened AND give you a chance to win some awesome teacher prizes!
The weekend began as it does every year for those of us on the planning team - with lots of prep!
We had a huge increase in attendance this year, so this year that meant filling 560 of these awesome bags from
Scholastic Reading Club with all kinds of goodies from our fabulous sponsors!
Thank you
Scholastic Reading Club,
Scentos WeVeel,
ESGI,
ETA Hand2Mind,
Get Your Teach On Conference,
The Pencil Grip/Kwik Stix,
Seesaw,
The Wright Stuff Chics,
Tools 4 Teaching,
Bouncy Bands,
Creative Clips Clipart, and
The Trashy Crafter for donating all of this awesome swag for all of our attendees!
We were able to take a quick break for dinner under the dome at the amazing West Baden Springs hotel before getting back to work setting everything up for the retreat!
On Saturday morning, we were back at it early for attendee check-in.
We also had some awesome sponsors greeting attendees and treating them to some of their products!
Before we knew it, it was time to start the day!
As soon as attendees entered the ballroom, they could put their raffle tickets in the items they hoped to win. We were lucky enough to have some AMAZING sponsors provide some fabulous prizes for our retreat!
We began with a welcome message from
Holly Ehle from Kindergarten Connections, our incredibly talented director of this event, who explained the history of this retreat and how her mission is to celebrate teachers for all of the work we do for kids all year. She is amazing!
Next up was everyone's favorite principal,
Mr. Gerry Brooks. He gave a fantastic keynote about setting goals for ourselves and our students and families that left everyone laughing and feeling inspired.
Then we had fun playing the "Left, Right" game describing the history of the Spring Teacher Blogger Retreat with the Teacher Tool Swap.
To kick off the professional development portion of the day, Hope and Wade King from the Ron Clark Academy and
Elementary Shenanigans gave a phenomenal presentation on the power of student engagement. They demonstrated ways we can "set the stage to engage" our kids every day to increase their achievement and help them WANT to come to school instead of just showing up because they HAVE to.
Every person in the room was completely engaged and inspired! Hope and Wade King are beyond amazing!
From there, we split up to attend three rounds of mini-sessions. We had some of the best teachers and presenters in the country hosting these sessions!
Sarah Cooper and Tiffany Copple were the mastermind planners of the professional development sessions! They did an amazing job!
I shared about some strategies for classroom management.
We wrapped up the PD portion of the day with a quick panel session with Principal Gerry, Hope and Wade King, Dee Dee Wills, and Chris Pombonyo. This allowed attendees to ask these experts anything!
Finally, we ended the daytime event with the PRIZES from our fabulous sponsors! Check out all of these happy teacher faces!!
A huge
THANK YOU to all of these amazing sponsors:
Did you miss out on the fun this year? No worries! You can enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win some teacher swag, too!!
Come back tomorrow for a recap of the epic red carpet evening event sponsored by
ESGI,
GoNoodle, and
Oriental Trading!
a Rafflecopter giveaway