GEEO Travel

A few years ago one of my students gave me a camel silly band, it was about a month before school ended.  I was interested in traveling so I did a few google searches for summer travel for teachers.  What I found was an organization that I have traveled with for the past 3 summers and absolutely have loved it.  I have met teachers from all across the country and have made international connections with teachers abroad.

So what is GEEO - it is Global Exploration for Educators Organization.  It is a non profit organization that helps organize teachers to travel with other teachers.  The first summer that I traveled with GEEO, I traveled to Tunisia.  I had absolutely no clue where it was when I booked the trip - I had to do a few google searches to learn about it.  Some highlights of that trip were riding a camel in the Sahara Desert, swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, visiting the many ruins and shopping in the souks.

Last summer I traveled to Costa Rica where I went white water rafting, zip lining and hiking in the rain forest, watched a sea turtle laying her eggs and basked in the beautiful scenery.  With each of the tours, you always have a tour guide with you helping to tell you what activities are the best and historical information about all of the places you are traveling to.  GEEO uses GAdventure Tours which is a highly respectable tour company.

This past summer I went on my longest trip yet - I did the Trans Mongolian Adventure and China tour.  This involved me going completely around the world in 26 days.  We landed in St. Petersburg, Russia and traveled through Mongolia to Beijing, China, and then I picked up the China tour that took us the entire way down to Shanghai.  During this trip, we visited 2 schools which is one of the best parts about traveling with GEEO.  We visited a school in Russia and one in Xi'an, China.  We were able to see some of the school aged kids in China who were very eager to speak English with us.  It is amazing the difference in educational standards between the US, Russia and China.

This upcoming summer I will be traveling to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands - anyone interested???

~Michelle

Math Graffiti Posters

A few weeks ago I ordered some posters for my classroom called Math Graffiti.  This pack of posters has 55 posters that have catchy ways of saying Math terms. I hung these posters all around my classroom - I first laminated them and hung them all with velcro since come PSSA testing time - I have to take them all down. I love Velcro - best product invented for a classroom!!! 

While the posters do cost quite a bit of money - my students really enjoy look at them all over my room.  This year I hung them all at once, I think next year I might hang them up as we cover the topic, almost like a graffiti word wall. For those that speak Spanish - the words are written in Spanish at the bottom of each poster.  Each poster is 11"x17" so students can see this all around the room.