VA Teacher Bloggers Meet 2015

Last Friday a group of 30 fabulous Virginia teacher bloggers {including myself!} descended upon the Jefferson Lakeside Country Club for an afternoon of networking, laughs, food, drinks, and some incredible swag and prizes! It was such an experience meeting all of the teachers that I have been chatting with online.  It is so nice to finally put a face with the blog button!

Some of the VA Teacher Bloggers who made it out to Vegas, shared their advice and knowledge with us and of course gave us handouts. 

Our sponsors were fantastic! I could not belive all of the stuff that they contributed.  Just amazing how supportive of teachers they are.  There were over $4,000 in prizes!!!  I won a 10 teacher site licsence for ESGI.  Soooooo excited to get started working with it.  I had thought about checking it out and writing  a grant or trying to convince my special educaiton director that we need it.  Now I get to trial it for a year (along with some of my team mates) and really get some good feedback. 

A HUGE thank you goes especially to Educents (one of THE best companies around!) for helping with the costs of the meetup and providing some FANTASTIC swag! Make sure you check out their new Educents Wallet feature to get all of those resources for your classroom at a steep discount! If you sign-up for a new teacher wallet account you'll receive $10 to spend on your classroom -- who couldn't use $10?!

Check our our FANTASTIC sponsors:

[Educents] [GoNoodle] [ESGI] [Learning Resources] [Ellison] [A+ Images] [Science4Us] [SNAP! Learning] [VocabularySpellingCity] [SitSpots] [Classroom Friendly Supplies] [Kasefazem] [Really Good Stuff] [Planbook.com] [Teacher Created Resources] [Jessica Saunders, ThirtyOne]

And some AMAZING TpT sellers that contributed raffle prizes or digital swag:

[Teaching in the Tongass] [Janiel Wagstaff] [Kimberly Geswein] [Polka Dots & Pals] [Laugh, Eat, Learn Designs] [Whimsy Workshop] [Jewel's School Gems] [The Joy of Teaching] [The Teacher Studio] [KristyBear Designs] [Chalk & Apples] [Teaching in Progress] [There's No Place Like Second Grade]

1. I loved walking in a seeing all kinds of familiar faces that I have never seen in person.  It was great meeting all of these different ladies that I share the educational blogging world with.  I got to drive there and hang out with one of my best friends which made it all that much better. 

2.  I loved the raffle!  It was so much fun watching everyone win something.  Desiree (who I talked about in #1) was the first number drawn.  She won some awesome stuff to really get her blog up and running.  Of course, I was super excited when I won the ESGI license.

3.  Taking pictures was another favorite moment of mine.  We had so much fun with the photo props and even broke out a selfie-stick (Note to self, I need to get one of those!!)

You can see more fun meetup photos by looking at the hashtag #VATeacherBloggersMeet on Instagram, or by looking at the photo album!

Some of the fantastic Virginia teacher bloggers from the meetup are linking up with Sarah from There's No Place Like Second Grade to share their favorite moments and photo memories from the meetup, as well as share their swag and prizes! Be sure and check-out their posts!