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Our own Colleen Mitchell had the excellent idea of creating a flat Mrs. Mitchell for her students to follow during her travels this spring.  We all thought it was an excellent idea, so Colleen and the staff at her school helped to create flats for all of us.  Thanks Colleen and we can't wait to share thems

 
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After a fantastic day of visiting with the ESU students, we were treated with a tour of the National Teacher's Hall of Fame, which is housed at the ESU Visser Hall.  

Greeted by director and 1999 Kansas Teacher of the Year Carol Strickland, we had the opportunity to hear the biographies of the 2012 class of inductees.  Congratulations to: 
You all inspired us to do even more in our love of teaching.  Thank you to Carol for the tour and to ESU for hosting the KTOY Team.

 
Such an awesome group of students at ESU today. We had a blast sharing our story with all of you!  Not only did we get to visit with our largest groups of students yet, we were overwhelmed with the excitement of the audience participants.  It's obvious you all are pumped to be teachers, and we can't wait for you to join our schools.  

STINGERS UP for ESU!
 
Second day of presentations went great as our new students of the day jumped right into the conversation. Awesome job everyone!
Here is our first activity where our own Ramie Allison has the students collaborating on a puzzle before moving and shaking to high energy activities. :)
 
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Yay! Our first presentations went very well.  We kickstarted our presentation tour at Bethel College this morning to a full house of awesome students.  Each of us shared our passions for teaching and left some advice for the students to EMBRACE the opportunity to write their own Teaching Story.  

Lunch was at Newton's famous Bread Basket Cafe where each of us enjoyed the delicious buffet and yes....pie!  Oooowwweee we were all saying mmmm.mmmm.MMM!

After lunch we journeyed over to McPherson to visit with some Central Christian College freshmen to inspire them into discovering if education might be an avenue to pursue further (Yes, we fully agree you all have amazing talents to share with young people).  Thank you to both colleges for allowing us to come and visit today.  We were pumped to share our good news. 

 
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Talk about an awesome lunch!  Our own Colleen Mitchell set up a special tour at the William Allen White House along with a chance to eat our favorite Amandas sandwiches and cheesecake.  We were fortunate to have the Emporia Gazette and KVOE Radio join us for lunch before touring the Red Rocks Kansas Historical Site.  

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Albert Einstein with William Allen White  :o)

PS - Did you know that WAW was friends with 5 different presidents?

 
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Super thanks to our very own Colleen Mitchell who put together a fantastic day in Emporia, Kansas.  We started out the day with a wonderful orchestra concert from Emporia Middle School - awesome job guys!!  Then we toured classrooms in Walnut, Village, and Logan Elementaries, Emporia Middle School, and the Turning Point Learning Center.  Some of the highlights included seeing their excellent dual language programs in action, the Literacy First initiatives K-12, innovative collaboration with community members, problem-based learning, and the outstanding special needs program at Logan.  Emporia is doing wonderful things for students, and we are inspired to share the good news with our own districts. 

 
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Today the KTOY Team had the unique privilege to present at the joint House and Senate committee.  We each spoke on our personal passions on education such as educating the whole child, meeting each child's special needs, finding relevance to curriculum, project based learning, effective technology integration, and inspiring children to exceed expectations.  Believe it or not, we received a standing ovation from the committee members, and we are humbled by this gesture.  Thank you all.


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Next up was a dash over to the Senate floor where we were each presented to the senate by our regional senators - Thank you to each of them - and participated in a proclamation and standing ovation to recognize us as the 2013 KTOY team.  Once again we were humbled in every way.  Thank you. 

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After a short tour of the capitol we were lucky enough to catch Governor Brownback in the hallway.  He was gracious enough to invite us into his office for an impromptu meeting.  We had a lovely conversation over our students, why we love to teach, and how important it is for us to support our students and schools.  Thank you Governor for t

 
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Thanks to Enterprise Rental Car for donating a 2012 Toyota Corolla for MrsSmoke to use this spring during her travels and to the Kansas Corn Commission who donated gas funds.  Enterprise told Dyane that she will log over 20000 miles in the next six months.  

 
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Our very own Laura Moyers celebrated her birthday with us in Topeka during our Leadership Conference.  Super thanks to Mr. Moyers who brought in the yummy cake and for Laura who shared her special day with us.