How to Use Spell Check

Once, when I was teaching grade 8 ELA I had a bunch of students who really, really, REALLY disliked writing... but they had an extra ELA period (with another teacher) in the computer lab so I set up blogs for each and every one of them so that they would have to write (I talk a bit about them here).  How did it go?  It went ok... I must admit that some students were not responsible enough to have comments enabled or unmonitored, there was some plagiarizing, and there were a bunch of boring topics.  BUT, this is not a story about any of that!

This is a story about how a student used the word "ovaries" continuously throughout his writing because he didn't know how to spell a word and just went with the first word that the spell check suggested.  And that pretty much sums up the story actually... I don't recall what the word he was trying to spell actually was but it was hilarious but he decided ovaries was the correct word.  So teach your students how to use spell check correctly, and if they really don't know if the word they are using is correct it only takes a minute to look up the definition of the word which would hopefully grant them more clarity. 

This Week Not At School

Another week of self isolation down.

So, what was I up to this week?  

Well, now that the rest of the city has turned to baking those of us who have always been baking can no longer find flour to bake with... so I didn't do any of that (but I have plans to acquire some flour for next week).

I went for my first run of the year.

I've been shuttling my husband back and forth from chiropractor appointments ever since he injured his back last weekend moving patio stones.  

We got a dirt delivery!

And I worked hard to get this much moved into the backyard so far...

We are trying to level out our backyard a bit and not having water running towards the house and we have to fill in our garden with more dirt now that we fixed up the edging around it last year.

I've also been spending a lot of time out on the patio (especially on the couple of nice non rainy days we had this week!).  

Noise-O-Meter

We've all seen a "noise-o-meter" in a classroom (especially if you have ever been in an early years classroom).  Usually, it's just a list of different noise meters written on a piece of paper and wherever a magnet is stuck to it is the noise level that students should be working at (in my experience students only very rarely work in a whisper - even when the noise-o-meter tells them otherwise).

Anyways, I saw this in a classroom recently and it was the first time I had ever seen something like it...

noise-o-meter

The lights light up when you push on them (so I pushed one just to demonstrate what they were for the sack of the picture).  

And, because it's hard to read it...

Ninja Mode - Absolute silence - no talking

Spy Talk - Whisper voice - only one person can hear you

Low Flow - Only your group can hear you

Formal Normal - classroom discussion level

Do you have a noise-o-meter in your classroom?

What does it look like?

This Week Not At School

... or apparently the last 2 weeks since isolation has me SO busy that I forgot to post anything last week.  Whoops!

Whelp, schools are still closed here but I actually have been keeping busy

Our province has a lottery Bingo game aired on tv/Youtube and the last couple of weeks they have been giving away free cards that you can download.  So my husband and I have been playing that and have yet to come out winners (you can win up to $5000!)

One charcuterie board

Two charcuterie boards

We've been having snacky lunches on Fridays

I made paska in my breadmaker for Easter.

My husband and I made Easter dinner for ourselves.

These are supposed to be hotdog buns.. they got a little large.  Next time I'll be turning to Google because maybe there is a better way to make hotdog buns at home.  But we had a BBQ with hotdogs, salad, and homemade mac and cheese in the slow cooker!

The last couple of days it has gotten up to 15 here so I set up our patio furniture (and made that famous Tik Tok whipped coffee (I've decided I'm not really a fan).

I've also been doing lots of basement workouts and going on plenty of walks.  My kilometers goal for April was 30km walked and I'm currently just 2km away from that... so it should be doable.

Otherwise, I've been staying safe and healthy!