Top 5 - #3

My third most searched and viewed post was on 

Optical Illusion Art

Why I think this one made it into the top 5?

It's art!

I know I do a lot of internet searches when it comes to my art classes and so this doesn't surprise me.

PLUS, I think I did a rather good job with this lesson.  I mean, I included books and everything!

Would I do this lesson again in my classroom?

I would.  I can't this year because I have some of the same students as last year... but once I get a 100% fresh batch of kids i'll do it again!

Top 5 - #4

My 4th most popular post of all time was

Telephone Pictionary

Why I think this made the top 5?

Much like Mad Libs, Telephone Pictionary is a fun time and people (you included) want to know about it!  Plus, it can have kids practicing descriptive words to really describe the scene that was drawn to get it as accurate as possible.

Do I use it in my classroom?

I haven't yet.  The problem with Telephone Pictionary is it works well with about 10 people.  My class size last year was 22.  Maybe I'll try it this year if half my class is ever out with the flu or something.

Top 5 - #5

Whelp,

It's the last [long] weekend before school starts

and I'm at the lake for one last vacation before early rises, marking, report cards, planning, and bandaiding.

For this ever so festive occasion I thought I (we) would take a look back on my blog at the top 5 liked posts of all time (one a day for the next 5 days)

So, starting at #5 we have 

Mad Libs

Why I think this one made it into the top 5?

Let's be serious (even though the actual Mad Libs never are), Mad Libs are hilarious, teachers love them because it helps students think about nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc, and they are engaging.

Do I use them in my classroom?

Yes, of course.  Last year I taught grade 8 ELA and we used them there.  I know my teaching partner also used them in grade 4.  

So use them... use them lots!

This Week At School

Okay, so my classroom isn't completely put together and finished but I need more time off (because apparently 2 months isn't enough time off) before I go back to school. I'm driving out to a family gathering at the lake this last long weekend and decided I would use today to get my place in order (and do some school stuff I brought home with me) but that doesn't mean my room isn't nearly finished!

So what did I accomplish this week at school?

1)  My first science unit on Simple Machines is completely done.  I put together student books and I even numbered the pages!... I later forgot about this handy technique when I was putting together French books.  Whoops!  Anyways, it feels awesome to have my science unit ready to go... I'll probably give them a test at the end so I just have to make that (I'm also having them do a bigger end of the unit project on Rube Goldberg that I'm looking forward to!

2)  As I alluded to above I also got my first unit in French done.

3)  I have a behaviour game I'm calling "RULEOPOLY" - stay tuned for exactly where I got the idea and how it will work.

4)  I have my first day (possibly week) of activities done and photocopied for my students.

5)  I made them "I'm Through" booklets... basically a booklet of games and things to draw to stretch their thinking (I'm hoping they last 2 months before we have to add more pages to them).  Since these booklets are just for fun I'm also making a couple of booklets of answer keys and they can check their own work.

6)  We are doing interactive math journals this year.  My plan to get them used to the idea is to spend the entire first week of math classes just working in these.

7)  Planned some activities to start filling up the "brainstorming" section of our writing folders

8) Tidied up most of my classroom, made bulletin boards (most are fairly empty because I like using bulletin boards for student work), wrote their names on their writing folders and agendas, moved tables around, and planned where everyone would sit (I still have to make an official seating plan).

9)  Finalized my schedule (as in I decided when we would do ELA, math, science, etc).

So without further ado... my classroom as I left it late Wednesday afternoon:

Left to do:

-  I'm storing a bunch of rulers in a Pringles can... but that's kind of ugly so I'm going to glue some material around it to fancy it up.  

-  Make an example of our first art activity for the first day

-  Organize their first group project (how to stack cups without being able to use your hands to stack them)

-  Tidy up the back of the classroom by the windows.

-  Get my projector, document viewer, and computer all working together.

-  Confirm a time to have computer class

-  Book the laptops for an entire afternoon (or morning)

-  Find (or make) classroom schedule labels so that I can put our schedule on the board every morning.

-  Make a big classroom schedule (and regular sized ones for my students to take home or put in their agendas)

-  There is a cart with a bunch of bins in it between that long table with the carpets on it (that I also have to figure out something to do with) and my desk.  I just need to relabel it for my purposes so that I'm not just putting things in random slots.

-  Go through my French resource posters to find the ones we will use with the first unit.

The list is long so I might be there a little later on Tuesday (Tuesday is also meet the teacher so we are all there a little later anyways).

But I'm looking forward to the year and my new class!

Letters Everywhere!

As teachers I'm sure many of us have those letters that you punch out (okay, you only have to punch them out yourself if you get the cheapo Dollarama ones apparently... and obviously those are the ones I get) and use on your bulletin boards... I have exactly a billion (it seems).  

Last Wednesday whilst watching a movie I had my wonderful lifegroup help me punch out all those letters that I brought home and organized according to the letter (and for some I organized by colour AND letter).  

Why?

Because I actually want to use them this year! 

Because in order to actually use them they have to be organized so that it is easier to use them at school.

Because I bought them and they aren't doing much good just sitting there.

My original plan was to just organize them in baggies and maybe put those baggies on a binder ring thing.  Easy Peasy (and more important cheap because I already have baggies at home!).

Then I thought that wouldn't last so I began the hunt for one of those zippered cd cases that store all your cd's.  I'm pretty sure I've seen this organization for letters technique somewhere before... I won't take credit for it.  

Anyways, I was told Dollarama might have one so that is where I went to search.

I feel that my local Dollarama is organized really oddly.. so I came across a different solution before I found the case.

mini accordian file.  It would be able to fit plenty of each letter, however, I would have needed about 3 of them.

I eventually found the cd case... It held 48 cd's which would be perfect but the Mennonite in me thought the price of $3 was a little steep (really Christine??)

So I cheaped out in the most major way and went with a tiny photo album... enough room for 48 photos!... or a billion letters

I must admit... the first few pages worked wonderfully and then as it became more and more stuffed it got difficult and the pages started to rip AND the M's didn't really fit... I think I'm definitely regretting not spending the extra $2 on the cd case but this will do for now at least... I'll try to make it last for the year and then I'll splurge on the cd case (I'm sure by that time it will cost $5 and I'll really be kicking myself for not getting it sooner).

Do you have a lot of letters that need organizing?

How do you organize them?

If you try the cd case route please let me know how it goes and if it is worth it (and if the M's and W's fit)

Now let's all have a Martha Stewart moment

cd cases for letters.. "it's a good thing"... I'm sure.

This Week at School

That's right... schools in my division officially reopened their doors for staff this last week!

I made my way there on Monday and this what my classroom looked like 

(everything you see in this picture is not mine - other than the green grocery bags on the table and the jacket on the chair... I'm doing a maternity leave until Spring Break)

and this is what it looked like after I left on Monday

I managed to look through more of this teachers things (and discovered she had a class set of calculators... dangit... those are on my student supply lists!)

I put up bulletin board backings

I put up the French calendar (some of my students will take German but I feel like it won't be THAT hard to follow the French calendar... I just don't feel its necessary to have 2 calendars)

I caught up with other coworkers

Oh, and I did a BUNCH of laminating that my fabulous life group helped cut out!

The next 3 days I spent in another city (I don't live in the city where I work and this particular city was not where I lived nor worked) for a first year teachers inservice

The first day of the inservice I left my place to discover it was REALLY foggy...  couldn't read signs as I drove past them but I was confident that I wouldn't need them... then I drove right by the board office.  Whoops!

Friday I went back to school.  It was a gloomy day so perfect for spending it at school!

I made this over the summer and laminated it at school before putting it up.  I may have made it too big... I tried staggering the letters but it just looked like a mess... so I went with a straight line... the E is nearly at the ground but oh well.

I'm especially proud of this bulletin board.  Remember when I showed you those MOLA letters?  The plan is to use this as my "Museum of Language Arts"... students can put work in the frames that they think they did really well on... but it has to be museum worthy.  I glued flat thumb tacks to the backs of the frames and for the most part they are working.  One frame was starting to fall off by the time I left school... hopefully I don't come back to them all on the ground.

I left school for the weekend with it looking like this

I realize it doesn't appear I've been doing much at school... but I also photocopied stuff for my first Science unit... I brought it home to go over before I make student copies... I think I'm going to be extra organized and make student copies and a teacher copy that is more in depth.  

I also have my French stuff at home to go over and put the first unit together... slowly but surely I'll get there!

Back to School

We are down to just ONE week before school is back in session (Yikes!)

I've been busy at school (and at meetings not at school) this week (stay tuned for the first TWAS post for the 2014/2015 school year soon) but found the time to watch a little something something that you all might enjoy (well, my Facebook friends seemed to enjoy it at least... so I assume at least one of you will like it too).

ENJOY!

August Showers

I feel like we haven't gotten a whole lot of rain here this summer... but that's okay!  Today is the 2nd day now within the last week that it has rained here now (hopefully it stops for tomorrow as I'm going to the football game and despite our lovely new stadium no wonderful dome was built to keep all the spectators hair dry).

But I digress...

This is not a post about the amount of rain we have had here... I was just majorly behind in posting about an art project I did with my grade 4's (I want to say we probably did it in April so we could call it "April Showers" but let's be honest... it probably happened in May).

We got many comments about our lovely rainy flowers from passers by the in the hallway (I'm a little sad that no one will really walk by my hallway this year... I'll have to be sure to book us a month with the big bulletin board in the main hallway this year for sure!)

Once again, I did not come up with this and we pretty much followed the instructions that Miss outlines on "A Faithful Attempt".  If you are you looking for a really fantastic art blog I HIGHLY recommend this one... it is just so easy to 1) find something grade appropriate and 2) follow along with her instructions.

I had printed off a page of flowers for students... and they practiced drawing one a few times on another piece of paper to start with... I'm pretty sure I also put some others up on the projector for them to look at too (the sheets were just in black and white so they could see them in colour on the projector).  

When I told them to use their white crayons for the raindrops many got stuck on the word raindrops and didn't want to make them in straight lines... but I was okay with that.  I've tried very hard not to micro manage my art class (especially since it is at the elementary level) and let them incorporate their own ideas when they want... if they thought the picture would look better as actual raindrops and not lines I was okay with that (for the record I always put up the examples from Miss' blog to show my students... it saves me from having to do one ahead of time - although sometimes I do it with them).

For this lesson I came across some water colour paint and not all of it was hard and old which is why some of the colours turned out pretty good (usually I just water down regular paint).  I did however not find water colour paper at school and so we just used stiffer white paper... it's okay though.... I still think they turned out pretty good.

SubAssistant

I recently did a blog post about the woes of getting those early morning phone calls for jobs or waking up early to job shop online with the hopes that maybe just maybe something will pop up while you are online.

Well, those days are behind us folks. 

You see, I've discovered a handy little website/app that will alert you when a job gets posted. 

The nice thing is if you are skeptical they offer a 21 day free trial. I can pretty much guarantee that you will get at least one job during that time that you wouldn't have had you not been using this service. After that it will only cost you $7.95/month (and I've done my research - it is one of the cheaper options available). I'm not sure how much we all make for a full day of substitute teaching but here we make over $100... that means that if you accept just one job a month through the service... a job that you likely wouldn't have seen had you not been using the service it will have already paid for itself. 

Now that I'm a teacher with a classroom of my own I feel like I have a better understanding of when jobs actually might get posted... If I've signed myself up for a professional development day I will usually put in my sub request just after I book it... and I tend to book these things while at work which means I'm GUESSING a lot of jobs get posted between the hours of 8am-5pm (a time that I would normally not be sitting online checking for jobs or calling the SubFinder service so it's nice that there is an app that will do the looking for me). 

Another great thing about this particular service is that they are able to check a few different SubFinder programs... a few years ago I was in multiple divisions that each had a different site they used to book their substitutes. What a pain it would have been to have to sign up for 3 different services.. Subassistant will check your Aesop (both Canadian and American), SubFinder, SubFindExpress, and SubFinder elite (3 of these just so happened to be the 3 programs that the divisions I was in were using... if there are anymore programs out there than these 4 then I'm just not familiar with them). 

How it Works:

1) a teacher posts a substitute job online 

2) SubAssistant will send you a text message, email, or an app notification alerting you that a new job has been posted (they will do this right away) 

Here is what a list of available jobs would look like from in the SubAssistant app.  Just click on them to accept!

3) You can either accept it right away or you can then sign in to the substitute program and accept it from there. Personally, I always accepted my jobs from the substitute program because I liked to be able to read any notes the teacher had posted before I accepted (or rejected) the job. But now that I think of it you could use the EasyAccept feature then go online at your earliest convenience, read the full job, and then if you decide it really isn't for you turn the job down. 

Here is an example of how easy the EasyAccept feature is...  does this 6th grade job look appealing to you?  Just click the "Accept" button and it's yours!

But seriously, you should probably sign up for the 21 day free trial here...what have you got to lose? Except the possibility of being kept more busy substitute teacher than you have in months.

 I suppose the only downside to this would be if you don't have a cell phone. If you don't have a cell phone this service won't be much help to you because the point of it is you see the jobs being posted before many others... if you have it set up to just email you I guess it is a good start but then you have to be sitting near your computer all the time waiting for an alert about a new email message. 

So, are you going to try SubAssistant? Are you already a loyal SubAssistant subscriber? 

Post your stories below!

A Day in the Life (Part 6)

This is the last installment in this series if you missed the last 6 weeks you can find them all here:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

The question remains.. why do I substitute teach?

For myself it was because I wanted to one day have one of those allusive classrooms of my own. Where I work you need to have your education degree (which is a 5 year university program) to be a teacher OR substitute teacher. You cannot do either without your teaching certificate. Unfortunately, a classroom of my own seems nearly impossible when the 3 universities in my province (I'm in Canada) are pushing out hundreds of education grads every year. If you do some very simple math you would therefore need hundreds of teaching jobs to open up every single year in order for everyone to get a job. This just doesn't happen. So while I waited to get my own classroom I kept my foot in every door possible by substitute teaching.

This year I have been fortunate to FINALLY have that classroom of my own and I am currently teaching grade 4 every morning, and in the afternoons I teach grade 5 French and grade 8 ELA. It's a big job for my very first full year term but I've (almost) survived it!

I'm super thankful to be sitting on the other side of the sub plan... the one writing it (not reading it) and I hope that my substitute teachers appreciate the work I put into the plan to help them have a really awesome day.

So, I just wanted to say thanks to substitute teachers.  It wasn't so long ago that I was one of you and I know what it is like.  Thanks for accepting our last minute teaching assignments, thanks for dealing with our unruly students, thanks for filling time in sub plans when we don't give you enough to teach.  For without you lovely people teachers would not be able to take a day off... and let's face it... we all need a day off every so often!

Meet the Teacher Linky

Today I'm linking up with Falling into First for her Meet the Teacher linky party

As many of you know my name is Christine and this year I'll be teaching a grade 5/6 split class (or I will be teaching them until April for sure).  Last year I taught grades 4, 5, and 8 (all single grade classes) so I'm looking forward to a year with one less grade to teach!  Previous to this I did a lot of substitute teaching and I travelled across Canada with a ministry team. 

These are a few of my favourite things:

Long walks, runs, cookies, my friends and family, girl time (and alone time), reading, Modern Family (and the New Girl and the first 3 or so seasons of The Office), and the Lord.

If you weren't a teacher what would you want to be?

I had it in my head a couple of years ago that I should return to school to go into journalism.  I've kind of thought I was a decent writer but I also thought I might have a face for reading the news.  Then I took a year off from substitute teaching to join a traveling ministry team and started my blog instead of going back to school.

Three little words that describe you:

patient, creative, funny

Finish the sentence "_________, said no teacher ever!!"

'I love writing report card comments, said no teacher ever!!"

It's your birthday and you can invite anyone (dead or alive) to the party.  

Who are you inviting?

This is a tricky one.

I think I might want a band of some kind there.. but I'm blanking on one that I'm really into so I guess I'll go with Michael Buble.  

I would also invite all my friends and family.

Lame?

What can I say... I'm a simple kind of girl.

If someone wrote a book about your life, what would be the title?

Confessions of a Modern Day Mennonite

I've always thought my first blog title was a catchy little thing.

You get to pick one superpower, what is it?

I've always thought it would be handy to fly... think of all the time you could save!

sidenote:  I've noticed others have said teleportation which I think MIGHT be better but I'm a little confused as to how it works... can you teleport yourself anywhere or is there some kind of teleportation machine involved and you can only teleport to those places?  I mean... it seems handy in winter because who wants to fly in the -50 weather we have up here!?!

What's your favourite quote or saying?

Ugh, I hate this question.

When I was with the ministry team I felt forced to have a favourite bible verse so I just picked one.. when in reality I have so many favourites.  BUT I just heard this one the other day and I immediately liked it

"You are altogether beautiful my darling, there is no flaw in you"

- Song of Songs 4:7

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

Definitely a morning person. 

(I can stay up late now that it is summer but during the year... not a chance).

Share something we might not know about you:

I don't like watermelon (or any kind of melon for that matter), raspberries, or beans.

Also, just in case you haven't figured it out... I'm Canadian.

Art Portfolios

A while ago I admitted that I needed an idea to help my students want to keep their artwork.  I thought some kind of art portfolio would be the answer to the problem of them tossing the art as soon as I give it back to them.... but wasn't sure how to go about this art portfolio.

The problem?  I don't have space to store a lot of stuff so I would prefer my students to be in charge of their own art portfolios so that they have to store it somewhere... that somewhere being in the classroom so basically I was back at square one.

But have no fear because I have a new favourite blog Runde's Room (it's mostly my favourite because she is teaching the exact grades I am AND is in Canada... a rare find!)

The exact post that inspired me is here

So.. my new plan is to only do art that is on paper and one-dimensional (so long messy paper mache projects!).  On the backs of their artwork I will have them do some kind of reflection (maybe not all of the time but definitely some of the time)... was it easy?  did they like the process?  Could they improve somehow?  Favourite part?... a simple sentence or two for a reflection will suffice.

I'm also going to try to incorporate poetry (and also math sometimes) to their art.  I'll store all their artwork with corresponding poems in a filing cabinet (I don't have cute little crates and don't plan on making any... this year) and put together their art and poetry books at the end of the year (that's assuming I'm there at the end of the year... let's all keep our fingers crossed on this one).  Hopefully it will be a great gift at the end of the year for them.

One of the first projects I'm going to have them do is a name sphere... I think they will put them on their lockers in the hall... I'm hopeful that these will last until June and we can use them as part of the cover to their art and poetry books.  We'll see.

Bulletin Board Backings

It's B³!

This week I finally made it to a fabric store to see what they would have to fit my turquoise, black, grey, white theme... and boy did they have a lot! 

Now, I know what my faithful followers/readers are saying "but wait, did you not already buy some table clothes for the backs of your bulletin boards?"  and you're right... I did.  But none of them involved turquoise!

You can find the post about my other purchases for the classroom here

But back to B³

There were so MANY choices!..

Confession:  I LOVE peacock feathers and was so sad that I didn't need another black and white background for my bulletin boards when I discovered this one

What made it extra hard was that I couldn't really remember what the boarders I ordered looked like.  I know I got some chevron (don't recall which colours) and a more "busy" black and white one.

Then I discovered the prices sneakily written inside the fabric... most were $14/meter which is too much for this Mennonite (the peacock feather one was a steal at $8/meter though).

This made my decision easier...

I went with a solid colour.  Not knowing exactly what my borders looked like and knowing that my other 2 bulletin boards would be busier I thought this would be best.. plus solid colours were under $3/meter.

So my bulletin boards will be these...

To be honest I'm a little sad the gray one has yellow in it... why oh why couldn't it be turquoise instead?? I was also a little worried about how busy the black and white one may be... but I think I've come up with a way to tone it down and make it look really great.  I have big plans for the black and white one!

Someone asked me why I choose to go this route for the backings.. we do have construction paper on rolls which would be just as easy to put up BUT construction papers fades and you have to change it every year (I imagine) this will hopefully last a while... unfortunately I'm only guaranteed my job until April... hopefully I at least stay put until June *fingers crossed*

What are you planning to do with your bulletin boards?

A Day in the Life (Part 5)

Catch up on the last few weeks of this story by reading:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

So you've survived your day as a substitute teacher 

and are heading home... what will you do?

Well if you are me, as soon as you get home you will jump online to check if any jobs have been posted. You will make sure your phone is always near you in case Subfinder calls. Forget going to the movies, or the library... you need to be able to answer your phone... a job could disappear within seconds if you don't see it first.

And your day as a substitute teacher will start all over again tomorrow.

Only tomorrow you will be in a new school and classroom (sometimes even a new division/district). The students will change, the rules will change, and what you will be teaching... it will all change.

Substitute teaching is often times like starting a new job every single day.

So let's all have a little more respect for our substitute teachers! Tell them when you think they are doing well, tell them where the staffroom is, tell them where the staff washrooms are, pick them a flower, and compliment their choice of footwear (necklace, hairstyle, nail polish).  

Next week:  The question remains.. why do I substitute teach? 

Area and Perimeter

One of the last things I did with my grade 4's in math was to talk about area and perimeter.  

This was the first time some of them had ever heard of it so there was no test or too many worksheets... we just had fun with it.  

Here is where I first talked about area and perimeter with my grade 4's.  We watched a video of someone reading a story that we stopped often to think about how table settings could be arranged and finding out the area and perimeters of our names.

I don't recall how I came up with the idea for this math/art lesson (they questioned me this day if we were actually doing math because they were positive it seemed more like art - sneaky sneaky me).  If you've seen it elsewhere on the internet I'm sure I am not the first person to ever do this!

Anyways, we had our names all done and this day we were going to figure out the area and perimeter of ourselves (kind of).  We started off by each having a piece of graph paper that they were to draw themselves on (using the lines of the graph paper).  I told them to not cut too many boxes in half or do too many diagonal lines because it would just make things more confusing later on when they had to count all those boxes.

I had spent sometime after school the previous day (and the morning of this lesson) cutting up construction paper into tiny squares... looking back on this I would have cut the paper into even smaller squares... they were just too big when you put a bunch of them together on a giant piece of paper.

To get them working on the project right away I told them that they were going to make themselves based on what they were wearing that day.  This way they didn't have to waste all kind of time deciding if they wanted a pink or purple shirt... they were stuck with whatever colour they currently had on.  Luckily, I had on a stripy dress which (I feel) took forever to lay out on the paper.  But alas, rules are rules and I should probably obey my own rules.

When they had their final version done all nice and big (likely on 2 pieces of paper) they were to count all the pink, blue, white, black, etc squares that they used.  They would eventually add all these numbers up together to get the area of the person they did in units squared.  Then they had to add up the entire perimeter of the person... so every outside edge.  They wrote that down with just units.

Here are our some of our finished masterpieces:

Here's mine!  We worked together at finding out all the numbers.

Someone apparently had a purple face the day of this activity (he also told me that the pointy things on top of his shoulders were his hands)

When at first you don't succeed...

What have I been up to?

I'm making my own Welcome sign for my classroom.  I had mild expectations for this... mostly because I thought making an ombre sign would be easy... it isn't hard to tell that it doesn't really look all that ombre though.  Whoops!

This one is confusing for everyone who doesn't see my vision (I'm assuming none of you have been inside my head recently to know my vision).  

Do I have money on the mind?  

Maybe the letters are in the wrong order?

Pretty sure for middle school camp we had something called the "Omal" award... why omal?  It was lamo spelt backwards... 

We gain access to the school on the 18th for the first time all summer.  You'll just have to wait until then to see this vision.

Today is a civic holiday in Canada.  For me this means a family gathering in the park. 

I was to bring some kind of baking (my mom said cookies and naturally I choose to not make cookies) so I'm making homemade Twix bars.  The only problem?  I realized at around 8:30 last night that I didn't have enough caramels to make it.  Not sure when stores open today but I figure it I walk to one around 11 even if it doesn't open until noon I'll only look like the lady desperate for her next caramel fix for half an hour or so... or I'll just show up to the gathering with just this... 

Other things:

-  I finished the writing folders a while ago (I still need to test this permanent marker being able to be removed with nail polish remover before I decide what to do with the names)

-  I've been dreaming up ways to make my math class more exciting.  I found some interesting stuff on interactive math journals that I want to try.  I wasn't sure on the price but it has good reviews on Teachers Pay Teachers... plus I heard it through the grapevine that there is a 20% off sale on Teachers Pay Teachers today and tomorrow so I loaded up my wish list and I'm ready to do some purchasing!

-  Since I'm teaching a split class I can choose between the 2 grades what I want to teach for Science... I based my decision on what the teachers taught last year and picked my 4 units... I'm excited!

-  I found some fun activities to do for the first week or so of school - math pendants, science experiment (if only I could find some sodium polyacrylate at a reasonable price!... I think I'm going to try getting it straight out of a diaper), bio poems, and group work challenge.

-  I received some other stuff on getting your students for group work in the first 20 days of school.. just little activities for them to do each day that I think I'm going to work through

-  I've started collecting picture frames for my classroom... I want to frame our classroom rules (one rule/frame) and then put some frames up on the bulletin board permanently for student work to go in.  So far I have 4 so I'm looking for about 10 more for the bulletin board alone...

- I made a template for my classroom newsletter

-  I've come up with a really great idea for every classroom party I have this year.  I'm excited and I think it will be right up a class of grade 5's and 6's alley.  

Speaking of classroom parties... when do you have all of yours?  

Here's my tentative thoughts...

-  Fall (Halloween is taboo where I am)

-  Christmas

-  Valentine's Day

-  Spring Break

(the reason why end of the year isn't on the list is because we do whole school stuff at the end of the year)

Oh, and I fixed my Welcome sign

When at first you don't succeed... 

try, try again!

The first time I took turquoise paint and added white... I found it to work much better by using white paint and adding in the turquoise.  

Stay tuned to see if I remedied the Twix situation...

We Care

Today's post of mine is simple

You should all go and read:

"What Students Really Need to Hear"

Why?

because I think it is well written and deserves some more reads

because I want students to know that we (their teachers DO care)

because I to worry/think/stress about my students (even after the last bell rings)

This isn't to say all teachers care this much... some likely are in it just for the paycheck.  But for the sake of being positive and friendly... let's say most of us (teachers) do care.