Canteen Price List?

I found this in a grade 4 classroom

At first glance it seemed like an innocent price list... possibly for a canteen or something.

But then as your eyes wander down the page you see there is the option to have a Bud Light for $2 or a Budweiser for $2

When I was in grade 4 I'm not sure I would have even been able to name a brand of beer (then again, my parents didn't drink and so I didn't see a lot of alcoholic containers growing up I guess).

I regret not asking what this list was for... was it for a game of pretend they were playing in the classroom?  An assignment?  Maybe they were planning what to sell at a canteen for a sporting event at the school or something?

It's a real mystery to me but uhm... at least they have some options for the 18+ crowd on their list?

This Week At School

This week at school was just like the previous 2... as my subbing gig was extended for another week.  By the end of the week it was decided that they would hire me on as a full time teacher until the end of the year.  So, huzzah I now know where I will be for the next 2 months!

I guess I could explain the position a bit...

It's about 2 grade 7 English classes per day which means I have a lot of non teaching time that gets filled in with me helping in other classrooms.

So, what have we been doing in ELA?

When I got there the class was working on this playground project.  Basically, they were designing a playground for kids while looking up some guidelines of current playground standards, watching videos and reading articles on other "controversial" playgrounds from around the world.

The assignment is to design it, write about it, make a commercial for it, and present this all to the class... on Tuesday.  Some groups will do fine with the Tuesday deadline other groups... well I'm not so sure how it will turn out.  But seriously, they've had 3 weeks!

While doing this we have also been learning about ethos, pathos, and logos and seeing what they are like in different forms of advertisements... they just wrote a test on this and thankfully most of them did okay on it.

We are also reading Underground to Canada

It's a lot going on so I'm hoping by wrapping up one thing (the playground stuff) we can focus more on some of the other stuff... which at this point would be Underground to Canada.  The problem is that one of the classes that I have is in the computer lab and so it would be nice if I had some kind of assignment or project they needed to do some research or type up (which when the playground stuff wraps up... I don't have... currently).

I'm mulling over a few ideas for future plans with these kiddos to get us through to the end of the year.

TUSC would be a great use of time in the computer lab and I already have a booklet for this.
Debates would work well because these kids love to talk (and I found a debate unit that uses ethos, pathos, and logos in it).
When I taught grade 5 and 6 I read my students The Westing Game because they wanted a mystery... I'm considering it again in grade 7 as a read aloud for maybe the last month because I think they would be into it (and one of the grade 6 classes is reading a mystery and most of the class is super into it so I'm just hopeful for the same results).
Their previous teacher was also using Showbie (which I'm just starting to learn about) and has a bunch of stuff in there ready for them to look at once I make it available to them... I just need to look through it first.

Paper Sculptures

I found these lovely pieces of art in a grade 3 classroom I was in recently.

I'm not at all sure what the lesson was but I like that it gives kids a chance to experiment with different ways to cut, twist, and glue paper.  They were very creative!

Smartner

Smartner - noun/adjective - a partner that's smart

The one and only time I heard this word was in a grade 1 classroom.  After hearing what it meant one of the students asked another one "Are you smart?"

This Week At School

This week at school was a lot like last week  (I finished off my 9 consecutive days in this particular class this week on Thursday)

On Friday I went to a school (and division) that I actually haven't had the chance to work in this school year yet. I'm thinking since it took most of the school year for me to work in this division I might omit it from my list of divisions I work in for next school year (if I happen to be subbing again). 

I was teaching middle and high school which is a little out of my comfort zone and the assignment included grade 12 chemistry which is a lot out of my comfort zone... but I didn't know any of this until I arrived at the school. You know what the nice thing about teaching grade 12 is though? If the kids don't want to be there they just won't show up. So I had a nice quiet class of 8 students for one of my 5 periods. We also watched some Planet Earth (which if you know me... is something that I'm definitely into watching) and played some games in math class. My last period got changed on me (which isn't atypical when you are a sub... admin typically wants to keep you busy) and I went to home economics where I had 5 students that made me sandwiches and soup (okay, they also made them for themselves as well). All in all.. not too shabby of a way to end of the week.

Things that are bad luck

I overheard some of my students talking about things that are bad luck:

"Have you heard about the one about stepping on a crack"

"Well I know black cats are bad luck"

"I know for a fact that breaking a mirror will give you 5 whole years of bad luck... most people think it's another number but I know that it's 5."

For the record... I don't believe in any kind of luck (good or bad).  Sometimes good things happen  and sometimes not so great things happen to you but I'm quite certain that you breaking a mirror isn't a part of it... much like all those times you stepped on a crack and your mom's back was just fine.  But I do my best to avoid those crack as a kid... you bet I did!  

MadLibs

How you could potentially make an entire day out of Madlibs...

Confession:  Sometimes I write blog posts a month or so in advance.  Then something comes up that I feel like is more applicable to that time or week and the post gets bumped again, and again until FINALLY it makes the cut to just get posted already because I wrote it a month (or 2 ago)... this is one of those posts.

A couple of months ago I was in a rural classroom during a snowstorm and so the teacher wasn't fully prepared for a sub. I only had the students that I did Madlibs with for one class but while I was teaching them I realized that a person, if in a pinch, could likely teach Madlibs for the entire day.

Here are some ideas:

1) Do Madlibs. Don't have any on hand? You can use your own friend Google to locate some or go to Wacky Web Tales  (which is the one I use)

2) Talk about adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns, etc. have your students do an assignment on each of them.

3) Write a short piece (it could even be a sentence) but tell students to focus on one of the above aspects. Adjectives would be the easiest I think so they would just have to really describe something. You could even have them all describe the same thing and then share what they wrote to see how similar or different they are.

4) Make their own Madlibs. Have them write a story and then erase a bunch of the adjectives, verbs, nouns, numbers, clothing items, etc (but write in what needs to go in that place) and then have them share their Madlibs with the class by doing them together... if the class was learning about something specific you could even say they have to create their stories about that particular topic (Ancient Greece, a science experiment, fairy tale, Canada, etc)

Confession: This isn't the first time I've talked about this wonderful topic see here for another post about Madlibs

This Week At School

Let me tell you something... maybe the first week back to school after spring break wasn't busy for this substitute but the 2nd week back looked very familiar to the first week back from winter break for me.

So I got a call from the division that I only occasionally work for... it's usually a half day here and there when I happen to not be working somewhere else.  I don't recall exactly how that automated system call thing works but I knew when it was telling me about the job that it was going to be more than one day.  I guess I was pretty lucky though because it ended up being for 9 days! 

Now I don't know if you are aware (likely not because I'm sure it's different in different divisions/provinces/countries) but here when you work a certain number of days for the same person in a row you get paid what you would earn as a regular teacher (I guess they figure at some point you are doing some degree of planning).  In this division it just so happens to be on the 6th day you start earning your teachers wages (the previous division this happened to me in I'm pretty sure it happened on the 5th day).  AND... the go ahead and back pay you to the first day of the assignment.  So, not only do I nearly have 2 full weeks of work in this particular class but I'm also getting paid a lot more to be there.

In order to accept this job I did have to cancel some other jobs that I already had lined up... but it was only 3 (and I don't know if you realize this but 9 days is quite a bit more than 3)

ANYWHO...

This week at school I....

- Was in the same school every single day

- We had the colours of our clothing decided for us on 3 days this week! On Wednesday we wore pink for Pink Shirt Day (psst... it may be passed the date of Pink Shirt Day but it's never too late to discuss bullying... click here to see what I've done in the pass and for a free resource!), on Thursday we wore green and yellow to show our support for The Broncos, and on Friday we wore white because our NHL team made it to the playoffs and were showing our white out support!

Pink, Yellow, and White (supporting the end of bullying, the Humboldt Broncos, and the Jets Whiteout)

- I've been teaching grade 7... but only one subject of grade 7 to just one class. This means I've had a lot of empty slots in my timetable so I've just been floating to here and there and everywhere helping out where I can.

- It was staff appreciation! If you're wondering if I partook in the Brookside chocolates... you better believe I did because they are fantastic.

-  I've slowly been collecting things that get me places in this school... on Wednesday they gave me an ID badge and yesterday I got a key to the iPads.

Hockey

Many of my readers have probably heard the tragic news of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash leaving 16 dead and 13 injured. 

Although only one player on the bus was from the province I teach in it still hits close to home. How many times have you gone on a bus to an event? Probably a number of times and many of those times (for myself at least) have involved taking highways and country roads. An accident like this could have happened anywhere at any time.

It may also be hitting a little close to home because Humboldt is only a 7 hour drive from where I live, I've been in schools with hockey academy's where I'm sure kids dreamed of one day playing for a team like the Humboldt Broncos, and with NHL playoffs coming up hockey is just on a lot of our minds.

Anyways, because of all of this the school I've been in this week has been doing what they can to show their support.

The kids all coloured paper hockey sticks green and yellow and taped them to their lockers and today we are all showing our support by wearing green or yellow.

We may be 7 hours away but we're thinking of you.

What's Fair?

Found in a teacher's classroom:

This Week At School

Let me tell you... the first week back after spring break is nothing like the first week back from Christmas break... I REALLY eased myself back into work by only working half days this week (not my choice... just what I was able to scoop up).

I also don't have much to report on in regards to things that happened this week at school.  I was in classes I have previously been in a bunch of times before and so all my half days ran relatively well.

Despite it being Spring we certainly aren't feeling the warmth up here!  It's not uncommon for it to feel like -20 in the mornings and the actual temperature still isn't getting above 0 here.  However, there was about a week prior to spring break when the weather did warm up enough to melt a bunch of snow and cause a bunch of ice to form.  Because of this one of the schools I was at this week decided that the students could have indoor recess'.... not because it was too cold or too wet outside but because there was too much ice on the playground.  Don't think I've ever heard that one before!  The nice thing about indoor recess at this particular school is that they open up one of their gym's for students to play in and most of the others are supervised while walking laps around the school... so they weren't all in classrooms causing problems at least!

Anyways, I don't have much scheduled for next week either so hopefully it starts to pick up again soon!

Spring Tulip Art

I found these in a classroom I was in just before Spring Break and loved how well done they were!

After a bit of searching I came across the instructions for how to make them (I couldn't quite figure it out just by looking at them).  You can find out how to do them here.

They remind me of the Dutch tulip fields I had my grade 4 students do one year with markers and water.

Substitute Teaching Blog Spotlight

Another month, another substitute blog spotlight!

Last month I posted about The Sub Service Blog which has a bunch of ideas on it that could help you out in the classroom.

This month though I found a different type of substitute teacher blog... The Substitute Diaries is about different things this substitute encounters in the schools (s)he goes to... kind of similar to how this lovely blog began.  Anyways, it's relatively new and I think whoever the author is over there would be happy to see a bunch of my faithful readers meander over that way to check out what she (or he) is writing!

Want a shout out for your lovely blog on here?  Contact me!  I only do one a month but I would love to acknowledge your blog one month soon!