Maker's Space

This is something that was just becoming an idea in a division I worked for while I was teaching in my grade 5/6 classroom as I was leaving that division... so I'm going to be honest... I don't know much about it.  But the internet definitely knows about it!

I was only in 1 classroom throughout this entire school year that had a Maker's Space in it... and this is what it looked like

Posters for ideas of what can be done with paper and expectations

And a bunch of supplies on the shelves below the posters... not pictured was all the Lego they had (I guess in the past it had become a problem so it was away in the cupboard)

From my understanding a Makerspace is a safe place where students can design, build, and test ideas they have.  

We ended up using the Makerspace the day I was in this classroom to build a specific habitat (that the student groups chose) with any of the supplies they wanted (and yes, the Lego was a HUGE hit).

The students versions of different habitats

Anyways, this was this classrooms Makerspace... I can imagine if a school had a shared Makerspace a lot of other materials might be found in it or if the students were older (this was a grade 3 class) they might be able to use more complicated things like building circuits, robotics, or photography.

Do you have a Makerspace at your school (or have you been at a school with one)?  

I would love to learn more!

Psst last week I shared what some teachers are doing to make some comfy spots for kids to work.

This Week OFF From School

We only have one more week off and then it's back to school (well, if I'm lucky I'll get a job that first week to go to... I likely will end up still having a couple of weeks off from school).

So what did I do this week?

We are still in the midst of trying to pick out some flooring and I think we are finally very VERY close to making a decision

The 3 pieces of wood leaning up against the wall are what we are thinking of using for our cabinets (the 2 end ones are very similar just different types of wood).  I also put a white paper there because we are switching out the trim and baseboards for a white colour and out back splash and counter tops will also be fairly close to white too.

This next one requires a bit of work to envision it... we are thinking that 2nd from the top colour on the left hand side)

I think I've gone back and forth to flooring stores enough to last me a number of years by now.  We will be choosing our flooring from these 5 samples though... hopefully)

We are also finializing our kitchen renovation plans and are just getting a 2nd quote made up for us so we can decide on a company to go with.  Hopefully within the next couple of weeks we will settle on the design and where we want cabinets/drawers and get everything ordered.

I went shopping and picked out a new top for me to wear this year (and likely for many years) while subbing (or hey, I'll even wear it while teaching in my very own classroom if I'm that lucky).

The sleeves were a little "out there" for me but I thought it was super cute and flattering, it ties in the back (which is what the black stuff at the top is)

I went and purchased about 20lbs of peaches this week.  The plan is to blanche them and freeze them (I use a lot of frozen fruit in smoothies).  20lbs is a lot though.. especially since our freezer is getting fairly full at the moment.

Speaking of blanching we bought a blancher and canning equipment.  We are all set to make salsa in a couple of weeks once we are overrun with tomatoes and peppers!

Chicken also FINALLY went on sale this week so I also bought about 10kgs of chicken breast for the freezer.  FINALLY we can start eating chicken again!  About half of the amount that I bought was already destined for a bunch of slow cooker meals I had already put together but were lacking the chicken component.

I watched my cousins kids again this week.  I took them to see The Incredibles 2 (I had actually already seen it but they hadn't yet so off we went).

I had my first ever facial this week.  Let me tell you.. if you've never had a facial before get one!  I got mine done at a local beauty school and it was actually free because I had coupon (otherwise I'm not sure if I would have ever thought to get one).  I had a great student do mine and it was super relaxing and my face still feels silky smooth.

I'm in the process of getting everything organized for subbing again.  I still haven't received any contracts from one division that I want to stick on with (I've already signed contracts for 2 other divisions though)... so note to self... get a hold of that one division and make sure I'm still on their sub list.

And... we went to the lake one last time before school starts up again.

Comfy Corners

I've been collecting pictures of comfy reading corners for a while... here are a few of the ones that I've come across this last school year.

Ok, maybe these would be better under my flexible seating post as they don't look all that "comfy" but the kids definitely loved them!

Do you have any kind of unique seating options or "comfy corners" for your students?  

I would love to see them!

Personally, if I could have anything I wanted I think I would opt for a small couch and maybe 1 or 2 other "arm chair" type things for my classroom.  I would love a coffee table and end table of some kind as well.  I've come up with a bit of a plan for what my dream classroom would look like (including it's comfy reading corner) here.

Psst... last week I talked about some class pets that I've run into this year.  Surprisingly, it wasn't a lot.

This Week OFF From School

I've been taking it a little easier again this week due to my back issues again and the fact that its been pretty smokey outside due to the fires out west but this week I did visit the chiropractor not once but twice for adjustments so hopefully things are going to be getting better soon!

I visited another flooring store and got different recommendations for what we should put in our house.  One store says waterproof laminate, another click together vinyl and this third one says glue down vinyl. 

I also brought home some more samples for John to see and this time they are too dark (last week they were too light)... it's like I'm living with Goldilocks here!

I made these cucumber chips in a dehydrator that we borrowed

They weren't my cup of tea but if you are interested in the recipe you can find it here

I'm proud to say we FINALLY have our cucumber situation under control... now to just get the zucchini under control.. maybe zucchini chips are in our future next week.

We made some chocolate cherry ice cream. 

We make this one a lot!... so it's definitely delicious and you can find the recipe here

We've altered the recipe a little to add chocolate because that's an important ingredient for my husband.

We also attempted to make some Turtle Ice Cream but we haven't been having a whole lot of luck with our ice cream attachment lately so as I'm typing this it still isn't frozen (but hopefully I'll have a better update on this situation for next week)

I hung out with my cousins kids once this week

I emailed another company to get a second opinion on our kitchen renovations (and to see what they would quote the renovations at).  Still waiting to hear back though.

Speaking of our kitchen renovations I'm starting to stock pile stuff in the freezer so that we don't have to eat out too often while the renovations are happening. Between the slow cooker, microwave, toaster oven, pizza oven (John insisted we needed one), and the bread maker I'm hoping we will be able to get by without an oven for a bit.  Right now we have 5 pizzas (I usually make them homemade but the frozen ones were on sale for a good price so I stocked up!), and a bunch of slow cooker meals (butter chicken, chicken marinara, roasts, steak fajitas, and sweet and sour chicken) all prepackaged (for the most part... we desperately need chicken to go on sale so we can get that main ingredient in most of them).  I'm also hoping to get a few soup options into the freezer as well.. the problem with this it's really not soup weather here and what I usually do is make a full batch and we'll eat half of it and I'll freeze the other half.  I'm expecting us to start eating a lot of soup come September... hopefully.  I also still need to make a couple of batches of cookies for the freezer as well.  I'm thinking peanut butter and my coconut chocolate chip ones.  And likely one lasagna will get added as well.  At this point the freezer should be decently full and we should hopefully have enough dinner options to last us a month... at least.

I went on a shopping spree for the kitchen yesterday...

Who would have thought the first things we purchase for our kitchen would be the sink and faucet?

as in I bought 2 thing for it.. but sinks and faucets are expensive!

Anyways, with a 90 day return policy I feel like we still have plenty of time to make returns if they don't work out with the kitchen design and they were on sale now.

The vacuum I used a bunch of gift cards to pay for... so that was free (and I might add a really good price.  If you are looking for a Dyson vacuum Best Buy currently has them on sale... I bought mine at The Bay - they price matched it).

Finally, we spent more time at the lake.  It was REALLY hot this past weekend... like feeling above 40 kind of hot so we were pretty thankful to be able to spend time there!

Class Pets

I can't say I see very many of these anymore... but I was in a classroom a looong time ago with these little fish (complete with name poster) and figured I would start snapping pictures of all the classroom pets I spotted this year... and then surprisingly it only ended up being a grand total of 2 classrooms that had class pets (the other one had a fish named Bubbles that I forgot to snap a picture of).

I feel like 5 years ago a lot more classrooms had pets in them... are classroom pets no longer a thing?

In case you wanted to hear about some stories of other class pets I've ran into over the years you can find some stories here, here, and here.

And last week I talked about some cool flexible seating options that you might consider using in your classroom this coming year.

This Week OFF From School

Well, it's around this time that if I hadn't already I would be starting to think about my class for this school year but with nothing coming up quite yet I'm still free to continue to laze around this summer.

What did I do exactly this week?

I made some homemade doughnuts... 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Doughnuts

this was something new for me.  I must admit they turned out pretty good for my first ever attempt at making doughnuts but I thought the filling was a bit much.  If you want to make your own doughnuts I used this recipe

I also made some Rice Krispie roll ups... 

I guess I was really into the chocolate and peanut butter this week.  I used this recipe .

I had a massage booked for Tuesday so I obviously took full advantage of that.

Then I guess I was a little too relaxed afterwards because when I went grocery shopping I promptly left the paper towel I purchased on the bottom of the cart (this isn't the first time I've done this either... last time I think it was cereal and I wasn't even sure if I had paid for it that time).

I started to develop some back pain this week so I booked and went to my first ever chiropractor visit.  Thankfully by yesterday it was feeling a lot better even though I hadn't actually had any adjustments done.

I FINALLY got around to updating my resume and coverletter because I know jobs are going to start getting posted soon so now I'll at least be ready for it!

The flooring saga continues... I brought home 4 samples (2 of vinyl - one glue down and one click and 2 of waterproof laminate) and we still aren't sure what type of flooring we want or what colour... yesterday I ended up returning these samples and picking up a few more slightly darker options.

I put them in one of the upstairs bedrooms because the wall colour is the colour that we plan on painting the living room... the white paper is against the wall on the right because we plan on changing out all the trim and baseboards to white and the 6 smaller pieces of wood leaning up against the wall are cupboard options.

We came from the long weekend with a lot of zucchini and cucumbers to pick

It's hard to tell the size of them by the picture but a couple of those zucchinis are about as long as my arm up to the elbow with a much larger circumference.

And we spent the long weekend at the lake.  It was a bit of a chilly weekend so we finally put all our "fire clothes" to good use.

Flexible Seating

This is a slightly newer concept... letting your students to pick where they will sit.  

To be honest, I'm not sure I could do it... I like my students being in the same spot every day (unless it's a time for a new seating plan) and sometimes it just makes sense because they have desks with supplies in it.  But here are some examples of classrooms with flexible seating options

In this classroom there were 2 students that sat on the ground on cushions at those little short tables in the front and 4 more went around the short circular table a little further back.  2 students could sit in those grey chairs and use the side table as their work space.  There's a table that's kind of hidden that has those wobble chairs at it (I think they are called hoki chairs?), and one of the tables at the back has one giant ball "chair" for a student.  At the very back of the room there is also some room for students to stand and do their work.  I think it worked in this classroom because there were SO many options.  You might not care for all of the spots but there are definitely a couple that you would be happy with.

A couple of years ago I was in a classroom where the teacher had set up different "rooms" in her classroom.  One area she called the kitchen (it's just to the left in the above picture) and she had a kitchen table with chairs around it.  There was a living room with a couch and a couple of side tables or a coffee table and then she just had a bunch of regular tables and desks for everyone else.  No one really fought over a spot (it was middle school and they were fairly well behaved though) but they did rush in to get the spot they wanted.

Here are some other options for flexible seating I've seen in various classrooms

Crates with a cushion on top are great options!

Not 100% on this one... but it looked like a standing desk option

In last weeks post I mentioned some things I would do in my ideal classroom for flexible seating.. things like a couch, a comfy chair or 2, and a taller counter space to use with stools would be ideal for me.

What kind of flexible seating do you use in your classroom?

Psst... last week I shared some pictures and wrote about what my ideal classroom would look like.

This Week OFF From School

I haven't had a lot to do this week... I'll even admit it... I got a little lazy this week.

Monday was too hot for a run.  Tuesday it looked like it was going to rain any second (all day).  Wednesday it was actually quite cold outside.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.  Anyways, I finally went on Thursday for my 32 minute run.  Huzzah!

What I did manage to get done was to buy the proper folders for my filing cabinet that we moved upstairs from the shed eons ago.  AND, I even started filing some things away.

I also FINALLY managed to wash all the floors in this house and vacuum that basement.  I even washed the shower curtain (and then ran it through the washing machine where it promptly broke so I should have just thrown it out to begin with).

I made some chocolate, coconut, craisin, chocolate chip cookies... adapted from a chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe because I couldn't find an actual recipe that I liked.

I dealt with this mess that has been in my cupboard for a while... surely I'm not the only one that keeps every container that is sort of resealable?  I likely managed to get rid of about a third of them and boy does it look a lot neater in that cabinet!

Hung out with friends

And went for walks.

My Ideal Classroom

Maybe I'm the only one that does this... but sometimes on a prep or during the lunch hour I like to look around the classroom that I'm teaching in and plan out how I would arrange the furniture and layout of the room.

Here is what my ideal classroom would look like (of course there is a lot that I wouldn't have any control of in my classroom (like how many windows I have or where they are located, where my door is, whether my students have desks or tables, etc) but there are a few things that are important to me.

view from the front of the room (where the white board would be... hopefully!)

So I wasn't sure at all how large a classroom actually is and went with 30'x25'. Maybe they are bigger but hopefully they aren't much smaller. I made this plan on Ikea's website which wasn't exactly ideal because they don't have things that you would typically find in a classroom (like student/teacher desks or tables)... so I picked a desk that was bigger than the one that I currently have at home and we're going to pretend those lines of desks are actually long tables and so where it looks like a student is sitting at 2 desks it's actually just one long table.

1) I would arrange the desks in a horseshoe shape around the perimeter of the room. I'm not sure if I prefer desks or tables but I know that I would not be happy with circular tables. In my plan there is space for 25 students (hopefully that would be enough). IF it's tables and not desks I would also need somewhere for students to put their individual supplies (unless we had classroom supplies instead - which is actually quite common now I've just never taught in a class where this was the case)

2) Some teachers don't have a desk at school which I think is crazy. I need a space to make my own mess and lay stuff out, and, well, just know that it's my space and not for my students to get into. To go along with a desk I would also want a bookshelf and either a cupboard of some kind or a couple of filing cabinets (well, one filing cabinet for sure) and perhaps some kind of small bulletin board for me to post a calendar and other important papers on.

3) I need lots of bulletin boards! 2 smaller ones for Science/TUSC and Classroom Economy Jobs and at least 3 larger ones for Math, ELA, Art, and MOLA. If I had another one to post art on that would also be nice but I've also never found it hard to find an empty bulletin boards in a hallway to post stuff on. Ikea doesn't sell bulletin boards so I didn't actually put any in the classroom but in this set up it would be ideal if there was a small one by the door and then some running along the left and right sides of the diagram.

4) A Classroom library space is a necessity. I would love to have a couch and a couple of different/comfy chairs to put in my classroom library as well. Along with a coffee table and maybe a side table or 2 (with maybe a lamp on it) would be perfect. Oh, and of course a couple of bookshelves for all the books. Ideally, I would want my library by a window.

5) I like to have a table at the front of the room so I can put supplies out for my students to come up and grab or use it as a space for small groups.

6) This year, I have been in a bunch of classrooms that have nearly a whole wall of windows which is wonderful! If I had that I would want some kind of ledge under the windows (or a long tall table) running along the wall where I would put a bunch of stools to use as a flexible seating option (that I'll be talking about in a later post)

7) Some schools still have desktop computers in the classroom so I added a spot in my plan to put a couple of computers if needed.

Other: Plants - I would want plants in my classroom. Preferably real but maybe I would start off with one or two and decide how well we do at keeping them alive. I'm also not sure if I have preference when it comes to desks or tables. Desks students can store their own supplies and books in (but get messy and things get lost in them) and tables I would need to have a spot in the room for students to store some things in (which would still get messy and things would still go missing). I have experience with both.

As for colours I've always liked turquoise, grey, black, and white.  I think it's a fairly neutral colour pallet.

Grade 5/6 Classroom

Grades 4-6 Basic French Classroom

What does your ideal classroom look like?

Psst... in case you missed it last week I discussed 5 Things I Would Try in my Future Classroom and I think you should take a look at it.