This Week At School

Well this is it folks, yesterday marked the last day of school before Christmas break and I had the day off (which I expected).  I'm back at it in exactly 2 weeks though... I managed to get a subbing job on the very first day back to school!... not only that but I'm at a school I haven't been at in a couple of years.. so it should be interesting.

Anyways, this week at school was actually a bit busier than I had originally anticipated.

I was a surprise gym teacher early in the week (I say surprise because I was actually supposed to be doing other things but the day got all switched around which meant I stayed in the gym apparently).

I did a bunch of Christmas math activities with some grade 7's.

I was back at the school with just 9 kids and this time 2 of them were away so I had only 7 (and only that many in the afternoon because they are split up for the morning)!  We cleaned in the morning and watched movies in the afternoon which was perfect for me because I was not feeling the greatest.

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas (and a happy New Year)

Here's a picture of our Christmas tree this year

Since it's Christmas break I find it only fitting that I also get a break for 2 weeks and so I won't be posting (at least I don't plan on it) until January 7th. 

Enjoy your break!

Christmas in the Classroom

Last year I wrote a similar post to this one with all the Christmas-y things I found in classrooms... and to be honest I didn't find a lot. 

This year was a little bit different..

Psst... to check out my post from last year click here

How to Eat a Rice Krispie Treat

Apparently everyone knows this is how you eat a Rice Krispie Treat (and since I didn't know I figured I would be the one to inform my readers before we all start eating them like a bunch of weirdos).

You take your Rice Krispie Treat (the prepackaged individual kinds) and you put it on the floor.
Then you stomp on it until it's as flat as a pancake.
Perfect, now you can take it out of the wrapper and enjoy it. 

I'm sure it tastes much better this way!
... or at least that's what one of my middle school students insists on.

This Week At School

This week was a lot of the same as previous weeks... Christmas concert practices

BUT.. I also got to watch not 1, not 2, but 3 movies this week at school (well, actually just parts of all of them)... in case you're wondering they were some an episode of Planet Earth, Hairspray, and Happy Feet.

I ended off the week in a new to me subject, classroom, and school for this school year.

home ec room!

I was teaching home ec!  And, they were making the perfect things (mostly because I had just made my own about 2 weeks ago) and we made some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (most thought they turned out pretty good)

home ec is fun

Then on my way out I saw this poster that a student had made.  

Home ed IS fun!

Then I forgot that I was still wearing my substitute teacher lanyard that is actually the schools and totally brought it home with me.  

I went back after I was done eating lunch (I was only at this school in the morning).

Look Alike

I heard some boys talking amongst themselves insisting that someone tell me something.

What was so important that had to be told?

No I did not have a rip in my pants or toilet paper stuck to my shoe... it was very important that I know that I apparently look just like Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Apparently I look like a few celebrities... when Hunger Games was popular I looked like Katniss Everdeen and some girl from the movie Rock Camp, but more often than not it's a person of asian decent. 

In fact, this happens so often this isn't the first time I've written about it here is a post, here's another one, and another.

Growth Mindset

With Christmas break right around the corner I thought this was the perfect month to talk about some changes we could all be making in our classrooms. 

So today, I'm going to talk about Growth Mindset.  A growth mindset is all about thinking positively, not giving up, and practicing to gain new skills that you didn't have before.  We've all had a growth mindset before... you likely couldn't ride a bike the first time you sat on one... but you likely can now.  Same with writing, or reading, or adding, or pretty much a lot of what happens at school.

A growth mindset is an excellent thing to have but you know what kind of sucks?  Sometimes we have fixed mindsets... we can't do something straight away (or maybe even after trying for a while we still can't do it) so we give up on it.

But I think what we should be teaching our students is to have growth mindsets where they want to continue learning more.  And I've found the perfect resource to help with this... It's called The Big Life Journal and as I write this they have it available for kids and are working on one for tweens and teens (hopefully it's already been released).  Not only is this resource great because it talks about having a growth mindset but it also has reading material to go along with it and writing sections (So, psst... you can definitely use this in your ELA grades).

I don't currently have a classroom of my very own but if I did I think I would be ordering at the very least the PDF version of it (mostly because it's a little cheaper) to go over myself. 

If you've already used this in your classroom drop a comment below to let us all know how it has worked and if you've noticed any improvement with your students mindsets.

This Week At School

This week at school was more of the same as the previous week...

LOTS of play/Christmas concert practices!

In one of the classrooms we also made some of these 3D paper origami snowflakes

Otherwise not much has been happening

BUT... just 2 more weeks (that's just 10 days!) until Christmas break up here!

Christmas Elf Writing Activity

This is for those classrooms that have an elf on the shelf.  It's a cute (and free) writing activity from Mel D-Seusstastic for you to download and use close to Christmas break (so students can write about one of their favourite hiding spots and what he/she did.

If you use the Elf on the Shelf in your classroom I would love to know more about it.  Leave a comment below telling me how you use it in your classroom!

Penguin Art

I saw these adorable penguins in a grade 2 class I was subbing in probably about a year ago. 

penguin art

I did a quick search and found some instructions for how to make these guys (or something similar) on Instructables.  I could see these being used if a class was studying about a place where penguins live and I feel like teachers often do entire units just on penguins... or they seem fairly easy to make that a kindergarten class learning about the letter "P" could probably manage making these with some assistance.  How would you use these in your classroom?

This Week At School

This week at school I...

Helped students practice for 2 different Christmas plays/concerts (it's that time of year again)!

I worked with a 5th year (which over here that is your final year) student teacher for a couple of days which meant I had a couple pretty easy days.

Because of those pretty easy days I managed to finish reading the book Refugee by Alan Gratz.

At one of the schools I was at this week their secretary was leaving to go on maternity leave so the teacher left me baby advice sheets for the students to fill out (and then to give to the secretary)

Baby advice sheet

Finally, happy December 1st!

I've talked before about advent calendars you can use in your classroom but every year I make one for my husband here is what I did for him last year (filled with Lindtt chocolates) and here is his advent calendar this year!

Christmas advent calendar

Looks like he's been good this year!