Abstract Scribble Art

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I did a really simple art lesson with an early and middle years class (I'll use the term "class" loosely because there were only 5 students in both classes total that day).

Basically, the kids had to use a dark colour to do a scribble on their page (I would encourage kids to not do too much scribbles because then the white spaces between the scribbles get smaller and smaller).

After that we rotated our scribbled on pages around until something jumped out of us that we saw in the scribbles.  It could have been a big part of the page or a small part and then we coloured just that section to be that thing that we saw (there were a lot of flowers and fish that we saw in ours).  

The goal is to keep looking for things until the majority of your picture is coloured (some white spots are okay).

Here is what I came up with:

I wasn't quite done with it but you get the idea.

The best part about this lesson is that it requires very few supplies (and no tricky supplies like getting paint set up or having to search for orange pipecleaners) and therefore it's the perfect thing to do when you are surprised with a class of just 1 student.

Found in a Teacher's Classroom

LOVE THIS QUOTE

For other quotes I've found in classrooms click here, here, here, and here.

This Week At School

It was a less busy week this week at school.

First, there was no school on Monday due to it being a holiday (yay!) and actually not too many interesting things happened this week at school.

I taught nursery all the way to grade 8 this week at school and was in one classroom that I hadn't been at in a while (that would be the nursery class where some of the students said that they did remember me).  On Friday I was supposed to teach at a school that I hadn't been at yet this year (which could be both good and bad but I was excited because maybe it would lead to other jobs for me) but then on Thursday evening it ended up getting cancelled.  Luckily, I managed to quickly pick something else up.

But the really good news is there was outdoor recess every single day this week!

... maybe that's why it was a slower week at school... all the teachers are brave enough to face the slightly milder temperatures!

More Penguin Art

A couple of months ago I posted about this penguin art I found in a classroom

Well, apparently penguin art is pretty popular because then I found this art in a grade 1/2 classroom

penguin art

I tried to find where the idea for this art might have come from and try as I might I couldn't find anything similar.

I thought they kind of looked like bowling pins all huddled together in the middle of their pages.

I also thought they had done a REALLY good job on it!

Anyways, if you happen to be doing a unit on penguins now you know... there is a lot of penguin art out there!

Everything That WASN'T on the Test

I saw this online and thought it was a neat idea. 

I know there was a number of times during my time at University when this would have come in handy. I struggled with science but I was required to take 6 credit hours of it regardless so I took what I figured would be the easiest most basic class that didn't have a lab. This meant the class was fairly large and so the prof gave out strictly multiple choice tests. Which is all well and good except when you get those questions were option D is both A and B and you spend a lot of time second guessing everything. I could have written on the topic though... and maybe that would have worked out a bit better for me.

This Week At School

This week at school I...

-  FINALLY, sent students outside for recess!  Not every day... but some of the days... so it's starting to warm up!

- Learned how to play Ode to Joy on the metallophone (and then I taught some students how to do it too)

-  Watched a presentation from a storm chaser (his name escapes me at the moment but he has a show on Discovery).  I learned that tornadoes don't travel in a southern direction for very long (so if you are south of the tornado you will likely be safe) and that in the southern hemisphere they spin in the opposite direction from the northern hemisphere.

-  Was a guest reader for I Love to Read Month at a school (I read Alexanders Horrible No Good Very Bad Day and The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

-  I was at a school that I hadn't been at yet this school year (and left my information so that I can go back)

-  Did some valentine art

Heart Art

-  And finally I had a half day turn into a full day AGAIN.  Unfortunately this time I wasn't close enough to home to come back to grab a lunch so I had to make due with some Tim Hortens.

Hope we all had a wonderful Valentine's Day in our classrooms... did you do anything special for your students?

Here's one very Valentine's Day-y bulletin board I saw in a school

Who Do I Love?

A student in grade 6 was filling in a page where she either had to write about who she loved. Most students were writing about their parents, grandparents, or siblings but this student was stuck in a real pickle. What kind of pickle you ask? She wasn’t sure which one of the guys she talks to (online) she should put that she loves because she loves them both. There was no compromising with her… I told her to write about both of them… no. I told her to write about the one she had spoken to most recently… that was also a no. I suggested she write about the one she speaks with most often… that was a hard no. She was about to have a meltdown over not knowing who she loved more so eventually I just had her skip that page and move onto the next one.

For the record, I had asked her if her parents knew about the people she speaks with online and she said they did… I guess soon enough they might also know about her feelings for them too.

The Great Kindness Challenge

So I'm a little late with this challenge (it was at the end of January) but just because the official kindness challenge week is over doesn't mean you can't still use this resource in your classroom or school.  Personally, I think February with Valentine's Day and all that "love" related stuff is the perfect time to do it (or really any month is a great month to show kindness so definitely take your pick!)

I found one of their checklists at a school I was at recently (after looking through their website I couldn't find the actual checklist that you could hand out to students on there though... but I did find it here)... maybe you get it once you register?  Anyways, the resource has a lot of information in it (and printables!) and is definitely worth the read through.

I think we would all agree that it's important to teach kids about kindness.  What it looks like, how to be kind, and some ideas on things they could do.

Did your class/school participate in this Kindness Challenge this year?  

What were some things you did?

This Week At School

It was another week of indoor recess' up here in my part of Canada (including one snowy for some divisions outside of the city - I was scheduled to work inside the city that day though).

grade 1/2 classroom

On Monday I was covering for a bunch of teachers at one of the schools I frequent as they went to meetings. This is always kind of nice because it means if you have one rougher class that you likely are only actually with them for about an hour. Unfortunately, myself and that one "rougher" class kept bumping into each other throughout the day (I ended up having them 3 times throughout the day). Otherwise the day was good... I even got a bunch of reading in of the novel that I brought along with me.

On Tuesday I was at the colony school which is usually a fairly easy day. This time I was in the middle years room which meant they were on their computers for a good amount of the time and I was reminding them to stay on the websites they were supposed to be on.

On Wednesday I was back at one of the schools I frequent. We did a math Valentine's Day activity that likely could have taken up 4 hours of the day (no one actually got the whole thing completed). They also did a WWI Instagram activity and reading (amongst other things).

The last 2 days of the week I was in the same classroom (which lucky for me was actually a wonderful class - so I obviously left my name and number in the hopes that I might get to return one day soon). It was a 1/2 split and they were some of the smartest grade 1's and 2's that I've had the pleasure of subbing for. BUT, these days were extra special because I got to go back to my old elementary school. Since it was indoor recess one of the students insisted on taking me on a tour of the school so we could see if anything had changed since I was there. The staff is all different, there no longer is a computer lab (it's a bike lab now?? - no one was sure what that meant), and the classrooms have all been changed around (my kindergarten classroom is no longer a kindergarten class). They also have a dance room and elevator now. They loved watching some Storyline Online and Sid The Science Kid.

Something nice that they did at this school was they had a basket of fresh fruit in each of the classrooms. This way if a student didn't bring a snack or wanted something more to eat they had a healthy option to eat at school (and a lot of them did eat something from the basket)

healthy school snack basket

All in all it was a busy but good week!

Valentine's Day Art

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had done a quick Valentine's Day art activity with the grade 2/3 class I was in (I know it was a bit before Valentine's Day but the teacher had requested it... maybe she put the art work up in the hall or something).

It was super easy to do and I pretty much started by showing them the sample pictures from this website.

After I showed them what we would be doing we talked about some of the things we noticed about the pictures (the trees took up the whole space on the page, there were lots of hearts in the tree and some were on the ground, etc).  

I kept the picture up on the projector for them to refer back to when they wanted and of course there were a few that just copied the example but I also encouraged them to be creative as well.

Here is what that grade 2/3 class came up with

one of the branches on this one (or the nose?) is sticking out of the paper!

To keep them from wasting a bunch of paper I cut the brown construction paper in half (the long way... so that they could make as long of branches as they wanted) and the pink and red construction paper in half the other way.  The kids could come up and ask for more but most didn't so I felt like it was likely a good amount of paper for them to be using.

Psst...

Here's another Valentine's Day related art lesson

And if you are still looking for a good Valentine Day card to hand out to your students this year when I taught grade 5/6 I used these mustache cards and put a sucker through each one (they were a big hit!)

Valentine Boxes

An entire year ago I was working at a school where the entire school (ok, it may have had only 2 classes and about 30 students) made valentine boxes... Valentine's day has to be one of  my least favourite holidays... I must admit I'm lacking the creativity to plan something grand for my students to do on this day... but then I saw these kids being so creative with their valentine boxes and I thought to myself... "Hmm... why not have kids plan their own craft to make on this day and have it also serve the purpose of holding all their valentines".  So, I'm posting this a bit before Valentine's Day just in case you are also lacking the creativity for Valentine's Day and need some ideas!

I would have students plan their box out a week or so before we made them and have them gather up the supplies (for the most part) that they will be needing for it.  

unicorn valentine box

tractor valentine box

panda valentine box

Lego valentine box

The whole schools valentine boxes

And just a warning... we cut the slots in the top with a box cutter which I always kept out of reach of all the children... and who ended up getting cut with it in the end?  I did... so be careful!

This Week At School

Our deep freeze continued into this week with temperatures reaching below -50 with the windchill! Of course this was also the week that I had booked Monday-Thursday outside of the city for work and of course school was cancelled on both Tuesday and Wednesday due to it being too cold.

On Monday I was at the school of 9 so it was a fairly easy day (especially since they had guitar lessons in the afternoon which meant I got to read a book for a while.

Tuesday I was only supposed to work in the afternoon so I waited until 11am before making myself available to work in the city for that afternoon (because my rural job was cancelled). I was pretty sure there would be an abundance of jobs but I guess by 11 most schools had decided they could manage with the teachers that made it in and the students that were there that day. Surprisingly, I did see some jobs still available to be worked at in the morning but I decided they likely didn't actually want someone to show up for 45min of work and get paid for the entire half day so I didn't take any of them. Instead I stayed inside where it was warm and made some cookies.

I found out Tuesday evening that the PD that the teacher I was suppose to go in for on Wednesday was getting cancelled and so I was able to make myself available in the city Tuesday evening. It was probably about 30 seconds after I made myself available that I started getting phone calls for where I could work and I accepted a job that was close to where I live in a grade 1/2/3 classroom.

It was the right job to accept as I got to go on a field trip with the class. We went to see a Julie B. Jones musical at a high school nearby. This ended up taking most of our morning and they had gym and choice time in the afternoon which meant the only class they had to really do work in was when we did some printing practice. The musical was great and I got to see it for work which I think is pretty cool.

By Thursday it had warmed up enough that school was [just barely] back in session for the rural division I sub in so it was off to the colony for me for the day. I wish I could say that after 2 days off the kids were all eager to learn... they were alright.

Friday was the only day this week I hadn't booked in advance. One of the divisions I work in didn't actually have classes which meant there were only 2 divisions that I had left to work in... I ended up having the day off.