What Parents Need to Know About WhatsApp

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about another app that I don't currently have (although I have used this one in the past).... WhatsApp. I likely haven't used this app in about 5 or so years so it was interesting for me to read about what has changed and what I didn't realize when I had the app.

This is free to download here

First of all I did not know this was an app that used location sharing. It seems that location sharing is just becoming a common feature in many of this apps (Facebook and Instagram just to name a couple). So unless necessary I would make sure this is turned off asap. 

You may receive scam messages from third parties which can be super annoying wherever you get them. Make sure you and your child knows not to click on them (no matter how good the offer may seem) and delete them... it's just good practice to do this as random messages like this can and will pop up in other places (such as emails) too.

You can delete messages you send within 7 minutes. I did not know this one... so I guess instead of editing your message by resending a whole new message below the one you just sent you could just delete and start over. OR, if you sent a message to the wrong person (we've all done this) you can delete it and try again (this time hopefully with the right person). Of course the receiver could have already seen the message.

Finally, in order to add someone on WhatsApp you do so by having their phone number. This means that anyone with your phone number could one day add you on there... which for the most part is likely not a problem as we should only be giving our numbers to people we trust anyways. BUT, phone numbers are also generally not something that you change so maybe someone you knew 10 years ago still has your number and adds you and you just don't want to have anything to do with them anymore... I mean, whats stopping them from contacting you via a phone call or text I'm not sure but it could happen!

Last week I talked about what we all need to know about Twitter

This Week OFF From School

It was a pretty chill week off from school this week....

I picked 2 more baskets of strawberries and promptly made a strawberry rhubarb pie out of some of the berries (it was delicious)

All natural ingredients for the pie (the rhubarb came from our garden)

The filling prior to adding sugar to it (I think it looks nicer without it in)

One of 2 pies... it was delicious!

With some of the other strawberries I made us some more mason jar salads for our lunches for the week.  You can find the recipe I used here.

The swimsuit I ordered for my birthday came in and we even went to the lake!

The back has a tie and a zipper!

But alas, the weather was not quite warm enough to take a dip in my "birthday suit".

But I love it and you can find it here

I will say that it is a pricier swimsuit (for myself at least) especially when you factor in the exchange rate into Canadian dollars, shipping, and there were also duty charges.  If you aren't one to care about costs I would highly recommend it but if you aren't trying to spend a lot of a swimsuit there are plenty of others out there!  But definitely find yourself  a discount code before processing your order... there are lots on Instagram!

The hat is a few years old from Aldo (and flowers are from the garden)

Other than that I attempted to walk 30km this week... I got to 21.9 which I feel is a ways off from my goal.  I'll work on improving for next week!

I went to the library to return some books and pick up a new one.

By the end of the week I wasn't feeling so great... my head was pounding and my throat was ticklish so I took it easy.  Hopefully I'll make a full recovery quickly!

Oh, and also, I decided to try using the square photo option on my phone for taking photos part way though the week!... what do we think?

What Teachers Say About Substitutes

I found this video about substitutes and thought I would share it... unfortunately for whatever reason blogger can't seem to find the video on YouTube (but I promise you it's there so just follow the link)!

Anyways, I have a confession, I do sometimes write detailed notes about how the day went.  However, it's usually not more than a page long... and yes I must confess I sometimes (okay, often) break it down as to how each period went. Definitely thought this was normal and definitely have known that not all teachers read my lovely little notes (but I'm still going to leave them!).

I used to be really good about making sure the classroom is mostly tidy before I leave.  Usually this means getting the students to help (hello, mystery mess) but lets be honest, sometimes you know those kids aren't cleaning anything up at the end of the day so I'll go around and straighten a few things out and pick up the larger pieces of paper because I don't want the teacher to think a tornado rolled through while I was taking over their class.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think I'm a pretty alright substitute teacher (and in my humble opinion others have noticed... why else would I go back to classrooms so often?) 

What Parents Need to Know About Twitter

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about Twitter.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm actually not on many social medias... this includes twitter.

However, I do check it every so often because sometimes there are discount codes to be had on there or information on something I may be interested in it.  But I look up all of that without actually having an account.

You can download this poster free of charge here

As per usual, here are some takeaways I got after reading up more about this Twitter.

1)  As I already mentioned, anyone can see what you post.  The default settings on Twitter make it so that what you share is automatically shared with everyone but this can be changed (and likely should be changed for many people... not just children).  Check the privacy settings and change it so that a reader first needs permission to read what your child/student is posting.

2)  You might want to look further into the privacy settings as you can also turn off direct messaging (so no messages will hopefully come through from random people and turn off the location sharing feature.

3)  Blocking accounts is an option (and in my opinion should be used).  If an account is causing problems with your child/student it's not worth it... block it and move on (and hopefully share with them how it's important to know who you are following or who is following you).

4)  Information spreads fast.  We've all seen those pictures of a teacher wanting to teach her class how fast something can travel where those that see the image are supposed to post where they are and I'm sure it doesn't take more than a couple of days for that image to reach the other side of the world.  If an account is public your tweets could be spreading that fast as well.  It's also an important conversation to be had that even if you remove a tweet (which is possible) that it may be too late... someone may have seen it and there is nothing stopping them from taking a screen shot and sharing it later.  You may not think that silly tweet that you were clearly joking about could amount to anything but it could, and someone will likely take it differently from how you intended it and it could resurface one day down the road when you are applying for that really important job.

5)  Finally, just like the rest of the internet, there is sensitive content everywhere (and it isn't always labelled as such).  You may not mean to look up what you did and may have been scrolling through what you thought was a 100% fine hashtag when something inappropriate comes up.  Much like using the internet comes with a lot of responsibility so does Twitter.

And there you have it, some information on Twitter.  

I've written on some other topics about what we all need to know about different things (last weeks was Fortnite.

This Week OFF From School

Week 3 was a busy week (dare I say it will be the busiest of all my summer weeks) mostly because I was helping my cousin out by watching his 2 boys for a few days.

So, I did a lot with those 2 boys we went bowling (mostly because on that particular day it was pushing 40 degrees outside with the humidex which is far too hot to enjoy yourself outside)!  We went to the park and did some geocaching (the big finds from those were a piece of wood that apparently looked like a dinosaur and 5 cents).  Did lots of browsing in stores... Cabellas, Canadian Tire (where we picked up a slip and slide), and Walmart (where we picked up some groceries to make a treat).  We watched a movie and read A LOT of Harry Potter together.  Played some games (including football which I was not, under any circumstances, ever allowed to sit on the side lines and just watch) and had some fun with the slip and slide.  We visited McDonalds (where I definitely did not think they would need socks to play in the play place - but fun fact - McDonald's sells socks for all of us hat forget... at over $2 a pair I told them they would survive without playing in the play place) and we visited the library!  It was a busy few days!

On my days off I definitely wanted to go berry picking again but alas, the days I was not with the boys were their off days at the berry patch so hopefully I'll pick my final 2 baskets next week.

I went out for birthday dinner to a local greek bistro.

I went for some walks.

I made some Nutella ice cream.

We went to the lake.

And I made a bunch of chocolate chip cookies.

A mountain of cookies!

Whenever I make cookies I always make a double batch... that way we have cookies for a while (they always seem to go so fast) and we keep them in a the freezer so they don't go bad.  The recipe for these ones is the one on the back of the Chipits package (and Chipits if you ever want to throw a girl a sponsorship we go through A LOT of your Chipits in this house!

Name Tags

As a substitute teacher I always find it super helpful when the teacher has name tags on his or her student desks. I saw these interesting name tags (I took a picture of one of them with a more common name). 

Name tag for student desk

Here's the link for where I suspect this teacher got the template from

It must have taken her a long time to make all of them at the beginning of the year/over the summer break but I like how unique they are!

I also recognize that having name tags on student desks isn't always feesible. I definitely have run into some teachers that allow the students to switch spots every day using a playing card system... I just appreciate when they do have them.

What do you do in your classroom?

Do you use name tags?

Here are some other posts I've written on name tags:

Name tag art

More name tag art

Even more name art

What Parents Need to Know About Fortnite

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about Fornite

Here's the thing about Fortnite (or anyone online games) if you send your child to school with a smart phone they are likely playing it.  As a teacher I've had many students come up to me to ask if I play, to tell me I can join their squad (or something along those lines), and to tell me how far they've come.  It's almost shocking how popular the game became, how quickly it took over all these kids lives, and how it's even still around!

What parents need to know about fortnite

You can download this for free here but in the meantime here are my 3 take aways from it

1) Remember a few weeks ago when I posted about Screen Addiction?  Well this game is addicting (or so I've observed... I haven't experienced the addicting qualities of it).  A game can take about 20 minutes.  If you lost you'll likely want to play another as it's only 20 minutes.  You keep doing this and it wouldn't be hard to use up an hour, or 2 or 3 playing the game until you've won.  And, I can guarantee you it will be near impossible to take that kids device away mid game play. You can however limit the amount of time anyone spends on any app (at least on an Apple device which is worth looking into for situations like this.

2)  You can talk to others in the game.  In fact there is apparently an advantage to having your sound turned on or using headphones to hear others around you.  You can turn off the ability for your child to talk to others... however as far as I know (and correct me if I'm wrong) they will still hear the other conversations around them.

3) Vbucks are the games online currency that requires actual money.  We've all heard of that parent that had $300 charged to their credit card because their card was linked to a device their child was using.  The tricky part with this is you'll likely be happy to occasionally buy your child vbucks... but probably not $300 at a time.  Having never played the game personally I'm assuming there is a way to use an iTunes giftcard for these kids of purchases though?  Using the giftcard would ensure you're credit card isn't linked to the account and your child has a limit to how much they can spend.

Here are some other topics in my "What Parent's Need to Know About -----" series
Snapchat
Instagram
Youtube
The App Store
Age Ratings
Screen Addiction

This Week OFF From School

This week was all about relaxation... and I must admit that I did not get a lot of things on my "to do" list checked off (like organizing all my teaching stuff that is sitting in bins and binders into my filing cabinet... I've been putting that off for a year now!)

Anyways, what I did manage to do this week was...

I went to the lake!  My in laws have a cottage at a lake not too far away from the city so we FINALLY made the trip out there for a weekend.  Unfortunately, we were experiencing some haze from wildfires in neighbouring provinces so although the sun was shining we didn't actually see it a lot of the time.  Regardless we still went for a boat ride and some people jumped in the lake (I did not).

I went strawberry picking!  I'm super lucky that one of the closer berry picking spots to where I live is also the cheapest AND it's organic (not that I necessarily go out of my way to buy anything organic but it's nice to know that no pesticides are used for when I'm snacking in the patch).  

I managed to pick 2 baskets (and when I weighed them they came to just over 11 pounds of strawberries!).  Apparently we eat a lot of strawberries around here though as I've been told that we need 2 more baskets still.

Fresh strawberries

What do we do with all our strawberries?

Strawberries spaced out ready to go in the freezer

We freeze most of them to use in smoothies and I'm planning to make a strawberry rhubarb pie for some friends (hopefully with the next 2 baskets that I pick).  I also gave some to my masseuse and for the next couple of weeks we'll be enjoying some strawberry mason jar salads (which I usually make a bunch of on Sunday for John and I to eat as lunches during the week).

Strawberry, Blueberry, Feta, and Lettuce salad

We collected the first large item from our garden!

Garden zucchini (soup can there for size reference)

Our first zucchini!  This one we will cook tomorrow for dinner with some parmesan cheese and herbs sprinkled on top.  Yum!

I went for a massage and pedicure this week.

I got together with a friend that I hadn't seen in 2 years for lunch!

It was cool enough on Friday morning to go for a run (which I hadn't done since June so it was definitely time to start that up again).

I made some vanilla ice cream to go with that pie I do have every intention of making still!

I also made some zucchini chocolate cake (but not from the zucchini from our garden this year... we're still trying to use up some stuff we shredded and froze from last year).

I cleaned our laundry room!  When we first moved in we took down old curtains and changed out the shower curtains and kind of just dumped it all in a corner of our laundry room... well I decided if it had been sitting there for over a year we likely weren't going to miss it if I tossed it... so tossed it I did.

I splurged and bought a new bathing suit.  It's definitely one of the more expensive articles of clothing I've ever bought (which is surprising for me to say since it's just a bathing suit)... so here's hoping I like it!  It's in the mail (so I haven't even tried it on) and should be here in a week or 2.

Oh, and I read about half a book (I'm currently reading 3 so maybe that's ok... except what I'm not telling you is that I actually read very little of it during the week)... hoping to finish it this week!

All in all (except for maybe the lack of filing cabinet organizing) I would say it was a fairly successful week!

Other Supply Organization

I've talked about what my opinion is on agenda books, organizing supplies for students and teachers, but what about all of those extra supplies that you don't necessarily use every day but still need a place for in your classroom?

Here's what one teacher did to organize her students headphones...

Classroom headphone storage

What I like about this is that every student has their own spot and it doesn't require them having a plastic baggy (that they will rip or lose) and doesn't involve anyone passing them all out (like the plastic baggy system). Of course, my ideal classroom would be a grade 4-6 classroom where students can be a little more responsible for gathering their own supplies.

How do you organize all those extra supplies in your classroom? Any tips to share?

Last week I talked about how to organize all your teacher supplies.

What Parents Need to Know About Snapchat

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about Snapchat

what you need to know about Snapchat

This is from National Online Safety and you can find it free to download here

Believe it or not Snapchat is not an app that I've used (but is definitely one that I've heard of). Based on what I had heard I wasn't entirely sure what the draw to it is... your pictures disappear after x amount of time and there are filters. Is that really it?

Well, here are my 3 take aways from the poster

1) It records where the picture was taken and it shows up on a map. Yikes. Where are kids using this app? Likely at home, school, or a friends place... do you really want everyone that can view their pictures to know the locations of these places? I wouldn't. But fear not, you can enable ghost mode which should then not display your location on the map.

2) Like many other apps there are restrictions that can be placed on an account to further protect your childs/students privacy. Make sure everything they upload on the app can only be viewed by their friends and turn off the "quick add" feature to ensure they are really truly only adding their friends.

3) And the obvious... pictures "disappear" after x amount of time which may lead children (and adults) into a false sense of security that even though they send that slightly "risque" photo no one will know it was sent after that time frame. The truth is once it's out on the internet it's out there... someone could easily screen shot it and have it forever. To me this is the most frightening thing about the app and it's super important that everyone be aware of this.

Last week I talked about what we need to know about Instagram (which it seems like everyone BUT me has)

This Week OFF From School

It's finally summer vacation over here!

So what did I do on my first week of vacation?

I finally made time for a couple of appointments (my teeth are now squeaky clean)

I finished and picked up a new book from the library (and unbeknownst to me, couldn't renew one of the library books I had out so had a 1 day late fine for one of the books which is now 40 cents and not 10 cents... whoops).

Celebrated my birthday with some fruit pizza with a brownie crust.

Went to a family gathering

Went on a long walk with a friend.

FINALLY vacuumed the basement (because it had been WAY too long... but we also don't spend any time down there so maybe it's slightly okay?)

Relaxed in the sun.

Hung out with friends and watched the fireworks on Canada Day

Made some yummy rhubarb muffins

Helped my husband haul a bunch of large bricks to our backyard to use around the edge of our garden (where previously there had been rotting wood).

What do we have planted in the garden?

Lots of tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce, zucchini, cucumber, squash, strawberries, rhubarb, chives, and an apple tree 

It seems it was a bit of a busier first week off from school.

Teacher Supply Organization

This isn't the first time I've seen this...

Teacher Supply Organization

But I think it's worth mentioning.

If you have the space (one of the last classroom jobs that I had I can honestly say that I did not have the space in my workspace for this) it keeps all your supplies in the same spot but separated, it's easy to see when you are close to running out of something, and everything is easy to find! If you want to label yours (which I would highly recommend) you can find the labels here.

Last week I talked about how using an agenda book can keep *most* people a little more organized.

What Parent's Need to Know About Instagram

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about Instagram

What Parents Need to Know About Instagram

I found this online that you can download for free and here are 3 quick take aways that I got from it

1)  You CAN make an account private so only people you approve will see what you (or your son/daughter/student/etc) posts

2)  You CAN filter inappropriate comments.  With so many "keyboard warriors" out there you should make sure this feature is turned on to protect your son/daughter/student/etc from seeing hurtful comments.  And if one happens to slip through, use it as a teaching moment on how hurtful those things can be and why no one should post them (and then delete it).

3)  Encourage your son/daughter/students to not use the location tagging and explain how it can be dangerous (remember the big Kim Kardashian robbery that could have maybe been avoided had her location, and some of the expensive things she had with her, hadn't been so obvious?)

Last week I talked about what we should all know about Youtube.