This Week OFF From School

It was [possibly] my last week off from school this week as kids will start heading back to school next week sometime.  What did I do this last week?... not a whole lot.

This last week off from school I was really not feeling well.  I know, I know, I've been saying for a while that I've been sick but this week was the worst.  Although my cough is nearly gone it seemed to have gotten replaced with a stuffed up nose which is putting a lot of pressure on my head causing headaches and it just feels like I've been stuck on a plane for the last week.  Luckily, my headache has at least subsided but if I'm not feeling at least 90% by Tuesday I think I'll finally be taking a trip to the doctors.

These lovely things were purchased this week...

20lbs of peaches (that are already frozen for smoothies for the next year) and 25lbs of tomatoes that are already cut up and canned to also use over the next year.

I made an apple cake (that I forgot to take a picture of) that was delicious!  But since it turned out (and used 4 cups of apples) I'm making it again next week (and I'll try to remember to snap a picture of it then and link the recipe)

I made another large batch of apple sauce.

I spent a rainy weekend at the lake playing lots of games.

And possibly the biggest thing to happen this week that required very little effort on my behalf was that I actually won something on the Starbucks Summer Game!  It may just be 500 stars but that's a few free drinks so I'm not complaining!  If you aren't already playing you should... I'll be the first to admit I thought it wasn't paying out as well as it had previous years until this week of course so it's not too late!

and that's pretty much it.

Looking forward to next week when I'll hopefully be feeling better!

Free Calm App Subscription $60 Value!

Ok fellow teachers this is a great one!

Calm (the app) is offering a free subscription to teachers (which is a $60 value) and all you have to do is fill out a form!

I won't say to much about the app as you can download the free version and check it out for yourself first if you'd like but if you are looking for ways to introduce mindfulness or ways to calm a class down this could be beneficial to you.  

I tried to apply for the free subscription as a substitute teacher... unfortunately I did it the first time a while ago but I tried again a few days ago and I hoping I hear back from them.

Did you apply for the free subscription?

How do you plan to introduce and use Calm in your classroom?

Update:
It took at least a couple of weeks but I got my free subscription (for as long as I have the app).
Thanks Calm!

What Parents Need to Know About TikTok

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 TikTok.

To be honest, this one I really don't get the desire to have.  Prior to learning about the app I definitely thought it was an app where you mouth the words to different songs and post them... seems kind of silly to me (although I'm sure we can say the same of many, MANY other apps as well).

This poster is free to download at National Online Safety

Here are a few things I learned

1)  Accounts are automatically set to public which means anyone can view and comment on what you post... which seems great because a lot of kids these days want to become "famous" whether it be Youtube, Instagram or Tik Tok... they just want to be recognized.  If they post often enough and well enough I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to get hundreds (or thousands) of people following you... many of whom you don't know.  In addition, they could pick up clues from the surrounding or what you are wearing (such as a school uniform) to gain information as to where you child lives or attends school.  The good news is accounts can be set to private where you have to approve people to follow you.

2)  There are easily accessible in app purchases available that sound like they can become quite pricey.  This isn't the first app I've shared about with these in app purchases Roblox and Fortnite also had in game purchases.  The good news is you can disable this feature as well.

3) Finally, like anything else online there is the risk of seeing something that they shouldn't.  This is why it is SO important to teach kids these days how to be appropriate digital citizens.

This series has been going on for 3 months now and I've posted on a lot of similar topics:

Screen Addiction

Age Ratings

The App Store

YouTube

Instagram

SnapChat

FortNite

Twitter

WhatsApp

Roblox

Minecraft

Momo

This Week OFF From School

Well, I can't say I feel like I accomplished much this week off from school.

My cough is nearly gone (it's about time) and is being replaced with a stuffy nose in the evening and mornings especially (a girl just can't win).

I did manage to go for another really long walk

Can you believe this place is in the city?

I also made some more slow cooker meals for our freezer.  These ones are marinara chicken (and I actually made 4 other bags of just the chopped up zucchini because we had some that was ready to be used.  So I'll have 7 of these meals in the freezer... it will likely last us until next summer.

I made a cinnamon raisin loaf for Saturday morning

This was taken a couple of hours before it was done baking... I had to get the blog up before it would be done!

And I made a bunch of these coconut chocolate chip cookies (they are my favourite!)

I spent the day at the lake with some friends.  It was a bit chilly so I didn't go swimming but I did venture out for a paddle in the canoe (that we managed to stay dry for)

I have a friend that is going to school in the next province over so we had a little good bye party for her... which consisted of us mini golfing.

I've officially got one more week of summer break and then it's back to school for the kids.  My guess is as a substitute I likely have 2 more weeks of break (I checked for jobs online this week and there was still nothing).  

Still plenty of time to start feeling better!

... hopefully!

Back To School

I know it might still be early to talk about back to school but I found a cute little writing activity for you to do with your students (and best of all it's free)!

I've posted about Mel D-Seusstastic and her Teacher's Pay Teacher's store before and well, I've just got one last freebie of hers that I want to talk about (if you've seen my other posts where I mention some of her stuff it's all very similar).  But this one is a back to school writing activity!

I would have my students fill in the information and then colour it.  If you happen to use it in your classroom come back here and let us know how it went in the comments below.

What Parents Need to Know About Momo

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 Momo.

"Momo" may be old news by now but that doesn't mean that Momo can't one day be replaced with something else (or pop back up) so I feel like it is still relevant to talk about.

You can find this poster free for download from National Online Safety.

For those of us that didn't see this pop up in the news sometime within the last year.  Momo is a character that pops up in random YouTube videos, WhatsApp, or Facebook posts and challenges viewers to do dangerous things and could send violent images.  To be honest, it's nothing that I want to see so I can't imagine having one of my students see it.

I think we all know what a dark hole YouTube especially can be.  You go in watching one video abotu whales and all of a sudden you are learning how to weave a basket by a Hawaiian.  It's especially easy to do on YouTube because YouTube makes video suggestions to you, and although I have yet to run into this problem (likely because I've never seen a Momo video before), if you happen to stumble across one (even if accidentally) you'll be more likely to have more suggested to you.

It's hard to spot what video may have a Momo part to it as it typically occurs in the middle of a video and the thumbnail and name of the video typically don't advertise that it is one.  So how are parents, teachers, and others supposed to know what might not be appropriate for a young viewer?  

Change your settings so autoplay isn't set up and make sure kids are using Youtube kids (which I know doesn't totally get rid of the problem).

Be aware of what your child is watching.

Talk to your kids/students.

All this technology can definitely be a blessing and a course and it is up to us to raise kids to know how to navigate the world with it.

Last week I talked about what we all need to know about Minecraft.

This Week OFF From School

Not going to lie... this week was a bit of a rough one.

I'm STILL sick.  It's got to be about week 4 of my cough (which in my opinion has actually improved quite a bit since week 1 but I'm just over it)

If last week was all about fitness this week was all about home improvement.

To start with we (as in my husband) broke up our back patio area with a jackhammer and then we (yes... we) hauled 2400lb of busted up concrete to the dump.  It was hard work!

I wish I would have taken a before picture but here are some during pictures

We were rained out for day 1... here's what we got accomplished

and our first load of concrete that we took to the dump

here's the progress after day 2.  We took our the grass between the patio area and the shed (and removed the rest of the concrete and took a load to the dump)

day 3 I can't take much credit for.  I helped spread some of the gravel around but I was pretty sore from the previous 2 days

 I FINALLY made my goal to walk/run 30km in a week!  And I did it a day ahead of time too!

Some pictures from the walk that put my over my goal

What I love about this particular walk is that I can stop in at a Starbucks beforehand and walk from there with my iced coffee and it's almost an 8km walk that I do which definitely helps to make my goal!

I finished painting around our door

I picked all our apples that had fallen on the ground already..

crab apples (and some tomatoes from the garden too)

and then promptly used them to turn into apple buns (which I used to have a recipe for but it disappeared from the interwebs so I had to kind of make my own recipe up... needless to say they turned a little dark but still taste good!)

I peeled, cored, and baked the apples in a muffin tray for about 20 min at 350

apple buns (with some rhubarb muffins that hadn't gotten eaten or frozen yet in the back corner)

I also made some hotdog and hamburger buns in preparation for our weekend

I got an email saying that I had to do some online classes in order to substitute teach in one of the divisions I've worked in for the past few years.  It came as a bit of a surprise... especially since what they wanted me to complete would take a few hours but I sat down and got it [nearly] completed.  I'll finish the last section or 2 next week!

And... I haven't done it yet (but as I type this out it's only Friday afternoon) but I may make some kind of caramel popcorn today in preparation for the weekend as well!

Back to School Bulletin Board Ideas

We've got about 2-3 weeks left of summer break where I live and so chances are teachers are starting to wake up a little earlier and head into their classrooms to start setting things up for their new batch of students. 

As a substitute teacher this obviously doesn't apply to myself but I still think about it... what would I all be doing if I had that classroom to call my own? 

I think I would be... settings up the tables just the way I want them

hauling all the new stuff I acquired over the summer break for my classroom and finding spots for it all

And setting up some bulletin boards (although I would hope that maybe I got some of them done prior to the break starting).

I've never actually done a back to school bulletin board before (or for that matter one for any of the seasons or holidays really).  My typical go to bulletin board spaces would be my MOLA (with some writing/editing posters likely), Science/Social Studies, Math, and Art (which is likely in the hallway)

But, doing a quick Google search turns up lots of ideas for what one could do... 

here are some of my favourites!

Do you do a back to school bulletin board?

What's your theme?

What Parents Need to Know About Minecraft

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 Minecraft!

Which, like most of the other things I've talked about I know very little about so reading through this poster (which is available for free from National Online Safety) informed me of what exactly Minecraft is too.

To me it seems like it is very similar to Roblox (maybe just a slightly more mature version of it?).

There are "mods" that can be downloaded that change game play and are apparently very appealing.  The majority of the ones you find should (hopefully) be okay to download but with everything you download online you have to be careful as it could have a virus in it which could be the end of your device.  So, kids should be aware of the possible consequences of downloading these mods and check with an adult to give them the all clear beforehand.

You can disable the chat feature.

Kids should (hopefully) be choosing servers to join that include people they already know.  This should hopefully cut down on any inappropriate behaviour they may run into in the game (like groomers).

And with all games, make sure you set time limits.  Take it from me, if you think your child isn't getting any screen time at school you are wrong and they are actually likely getting screen time every day for about 30 minutes at school during class time.  Games and devices can be addicting.

Learn anything new about Minecraft?  Last week I talked about Roblox.

This Week OFF From School

This week off from school was all about fitness.  

As of Friday evening I had walked or ran 24.15km.  Which if you are keeping track means I was just shy of 6km to my 30km in a week goal (I'll update at some point on Saturday to let you know if I ever got those extra few km in).

In addition to all the walking and running I did this week I also finished one level of a workout video I had been doing and moved on to level 3.  I don't actually know how long one is supposed to do each level but I figured I would know once I had mastered it and I felt like I had.

Last weekend happened to be a long weekend so we were at the lake for that.  Which was perfect because I finally got to wear my "birthday suit" (only a month after my birthday) and it was a scorcher so it was so nice to be able to jump in the lake to cool down.

Other than that I made another batch of slow cooker freezer meals.  This time I made some butter chicken (which is delicious).  We use already frozen chicken which is why it sits a little funny in the bag.

Butter Chicken

I also FINALLY painted the trim around our front door from our renovations that we did nearly a year ago!  It had actually cooled down enough that I figured having the door open for an hour during the day wouldn't let in all the bugs and heat so I did it!

I couldn't get a great before or after picture but I think you'll get the idea.

Front door before being painted

Front door after being painted

Also, that piece that I left at the bottom of the door and window is actually metal so I wasn't sure if I should attempt to paint it or not... we've since decided that I should try to paint it... but that's a job for another week!

I'm also feeling like now we need to replace our front door hinges and door knob to be black to complete the look.

And, I really spent a lot of time working on the rest of this months blog posts.  Something you may now know about me is that I typically write posts about a month in advance when possible.  If something comes up I'll shuffle things around a bit but it's a really good feeling to be working a month ahead of yourself... so it's odd that now that I have time off I had only been working a week ahead of myself (and sometimes just a couple of days).  So I'm feeling kind of accomplished.
Of course if you ever want to collaborate on something I would be more than happy to and my blog posts are easily adjusted.

And that folks, was my week!

Substitute Teacher Organization (Part Two)

Last week I talked about including a substitute folder for your subs so that they have all the important information at their finger tips as soon as they stop by the office. If your division doesn't happen to have these folders (and it's my guess that most do not) there is no reason why you can't make your own version of this.

Here's what one teacher did for her subs this last year 

She had a binder with all the important information I might need throughout the day (including some extra lesson plans if need be), all her remotes and everything were in the area, and I basically had to search for nothing. It was very handy

What Parents Need to Know About Roblox

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 Roblox.

If there is one thing I know about Roblox (which before looking at this poster was the only thing I knew about Roblox) is that it is very popular amongst elementary aged kids.

You can find this free to download from National Online Safety

So what did I learn about Roblox?

Roblox can you earn you money.  This one is interesting to me because with the whole E Sports stuff around (did you see the news article of a teen winning 3 million playing FortNite?) it isn't something that I would really encourage... surely it can't be a good sound job for forever... but for an 8 year old... have at it.  Anyways, apparently if you create something in Roblox appealing enough you can earn Robux which if you earn enough of can be turned into actual money through a PayPal account.  Interesting.

Otherwise, it has a lot of the same stuff as other online things have these days.  

There is a chat option that can be disabled (and likely should be if you are young)

There are in game purchases (although the game is free to play).  So be careful and don't have your credit card linked to your child's Roblox account.. or link it and maybe don't be so surprised if one day there is hundreds of dollars of purchases on it from Roblox.  Whoops.

You don't have to show everyone your social media accounts in Roblox and you can hide them from everyone (which I would think is a good idea).  I mean, you run into a problem with another player on Roblox and all of a sudden they are giving your grief on Twitter and Instagram too.

Since users can create their own worlds in Roblox it is hard to monitor what exactly happens in all those worlds... some worlds may have things you don't want your son/daughter to see so be vigilant and report anything inappropriate.  

In my opinion, out of the games and social media platforms that I have reviewed so far (WhatsApp, Twitter, FortNite, SnapChat, Instagram, and YouTube).  This one seems like it could be (and I could definitely be wrong having never played it before) the most innocent. Likely not perfect, but if I had a child or student begging me to play or be on SOMETHING and I had to choose one thing... this would be it (so far).

Last week I talked about WhatsApp

This Week OFF From School

This week was a bit of a doozy from being off from school.

It started out with a bit of a tickle in my throat and the occasional cough to being accompanied by a headache... and just as the last of the achy head left I started to cough a lot more and by Thursday I woke up without a voice.

It was a rough week.

BUT, I still managed to get a bit accomplished.

I picked the last of our rhubarb (for now) and made a double batch of rhubarb muffins (some for our Bible study group, some for family, and the rest were for my husband to enjoy). 

the last of our rhubarb

rhubarb muffins

I've been pretty insistent that I'm not going to let our garden food go to waste this year and so far I think I've been doing a pretty good job!

I found some discounted steaks (because they were about to reach their best by date) and turned them into some 4 packs of slow cooker steak fajitas that I promptly stuck in the freezer for the next few months.

steak fajitas for the freezer

I walked to Winners and found this gem of a dry erase calendar. 

I was pretty bummed when I realized our new stainless steel fridge would not work with magnets and I was not sure how I was going to cope without my magnetic dry erase calendar (which I write on what we are eating so that I know what to take out of the freezer).  So I used a regular calendar and put it on the wall in our dinning room for a while but now I've got something much MUCH larger and I'm pretty excited for it!

We stayed back from the lake this weekend to get some stuff done around here.  Which meant we FINALLY cleaned out the garage and took a load to the dump (and by we I mean my husband).  It's been pretty full of drywall and doors since we did our renovations nearly a year ago so it was nice to get that cleared out!

Once again my illness set me back a bit in the walking area... this week I managed to get in 20.59km which is pretty good but still nearly 10km off from my goal of 30km in a week.

Substitute Teacher Organization (Part One)

There are lots of ways you can be organized for a substitute teacher but of course there are going to be those times that you wake up in the morning just not feeling well enough to go into work... at this point you have a few options (if you didn't prepare for the day the previous day that is) 1) Email a quick plan and hope the substitute can find everything 2) Head in before school starts to write something up and organize what the substitute will need or 3) leave them to figure it out for themselves. 

As a seasoned substitute teacher I've seen all of those.. and in my few years of teaching I've only ever done the email a plan in (otherwise I've always prepared for a sub the day before... because sometimes you just know tomorrow will not be a great day if you come in).

A way to help you (and your substitute teacher) if you aren't able to prepare in advance is to make a substitute teacher folder. In one of the divisions that I sub in all teachers make one at the beginning of the year and sometimes they are filled in a bit better than others... this one didn't have a lot filled in but she also had a substitute binder in her class so I managed to snag a few pictures because there was so little to cover up). Substitutes pick up the folder at the office when they sign in so they have it right from the get go.

Front of sub folder - important info about the school

inside sub folder - important info about the classroom and students

Anyways, some important parts of the folder would be:

1) Schedule

2) Duty times/places

3) Location of different places

4) Beginning/end of the day routines (like do I have to go pick up the students somewhere?)

5) Student allergies/behaviours

Then there is also a part of the folder to insert pages... typically there will be some info about the school, a class list, and sometimes if the teacher is really prepared some suggestions/pages to copy for student work if needed. I don't think I've ever actually had to use these pages (and it's kind of rare that I'll find them in there anyways) but it's an excellent thing to include just in case you are ever away!