How to Annoy Your Teacher

I found this in a teachers classroom the other day

At first I thought it was the teachers since it was on her desk but then at reading time one of the students came up searching for his book.  

Uh oh...

Also, happy Halloween!

If you are looking for some Halloween related posts here are some:

Activity Books

Art Ideas

Bulletin Board Ideas

Costumes for Teachers

I ended up working today and wore this:

Halloween t-shirt

I found it at Michaels for $7 and decided I would rather wear this shirt (with black pants and an orange cardigan instead of a costume this year)

Remembrance Day Art Ideas

Remembrance Day is fast approaching and if you're like me you like to do an art activity that has to do with an upcoming holiday so here are a few Remembrance (or Memorial) Day art activities for you to try with a variety of age groups.

This first one is from That Artist Women and she goes into detail on her page as to how she made these.

I have a bulletin board ideas post coming out next week that uses these paper plate poppies on it!

This is one for an early grade class and only uses some markers, water, coffee filters, and a pipe cleaner!

These next 2 I couldn't find original sources for... they were originally found on Pinterest though but this first one looks very similar to one of the cbc ones that I'll link to below

This one I found on Little Yeti and she talks briefly about the supplies she used to create these there.  I love the black with the red!

There were also 2 on cbc that I wasn't able to get pictures of but I think they still deserve a link to them

This first one uses layered scapbook paper

and this one uses cupcake liners!

Do you have a Remembrance (or Memorial) Day art activity that you like to do with your class?

Link to it in the comments below!

This Week At School

Back to having a busy week at school!

This week at school I...

- Was a grade 6 teacher (we did a lot of work in their All About Me books that they are making and I also taught them Snake)

- Was a grade 7 teacher

Was a grade 5/6 teacher

- I had a lot of preps one of those days so I helped the teacher out by making her a pocket chart and a sticky note chart where kids will display what they are currently reading.

- I also spied this in one of my classes (how fitting that I JUST posted about Fake News... seriously this was NOT planned).

How to Spot Fake News

In other news I got my flu shot this week.  It will often make me feel not so great in the first few days after getting it so I got it Thursday (Friday was a province wide PD day) so far I'm feeling great!

Boggle Board

I've talked about this before but I think it's worth another mention as I've seen it twice now recently.

One teacher had lettered dice that the kids would roll and then arrange in a grid to make words but I think I would much prefer (if there was board space) to have something up a little more permanently like this teacher did.

Boggle Board in the Classroom

How would I use it?

I've talked before about how I had guided math groups in my classroom and how if I had another classroom in the future I would try guided ELA groups. If I still had 4 groups I would think the centers would be as follows:

1) Work with me

2) Work on spelling

3) Reading

4) Work on Writing

And I would include a 5th one to take the place of one of the other 4 occasionally to be a game like Boggle or Bananagrams (or something else to do with spelling likely).

I ran my math groups 5 days out of the 6 day cycle (on the 6th day we did some problem solving practice) and I would probably do something similar for my ELA groups (on the 6th day we might have a spelling test or sharing or a bigger group lesson).

What kind of games do you incorporate into your ELA class?

Fake News

A while ago on my post about what we all need to know about Reddit I briefly talked about fake news. This got me thinking... this could be a teachers job to help kids figure out ways to distinguish between real and fake news. Naturally I went out into the world wide web to see what had already been created on this topic to share 2 with my readers.

The House Hippo is a great way to get students (of all ages) to think critically

Here is a lesson from New Fluencies to go with the House Hippo video

And then I found a link to the "Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus" website

With this website (which in case you do not know... a tree octopus is not a thing) you could discuss things such as:

What are some things you observe on this website? (links don't all work, the sites url doesn't use pacific or northwest, etc)

How does the website seem legit (quality of design and images, updated regularly, some links work, etc)

Then have students fill out an "Is It A Hoax" worksheet 

Fake news has really become more popular over the past few years (possibly because of a certain president?) so I'm guessing a lot of kids will likely be familiar with the phrase "fake news" but do they really know what it means? Lets teach them to be critical thinkers!

Do you have any other ways you teach your students to be critical thinkers?

Or do you have any other fake news lessons to share with my readers?

This Week At School

This was a pretty easy week at school.

The one day I managed to book I was replacing a teacher that helps out in a bunch of different classrooms.  So I ran the morning routine and got the kids settled into centers in kindergarten, helped out in a grade 1 class with some colouring and cutting that needed to get done, researched our political candidates with the grade 5/6's for the upcoming election, and ran some writing groups in grade 2/3.

Other than that we FINALLY purchased a washer and dryer!... we've only been talking about buying them for 3 years now (we're calling it an anniversary gift to ourselves).  We also went to see the Cirque show that is currently in our city (which we purchased tickets for a couple of months ago and was actually our original anniversary gift to ourselves.

In other news I tried to get my flu shot at 5 locations on Friday (I like going at the beginning of the weekend because I usually get slightly sick from them so this way I have the weekend to hopefully get sick and recover) but alas the only location that actually had the shot available was doing it by appointment only and didn't have any spots left.  Hopefully next week I'll have better luck!

I'm curious, if you work in the education field, do you get your flu shot?

I've gotten mine every year for the last few years and I have noticed that I don't get sick nearly as often as I used to so I'm planning on continuing to get it every year for the foreseeable future.

So far next week is also looking like a not so busy week so hopefully some of those dates start getting filled up soon.

VSCO Girl

Why oh why does this have to be a thing? 

Here's what I know about being a VSCO girl

1) They wear scrunchies (not necessarily in their hair), Crocs (this one surprised me), Birkenstocks, use a Hydro Flask (which yes I had to look up to see if it was a brand name or a fancier way of saying water bottle), and a reusable straw (preferably metal). 

2) They make an annoying sound (like some kind of high pitched squeal)

Here's what I don't know... 

does it stand for anything?

Does it have anything to do with the picture editing app?

Anyways, one of my students asked me the other day if I was one and I told her I was not because I didn't have a scrunchie or a Hydro Flask. I was then informed about the Crocs and Birkenstokes (both of which I also don't have). The metal straw I do have... in fact I have multiple... but we decided that overall I am not a VSCO girl... thank goodness.

Now if this trend could just go the way of the fidget spinner and dabbing lickity split that would be just fantastic.

Mrs. Nelson is Missing Art Activity

If you haven't had a substitute teacher in your class yet chances are it won't be too far from now that you do.  Here's an art activity from Confessions of a Kindergarten Teacher to plan to do with your kids (maybe while a substitute teacher is in the class or afterwards?).

Plus, if you happen to find yourself substitute teaching with very little planned for you I feel like this is something you could easily whip up on the spot (now that you've seen it)

What I like about it?

It uses an oldie but a goodie... Mrs Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard.  

If you don't have the book (and you can't find it in the school library you can easily find it on YouTube.

What I would do:

1) Read (or listen to it if using YouTube) the book aloud to the class!

2) Make a decision: either you'll compare Viola Swamp to yourself or you'll compare Miss Swamp to their regular teacher (personally, I think it would be fun to compare her to myself as I'm the one currently there but I can also understand the rational behind using the classes actual teacher as you likely won't be there tomorrow and she/he will).

3)  Make the venn diagram comparing the 2 people (you may have to look back in the book to help them remember some details about Viola.

4)  Bring out the construction paper!  All you need is white, black, and yellow (so once again easy) and maybe another piece of paper to glue their master pieces onto!

My guess is this could easily take up at least an hour.

(and when the teacher comes back the next day she gets to see what a wonderful plan you came up with!)

Also, Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Today we are celebrating by going to a wedding!

psst.... did you also know that today is my husband and I's 3rd year anniversary!

This Week At School

Another busy week at school!

This week at school I...

- Was an art teacher

- Was a grade 6 teacher

- Was a French Immersion teacher

- Was a kindergarten teacher

- Finally subbed in the 3rd division that I'm part of

Would you believe that my best day out of all of those was the kindergarten class?  Anyone who knows me knows that I definitely do not want to work in a kindergarten classroom (but I'll sub in one) and would prefer grades 4-6 where they are a little more independent.

Anyways, Friday was an interesting day.  Many school divisions outside of the city were closed due to a major snow storm that rolled through (some even "closed" Thursday at noon due to power outages and unsafe driving conditions for buses).  Here's what it was looking like Friday

Would you believe that just 3 days earlier it was 20 outside!?!

Lucky me, I also had recess duty this blustery day!  The cherry on top was it was not snow falling from the skies at recess but rather ice.  When you looked out amongst the school yard every adult had their back to the wind to protect their faces from the ice.  The outdoor recess bells were also frozen solid so we had to yell out across the yard to get them all to come inside.

When I arrived to work on Friday a guy instructed me to park under a very large tree which was quickly loosing its branches due to the weight of the snow.  I asked him if he thought it was done dropping branches after I parked and he assured me the worst of it was over.  Well, this is what I arrived to after school

I ended up dragging the large branch in front of the car behind me because there was no where else to put it!  I'm still unsure if that branch hit my car or not as it's pretty snow covered but we'll investigate it a little more another day... for now I'm just glad I made it home safe!

In other news, I had planned to go buy a Christmas tree (yes, we go the fake route as it just makes more sense so we can reuse our tree year after year).  When we moved into our house and set up our old tree we quickly realized it was much too small for our bay window so we finally splurged on a nice 7.5 foot one.  It was half off at Michaels.  And, since my husband was taking so long to get back to me as to what tree I should purchase I ended up wandering the store a little too much and found discounted Halloween shirts.  Naturally I bought one and I'm planning to wear it on Halloween (as I'm already booked for that afternoon).

It's Canadian Thanksgiving this Monday so it's a long weekend!  Wishing all my Canadian readers a great Thanksgiving!

Halloween Art

Now that you've got your Halloween Bulletin Board up you are ready to get started on some Halloween art with your students...

Confession:

I keep a Word document saved on one of my USB's that's titled "art for the year".  It's something that I came up with years ago in my very first year of teaching.  At this point I know I liked grades 4-6 best and figured I would hang around these grades for years.  Since I love art and want my students to have great art classes I quickly planned out what we would do at different points in the year for art (with multiple options in case one goes quicker than usual or I end up teaching the same kids the following year).  This way my art lessons art already "planned" out for me and I just need to pick which one we will do!

I haven't updated it in a while but here is what I have listed under "Halloween"

Pumpkin Drawings

Oil Pastel Pumpkins

One Point Perspective Pumpkin Patch

Northern Lights

Here is a Halloween writing and art activity I did once while subbing.

Unfortunately I couldn't actually find any examples of artwork that my students had done for Halloween but if memory serves me correctly I have done the Northern Lights one before.

If you are wondering why none of my examples have witches or other typical Halloween characters it's because I tend to steer clear of them based off my own preference and at the school I used to teach in a lot of the parents probably wouldn't have liked it.  I figured these art activities would be "safe"

What are some examples of Halloween art activities you've done in your classroom?

When a Soccer Tournament Turns into Something Else

A week ago I mentioned that I took a class to a soccer tournament where we spent all day outside.  

Naturally, when you go to any school activity or event a teacher takes pictures (a substitute doesn't normally though so I did not take pictures).  Well one of the other adults at the tournament turned to me at some point near the end of the day and goes 

"People are going to think we went to a gymnastics meet, I've got pictures of kids making pyramids, doing handstands, and giving piggy back rides but not a single picture of kids playing soccer"

So the question needs to be asked... at what point does a soccer tournament turn into a gymnastics meet AND... if there are no pictures of the tournament itself... did it really even happen?

This Week At School

It was another busy week at 4 different schools!

I was a gym teacher for parts of multiple days.
We watched some cbc kids news which reminded me a bit of CNN student news.  In my opinion, if you are looking for a short news program designed for kids either one of these is good but I think CBC is designed for a younger audience and CNN is for grade 6 and up.
I had multiple days of outdoor duty.
We did some crayon resist art in an early years class.
I had a lovely class of grade 6's and made them promise their behaviour wouldn't turn sour by the end of the year.
I attended a gym blast... which is all the grades meeting up in the gym and playing games against each other to earn points.  The grade 6's came in 2nd place so we did well!
The kids also made signs for the gym blast and one kids said something along the lines of how the grade 6's were awesome and everyone else sticks.  Then it said that the other grades were stickers.  Erm.. ok.  Sort of missing an important letter there.
All in all it was a busy but good week!

Halloween Bulletin Board Ideas

A couple of months ago I wrote a post about back to school bulletin board ideas and I thought to myself... why not continue with this idea throughout the year?

Now that it's October and Halloween is fast approaching maybe it's time to change up that bulletin board again.  Honestly, you'll find a lot of great ideas just by using Google but here are some of my favourites

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For this one I would have each cauldron talk about different things we'll be learning in our room over the next month (or 2)... maybe broken down into subjects (math and ELA are usually big ones)

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I couldn't find much information on this one but I'm assuming it was an art project and there is a picture of each student under the ghosts.  I just thought it was cute

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For this one I would have students design it in an art class.  We could talk about what we think belongs on a Halloween themed bulletin board and each student could be in charge of making an aspect (or 2) of it.

I don't think I've ever actually decorated my bulletin boards for Halloween.  

Have you?

If you have what did they look like?