How to Use Spell Check

Once, when I was teaching grade 8 ELA I had a bunch of students who really, really, REALLY disliked writing... but they had an extra ELA period (with another teacher) in the computer lab so I set up blogs for each and every one of them so that they would have to write (I talk a bit about them here).  How did it go?  It went ok... I must admit that some students were not responsible enough to have comments enabled or unmonitored, there was some plagiarizing, and there were a bunch of boring topics.  BUT, this is not a story about any of that!

This is a story about how a student used the word "ovaries" continuously throughout his writing because he didn't know how to spell a word and just went with the first word that the spell check suggested.  And that pretty much sums up the story actually... I don't recall what the word he was trying to spell actually was but it was hilarious but he decided ovaries was the correct word.  So teach your students how to use spell check correctly, and if they really don't know if the word they are using is correct it only takes a minute to look up the definition of the word which would hopefully grant them more clarity. 

This Week Not At School

Another week of self isolation down.

So, what was I up to this week?  

Well, now that the rest of the city has turned to baking those of us who have always been baking can no longer find flour to bake with... so I didn't do any of that (but I have plans to acquire some flour for next week).

I went for my first run of the year.

I've been shuttling my husband back and forth from chiropractor appointments ever since he injured his back last weekend moving patio stones.  

We got a dirt delivery!

And I worked hard to get this much moved into the backyard so far...

We are trying to level out our backyard a bit and not having water running towards the house and we have to fill in our garden with more dirt now that we fixed up the edging around it last year.

I've also been spending a lot of time out on the patio (especially on the couple of nice non rainy days we had this week!).  

Noise-O-Meter

We've all seen a "noise-o-meter" in a classroom (especially if you have ever been in an early years classroom).  Usually, it's just a list of different noise meters written on a piece of paper and wherever a magnet is stuck to it is the noise level that students should be working at (in my experience students only very rarely work in a whisper - even when the noise-o-meter tells them otherwise).

Anyways, I saw this in a classroom recently and it was the first time I had ever seen something like it...

noise-o-meter

The lights light up when you push on them (so I pushed one just to demonstrate what they were for the sack of the picture).  

And, because it's hard to read it...

Ninja Mode - Absolute silence - no talking

Spy Talk - Whisper voice - only one person can hear you

Low Flow - Only your group can hear you

Formal Normal - classroom discussion level

Do you have a noise-o-meter in your classroom?

What does it look like?

This Week Not At School

... or apparently the last 2 weeks since isolation has me SO busy that I forgot to post anything last week.  Whoops!

Whelp, schools are still closed here but I actually have been keeping busy

Our province has a lottery Bingo game aired on tv/Youtube and the last couple of weeks they have been giving away free cards that you can download.  So my husband and I have been playing that and have yet to come out winners (you can win up to $5000!)

One charcuterie board

Two charcuterie boards

We've been having snacky lunches on Fridays

I made paska in my breadmaker for Easter.

My husband and I made Easter dinner for ourselves.

These are supposed to be hotdog buns.. they got a little large.  Next time I'll be turning to Google because maybe there is a better way to make hotdog buns at home.  But we had a BBQ with hotdogs, salad, and homemade mac and cheese in the slow cooker!

The last couple of days it has gotten up to 15 here so I set up our patio furniture (and made that famous Tik Tok whipped coffee (I've decided I'm not really a fan).

I've also been doing lots of basement workouts and going on plenty of walks.  My kilometers goal for April was 30km walked and I'm currently just 2km away from that... so it should be doable.

Otherwise, I've been staying safe and healthy!

City Skyline Arrays

I saw this in a classroom a little while ago

and I thought it looked like a fun way to teach math and art together (if you happen to be using array's to teach multiplication that is).

If your students are well beyond learning how to multiply here is another art activity with city skylines.

Community Book

I was in a grade 1/2 classroom recently that had written a very impressive (for that grade level) book about their community and it got me thinking... any teacher could easily do this!

Whether you live in a major city or small community you may just have to narrow your focus more. For example, if I had a classroom in the city and wanted to do this I might write a book about the community the school is in. 

The kids each wrote about a different spot in their community and wrote different facts about those places. For example they might write about the school they are in and how many classes or teachers work there. Or, the fire hall has this many firemen (women). Or, the grocery store gets its deliveries on Tuesday. 

Hopefully, it gets kids more interested in their community (and they might learn something new about it too! Plus, they get to work on asking questions or interviewing different people to get the information that they need.

Since it was a grade 1/2 classroom they also included a drawn picture of the place they were talking about. If it were older kids I think they could even take a picture with a camera instead (if they aren't interested in drawing/colouring anymore).

This Week Off From School

Another week off from school and another week of self isolation done.

It only took just over 2 weeks off from school and a big snowstorm before it finally happened... I cleared out both our fridges and totally cleaned them.  

I'm pretty happy with my work!

I also went to the grocery store in the first time in "forever".  I must say the one way aisles are confusing but it seems that they are doing a pretty good job at forcing us to stay socially distant from each other while doing necessary things (like getting groceries).  I shouldn't need to go back for at least a couple of weeks.

I made some resurrection buns - a good thing to keep kids occupied for a while and you can review the Easter story while you make them!  And I made some paska.

I put together those plastic Easter eggs with treats inside of them for my husband every year and send him on an egg hunt Sunday morning so I started putting those together.

 This is about half of the eggs I have.

I've been doing my basement workouts (and they are paying off... I'm not gaining weight during this isolation period!) and I've already walked 18km worth.  I predict that within the next couple of weeks it should finally be warm enough for me to want to go for a run.

Otherwise, we're doing fine over here in isolation.  

How is everyone else doing?

Kindness Challenge

Spring is here (and spring break starts tomorrow at 3:30)!

So here is a flower related kindness challenge (that could actually even work in the winter time because of the how this teacher is growing her flowers).

First, a bit of a backstory.  For Christmas I bought my husband an Aerogarden.  Which is a fancy hydroponic indoor garden.  We are growing tomatoes in ours (but I'll post about ours another time).  When I bought it for him I naturally tried to learn as much about it as possible and so I joined an Aerogarden Facebook group where not only did I learn about how to use our Aerogarden but how teachers are using them in their classrooms!

Here's what one teacher is doing:

It may be hard to read so I'll summarize it.  Basically, this teacher now has to Aerogarden's that she is planting flower seeds in.  Her grade 2 class has a kindness challenge in that when they see someone who's day needs brightening up they will come and snip a few flowers for them from their garden.

Awww....

How would you use an Aerogarden in your classroom?

This Week Off From School

Well, it was a much different spring break for most people I am sure.  What with having to try to socially distant yourselves and not being able to go on vacation.  But, for this gal  it wasn't too different than what I had originally planned.

Obviously I hadn't planned on covid19 or not being able to see friends or go to the mall or out for drinks... but it was fine... I got through it and I'm expecting next week (and possibly many weeks into the future to be pretty similar... unfortunately).  

So what did I do with my spring break?

I made homemade cinnamon buns (and they were AMAZING)!

I went for a long, sometimes mucky walk.

I tried that coffee that is apparently blowing up Tik Tok (no I don't have it) by mixing a tablespoon of each: instant coffee, sugar, and hot water.  Personally, I think my iced coffee is better.

I did a lot of reading!  About 3-4 weeks ago now I went to the public library to pick up a couple of books I had on hold there... if I would have known that the libraries were all going to be closing for the foreseeable future I should have taken a few more home.  Anyways, I was very uncertain if I would be able to get through the books before I had to return them.  Now that the libraries are closed I have had more than enough time to get through them!  To get me through the rest of my time at home (more on that later) I think I'm going to have to organize some kind of mailbox book swap with some friends.

We had a lovely first half of the week (as you can see from the picture above).  The sun was shining and the grass was showing.  In fact, we had no snow in our front yard and patio AND our backyard was nearly snow free.  Then Thursday happened.  I think we now have more snow than we did all winter... ah well... no one wants to go out in this so I guess that helps encourage us all to just stay home!

So what's going on with teaching in the foreseeable future?  Well, in my province they have officially closed schools indefinitely.  Most people are taking that to mean that they will likely be closed until September.  So, it's looking like the remainder of the year will look very different from what it typically does for this girl!

Stay safe and stay healthy!

What's the school situation look like where you live?

Easter Bulletin Board Ideas

Now that you have some Easter art up it's time to transform your bulletin board (or, you know, maybe not because we can't be changing it for every.single.season).  BUT, if you are keen on changing your bulletin board (or maybe have a lot of parent volunteers in your room that can help) here are a few ideas I found on the inter webs.

These first 2 I couldn't actually find the site they originated from to link back to it... I thought the first one was fun though.

and this one I thought I would have each of my students decorate a paper egg to add to the bulletin board

This one comes from here

Do you decorate your classrooms bulletin board for Easter?

Post a picture of it in the comments!

If you are looking for bulletin board ideas for other seasons and holidays here are a few other posts I've done:

Spring

Valentine's Day

Winter

Christmas

Remembrance Day

Halloween

Back to School

PS.  Happy April Fools Day!  I can't imagine there's a lot of pranks being played in a time like this but have you ever played a prank on your students?  Here and here are what I did last year to my students.

This Week OFF From School

Well folks, week 1 of self isolation is behind us.  As an introvert I can honestly say that it isn't so bad.  I've managed to fill my time with some online shopping, baking, FINALLY organizing my classroom materials into a filing cabinet, basement workouts, long walks, and some crafting.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Buckeye Brownies

Hopefully we are all doing all right out there.  Avoiding others as much as possible and staying healthy!

Next week is officially spring break and then we've got one more week (at least without school).  If your schools have been closed longer than here I would be curious to know if they are planning to extend the school closures or if plans are still in place for students to start returning to their classes soon.

Easter Art Ideas

Here we are again with another holiday quickly approaching.  I'm doing this one a little earlier than what I typically do because spring break starts next week (and I don't plan to really be posting).

Anyways, lets get right into it!

I will have a link to a supply list and instructions for how to do each of these!

This first one is my absolute favourite.  Insta Bunnies

There are pictures on the link of what other teachers did with the bunnies too... all super adorable!

These "Easter eggs" are gorgeous you can find the instructions here 

Tin Foil Easter Egg

You may recall about a year ago one of the classes I was going into was doing string art... they were finding it challenging because they couldn't hammer nails into the boards, and then needles weren't holding the string.  Well, I think this paper plate string art is super adorable for Easter and likely not too difficult for even young students (though you may have to punch all the holes)!

Shaving Cream Easter Eggs

Suncatcher Easter Eggs

What kind of art projects do you do in your classroom for Easter?

 Share them in the comments!

If you are looking for art ideas for different times of the year here are a few other posts I have done:

Spring Art

Valentine's Day Art

Winter Art

This Week at School

What an odd week at school this was...

For those of us that are living under a rock (but still somehow manage to read here) there is a virus sweeping through the world called the Corona Virus.  People are getting sick and even dying from it so it's very serious.  Last Friday the province I live in announced that it would be closing schools for 3 weeks starting on the 23rd (so this week was our last week of school).  Now, they say 3 weeks and I really hope that's all the time we need but people are also saying that it might be until May and others are saying it might be for the rest of the year... which isn't ideal for someone like me who relies on schools being open and teachers being away.

Anyways, this week at school..

On Monday I think there were roughly 100/500 student absent.  The majority of my classes had a decent amount in them except for my homeroom which dropped from 11 in the morning to only 6 still attending by the end of the day.

On Tuesday I had one student in my classroom (and for the remainder of the week).  Needless to say she got everything she needed to finished and is likely leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of her class.

By Wednesday a 2nd class was down to only 1 student that I taught.  It was at this time I decided that we likely weren't going to be doing much teaching anymore.

Which brings us to Thursday where I brought a big bag of easy to learn games.  I taught a group of students Farkle and they loved it so much we found instructions to play online and they continued to play it even when I wasn't with them... which is awesome because it does involve a lot of math.

And by Friday we had our first class of no students.  The entire school (which normally has over 500 students) was down to just 38 students.  I baked cookies in the morning with a few girls (and then we ate the cookies) and played some Skipbo... and that was pretty much my day.

This was what my classroom looked like at the end of the day... those chairs that are taken off the tables are the only chairs we took down that day.

Anyways, there is officially no school on Monday and students are expected to log in online to see what their assignments are for the day... hopefully some of them actually do this.  I'm unsure of what that means for my blog as I rely on things happening at school for a large part of my content.  I THINK, for at least the next 3 weeks, I'll be posting just once a week (plus a TWAS) on Wednesday's.  Hopefully it only lasts 3 weeks.

Stay safe everyone and stay healthy!

Storyathon

Have you heard of Storyathon?

It's a free online event where students are encouraged to write stories that are exactly 100 words long.  100 words isn't a lot so not only does this encourage student writing but it isn't too daunting of a task and helps students really think about the words they are using and the impact they have in their stories.  Plus, as a teacher if you are grading these stories you aren't having to sit through pages and pages of a single story that is going no where... slowly (or is it just me that disliked teaching English because of this?)

Corona Virus and the Education System

Last week the province I live in got its first confirmed case of COVID19 and immediately things started happening.

There was an announcement with the morning announcements about social distancing, staying home if you are unwell, and washing your hands (I was in a middle years school).  Kids started talking about it more often - will they get it (or their parents or their grandparents), will they die if they get it, and of course, when will the school close?  The vice principal even came around at the end of the day to see if anyone had questions or concerns about it.

I've updated this a couple of times since originally writing this post on Thursday, March 12th but the latest news is that schools in my province will be closed for the week before and after spring break (so a 3 week break total). This means that schools will be closed from March 23 - April 13.  Glad it's going to be the weeks surrounding spring break as it's only 3.5 days that I'll be missing out on for work (that I already have booked - it could have been more).  Unfortunately, all meetings, professional developments, and extra curricular activities are also all cancelled leading up to the school closures which means days are being cancelled for next week as well still.

Other provinces have made similar decisions.  In Ontario spring break is this week and schools will remain closed for 2 weeks after spring break - which I get... better to do this now than regret not doing it later.  Quebec is also closing schools for 2 weeks starting this week.  I know a lot of places in the USA have also closed their schools for the time being.  

My friend told me about one school that she heard of and how they were encouraging students to wash their hands.  They gave each student a stamp on their hands at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day they checked their hands - if the stamp was gone it meant they had done a good job washing their hands throughout the day and got some kind of treat for it.  

Naturally, as I learn more I'll keep you all informed... but I'm curious, what's your school district/division doing to help ensure their students remain safe and healthy during this time?

This Week At School

It was a not so busy week leading up to 2 of 3 school divisions that I work for having their report writing day yesterday.

I was teaching in the early years class at a colony school this week.  We read a lot of books and played some math games - it was a pretty fun day!

I also had a half day get cancelled on me only to be replaced by a full day (which I was super grateful for being that it was a slow week) where I was covering for the acting principal while he had to... act as principal.  On this day was the day my province had it's first confirmed case of the Corona Virus (which later turned into multiple confirmed cases) so the kids were in a bit of panic but we still managed to get some learning done!

I'm in the process of writing a post on the Corona Virus and how it's impacting schools in my province for Monday - so come back then to hear all about it! 

2 more weeks until spring break!

Buttertruck

(and how he got his name)

I was in a classroom the other week where they had a class pet! A few years ago I feel like I would stumble across a class pet at least once a month but now a days it's more like once every few months that I find one! I've written about previous class pet encounters here and here.

Anywho, this is about a pet beta fish (and how he got his name).

This fish was a gift to the class from their EA (great gift by the way - in my opinion) and I guess they were having a class vote on what to call this new fish. I'm not sure what any of the other options were but at some point someone suggested to someone else to put up their hand and throw in the name "Buttertruck". So the suggestion was made and accepted as one of the possibilities. Eventually votes were cast and Buttertruck won (story goes - by a landslide) and that's how you end up with a class pet with a silly name.

Spring Bulletin Board Ideas

Now that you have some Spring Art done it's time to set up your bulletin board for spring (if you so choose to change it for the season).  Here are some spring bulletin board ideas I found

This first one you can find here

To make it I would have each student design a large flower to add to our vase.

You can find this one here

My personal favourite is the "Spring is in the Air" one. 

You can find this one here

I would have each student make the back of a bunny to add to our bulletin board

For the next 3 I would invite more than just my classroom to participate in... maybe all the grade 5 classrooms or, depending on how big your school is, the entire school.  They all require the student to create something but on that thing that they create I would have them write a goal or a wish for the remainder of the year on it.  They don't have to include their name.

So, you can find this one here

I would have each student make a butterfly (or maybe they would be premade) and on them each student would do some writing.

This one you can find here

I would have each student trace their hand and colour their paper hand however they want.  Then they would write on it what their goal is.

This one you can find here and I just thought it was SO beautiful!

I would have the majority of the students design a simple flower and write on it and a few of them could do a butterfly.

And this one is from here

Everyone gets a slip of paper to write their goal on and then I would (or I would have some student volunteers) make the paper chain for the bulletin board.

Do you make a spring bulletin board?

Which of these examples was your favourite?

If you are looking for bulletin board ideas for other seasons here are a few other blog posts that I've done:

Valentine's Day

Winter

Christmas

Remembrance Day

Halloween

This Week At School

This week at school I had a class of grade 8 students spin me a tale of how they caused plumbing issues at the school the previous week due to how they used the facilities. It was quite the tale and obviously I didn't believe them. Come to find out a few days later that the school actually did have plumbing issues and the students were dismissed at noon one day because of it. Was it due to how a bunch of boys used the bathrooms that morning... I doubt it. A not so great smell had been coming through the library for most of the week so I'm assuming it had something to do with that.

I also had a half day turn into a full day due to a balloon popping in a teachers eye.

I learned all about Ruby Bridges and started watching a movie on her with a group of grade 7 students.

I administered the writing of a dividing and multiplying fractions test.

There was a snow day for the division I work for that is outside of the city (unfortunately I was not working in this division on this day... I was there the day before the snow day though).

The snow that we got was good news for my husband who has been working on making an autonomous snowblower all winter. It finally made the move from the heated garage to our house the week before so my husband was itching for snow to get to try it out on our driveway. Well the day finally arrived... here's a picture of it in action (of course it snowed at night so the lighting isn't the best).

To clean up the parts that it missed during its autonomous run he used an xbox controller to control where the snowblower went (because who wants to push the snowblower up and down the driveway these days anyway?)... then while moving the snowblower back into the garage be put the xbox controller on the back of my car... which is where it stayed as I went back and forth to work that day. Luckily, a person parked behind me on the street at school told me about a random xbox controller on the back of my car and I managed to save it for 2nd drive back home (I had gone home at lunch this day because it was the day my half day turned into a full day).

Animal Print Art

Animal print isn't just in fashion wise (at least I think it might currently be "in" - I can't say I'm following the trend) but it's in with art in a classroom I was in a while ago!

I couldn't actually find an example of this lesson online but I'm sure together (or just me on my own) can get a pretty good idea of how things went down.

Here are a few examples of what I found in the classroom:

Peacock print art

Giraffe print art

Leopard print art

Based off of the examples here is what I'm assuming the teacher asked her students to do

1) Colour the whole page to look like the animals fur/feathers/scales. Make sure your whole background is coloured

2) With black construction paper draw and cut out a silhouette of your animal (if it's too hard for the student to draw themselves there are plenty of animal silhouettes that can be found online for them to get an idea - but really I would encourage them to try for themselves first).

3) Glue the silhouette onto the middle of the page

You're done!

Spring Art Ideas

Believe it or not but spring is just around the corner!

What better way to celebrate the impending arrival of spring but with some lovely spring artwork!  Here are a variety of ideas (ok, most of them have to either do with flowers or rain) for you to use in your classroom!

This time I tried to avoid going to my favourite art teaching blog to get some other ideas... which unfortunately means that they don't all have instructions for how to make them!... it's so much easier when you have instructions so I'll try to explain how I would make some of these that don't have instructions listed (in English) on their websites.

Anyways, to start off with we have some flower art pieces

You can find these here

To make these what I would do is have kids start by taking a piece of construction paper and decorating it to be their base.  They could then cut out the shape that they want but leave a little extra on each end to staple it onto the black piece of construction paper.

Then you could look up a bunch of different how to make different kids of flowers pages but what I would do is just have kids come up with their own ideas for how to create flowers (and stems and leaves) out of construction paper and see what they come up with!

You can find this one here

It's hard to know where to start with this one... I guess you could start by gluing half of a dixie cup onto a black piece of construction paper.  Then I would have kids make the flowers using the wrong end of a paint brush so that it makes dots.  Next, they could flip their paint brushes over to add lines to their flowers and the stems (which should all end up in the dixie cup).  Finally, have students create leaves out of construction paper and glue them down.

You can find this one here

To make this one I would have kids cut out different sized circles from construction paper and then spiralize them by cutting the spirals into them.  Then, make a vase out of paper and glue it down onto a piece of colored paper.  Next, glue down all those spiralized circles that you made earlier, but just glue down the outer circle so that the flowers can "pop" out.  Then add leaves.

You can find this one here and using the translate option on Google Chrome I was able to make sense of the instructions!

You can find this one here (with instructions)

You can find this one here (with instructions)

You can find this one here (with instructions)

You can find this bug art work here.

To start this project I would have kids water colour one piece of water colour paper (trust me, it works better than regular paper).  Then give each student half a piece of black paper and have them draw half of a bug along the edge of the page and carefully cut it out.  Glue the "scrap" piece of black paper carefully on one side of your water colour paper (line up the corners as best as you can) and then glue the half a bug you have to the other water coloured side of the paper (careful to make sure you are gluing it down so that it is symmetrical to the already cut out side).

You can find this one here 

To make this artwork I would start by having students draw a rainbow (using crayons) on a piece of white paper.  Then have them use a white crayon to make rain drops and/or puddles on the ground.  Then have them paint over everything with different shades of blue.  The paint should leave the white crayon showing through so that you can see the raindrops.

Then, take each students picture (I would just let them do it however they want) but tell them to pretend to be holding an umbrella.  Print the pictures and have students carefully cut themselves out of it.  

They will also need to design and colour an umbrella in a size that makes sense to their picture.  Glue down the umbrella, glue down their picture.

You can find this one here (with instructions)

If you are looking for some art ideas for other seasons here are a few other blog posts I've done similar to this one:

Valentine's Day

Winter

Christmas

Remembrance Day

Halloween