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.