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!

Bill Nye Makes an Appearance?

You may remember when I was teaching "dance" before Christmas break this year and we spent those classes watching High School Musical.  Well, according to one of my students they definitely saw Bill Bye (the science guy) in the movie.  This student was so insistent that he made us go back and rewatch the last 5 minutes until we were all positive that Bill Nye was not in High School Musical.

But... don't worry Bill Nye, you may not have gotten a role in High School Musical BUT the kids thought they saw you... so you are still very much a large part of their lives.

This Week At School

It's official everyone... we're on summer vacation over here!!

And... on my last week of school I worked on 4 different days!... so pretty much every day I could (because no one is going to book me to come in and substitute teach when the kids aren't even there!).

How'd it go?

I had one teacher tell me that if she were a sub she wouldn't book herself for these last 2 weeks because the kids have checked out already (and lets be honest, a lot of the teachers have as well).  Luckily, the kids I taught in elementary school this week (which was one day) were not checked out yet and still eager (for the most part) to work... and it may have helped that they were having a class party in the afternoon that the teacher told me to bribe them with.  

Other than that this week at school I...

Watched a lot of movies (Despicable Me and The Incredibles, and one other that I can't remember what it was).

Gave students A LOT of time on the iPads (which I'm kind of on the fence about... I mean, they may as well stay at home if they are getting free time on the iPads since that's [likely] what they would be doing at home).  

Did TUSC... and students got to decide what role they wanted to have this last time so there were a lot of "angry chefs" which meant a lot of sugary treats being passed around.

Took my classes outside.

Had a "gym riot" that was neither in the gym or rioty in the slightest (it was outside and very well organized).

All in all it was a pretty swell last week of work... and now I get to switch gears to "this week off from school" and enjoy some much deserved time off!

Psst.. I've got my next month worth of posts planned (for the most part) so you can expect regular posting to happen throughout the summer.  Enjoy!

This Week At School

This week at school...

-  I was in a new to me classroom again!

-  I, once again, was a dance teacher

-  I subbed for my last day ever at the school of only 9 kids as it is being shut down at the end of the year (understandably so).  To celebrate my last day there we went to McDonald's for lunch, went swimming, and went rock climbing (or it was also their very last swim and gym as well).  I'll be honest, I'm gonna miss that place!

-  I subbed for the principal (at a school larger than just 9 kids).  For my first duty I promptly sent the teacher down to the office (because he was the teacher in charge) and then I told all the kids that if I could send their teacher down to the office I could easily do the same for them.  Just kidding.  It was a well behaved class.

-  I subbed, from what I can recall, my first day ever while taking the students on a field trip (where I was in charge of more than just 9 kids... because lets be honest that's fairly manageable when you are used to classes of 20+ students).  I took them to an all day ultimate tournament.  The weather was hot (but not too hot) and one of the EA's had the good idea to bring a tent covering thing so I got to sit in the shade all day (and sometimes the sun when I thought I could use some).

It was a busy week!

2 weeks left 

(or 6 days - I managed to pick up a few more since the last time I talked about the number of days I have left).

This Week At School

It was a busy last week of school before spring break or me!  Full days turned into half days which turned back into full days and I ended up working every single day this week in the end!

Monday was the day after St Patrick's Day so I read my students "How to Catch a Leprechaun" and then they did a writing activity on how they would go about catching a leprechaun.  I couldn't actually find the exact activity they did online but if you google "How to catch a leprechaun writing activity" a bunch will come up!

The next 3 days I spent at the school with only 9 kids.  We now say it's like I'm their 3rd teacher (after he 1.5 that already teach there, the EA, and the secretary).  They were busy making houses to test out different kinds of insulation.  The plan was that on Friday (when I was not there) that they were going to put a cup of hot water in each of their houses and place them outside.  Every 20 minutes or so they would go out and see what the temperature of their water was.  What were they using for insulation?  Largely shredded paper but also towels and Styrofoam.  One group even spray painted their house black which I thought was smart.  

After spring break they are going to be putting together a little indoor greenhouse to grow some fruits and veggies so we started to do some research as to what seeds do well growing in pots and have shorter growing times.  When I had left on Thursday they had decided on cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, and lettuce

Being that it was the week before spring break 2 of the schools I went to had spirit week this week... so one of the days was twin day (which I knew about ahead of time but obviously wouldn't have been able to coordinate with someone to twin with them), then there was jersey day so my husband lent me his and I wore a Washington Capitals jersey to school, then we had read and feed which didn't require dressing up and instead I had them read from about 10:30-12:00 (which surprisingly went over really well with a lot of them).  The feed part was they got to snack on fruits and veggies while reading.  I also brought them some cookies because I had a bunch leftover from a dessert fundraiser I helped with the previous weekend (I had told them that they had to be good in order to get one at the end of the day otherwise as punishment they would have to watch me eat them all - needless to say they each got 2 cookies at the end of the day).  And finally we had school colours day so I wore blue to work.

Friday I only worked the afternoon which was likely actually the easier time to work (and not only because it's the shorter half of the day).  They had stations that each class went around the school to earn points for their grade group.  At the end they totalled up all points for each grade and that grade won some sort of prize.  I was in charge of the cup stacking room which just had 3 groups working together to make a stack of cups as tall as they could using cups and wooden sticks within 15 minutes.  The tallest we got was 37 inches which was actually quite impressive.

Since next week is spring break I'll only be posting twice instead of my usual 3 times as I'll be too busy enjoying my spring break (hopefully).

Abstract Scribble Art

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I did a really simple art lesson with an early and middle years class (I'll use the term "class" loosely because there were only 5 students in both classes total that day).

Basically, the kids had to use a dark colour to do a scribble on their page (I would encourage kids to not do too much scribbles because then the white spaces between the scribbles get smaller and smaller).

After that we rotated our scribbled on pages around until something jumped out of us that we saw in the scribbles.  It could have been a big part of the page or a small part and then we coloured just that section to be that thing that we saw (there were a lot of flowers and fish that we saw in ours).  

The goal is to keep looking for things until the majority of your picture is coloured (some white spots are okay).

Here is what I came up with:

I wasn't quite done with it but you get the idea.

The best part about this lesson is that it requires very few supplies (and no tricky supplies like getting paint set up or having to search for orange pipecleaners) and therefore it's the perfect thing to do when you are surprised with a class of just 1 student.

This Week At School

Our deep freeze continued into this week with temperatures reaching below -50 with the windchill! Of course this was also the week that I had booked Monday-Thursday outside of the city for work and of course school was cancelled on both Tuesday and Wednesday due to it being too cold.

On Monday I was at the school of 9 so it was a fairly easy day (especially since they had guitar lessons in the afternoon which meant I got to read a book for a while.

Tuesday I was only supposed to work in the afternoon so I waited until 11am before making myself available to work in the city for that afternoon (because my rural job was cancelled). I was pretty sure there would be an abundance of jobs but I guess by 11 most schools had decided they could manage with the teachers that made it in and the students that were there that day. Surprisingly, I did see some jobs still available to be worked at in the morning but I decided they likely didn't actually want someone to show up for 45min of work and get paid for the entire half day so I didn't take any of them. Instead I stayed inside where it was warm and made some cookies.

I found out Tuesday evening that the PD that the teacher I was suppose to go in for on Wednesday was getting cancelled and so I was able to make myself available in the city Tuesday evening. It was probably about 30 seconds after I made myself available that I started getting phone calls for where I could work and I accepted a job that was close to where I live in a grade 1/2/3 classroom.

It was the right job to accept as I got to go on a field trip with the class. We went to see a Julie B. Jones musical at a high school nearby. This ended up taking most of our morning and they had gym and choice time in the afternoon which meant the only class they had to really do work in was when we did some printing practice. The musical was great and I got to see it for work which I think is pretty cool.

By Thursday it had warmed up enough that school was [just barely] back in session for the rural division I sub in so it was off to the colony for me for the day. I wish I could say that after 2 days off the kids were all eager to learn... they were alright.

Friday was the only day this week I hadn't booked in advance. One of the divisions I work in didn't actually have classes which meant there were only 2 divisions that I had left to work in... I ended up having the day off.

This Week At School

It was a busy (and cold) week at school this week!

Our typically wintery temperatures officially caught up with us this week and I was often running outside to run my car during the first bit of the lunch hour so that it would start after school - temperatures dipped below -25 degrees Celsius but with the wind factored in it's usually about 10 degrees colder! Needless to say this also meant indoor recess'.

I started off the week in a new to me school where I was the science teacher. The teacher was only part time though but since they can only book subs in for half days and full days I just had a lot of preps... so I also helped out in the library and put up part of a bulletin board... it was a pretty easy day.

Tuesday I was at the school of 9 kids. I was supposed to have all 9 but we decided to keep them split up in early and middle years so I ended up only having 4 in the morning. For the afternoon I had to switch schools and usually there would have been a good size class at this school but most of the students were out doing other activities (and by most I mean all but 1).... so I had one student in the afternoon. We read and studied for a test and then joined the early years room (which only had 4 students) for some art and a video.

Here is my version of the abstract art that we did

It's a super easy concept for most kids to understand... stay tuned to the blog for a post about it!

The next day was only a half day and this time it actually stayed a half day (no one went home sick and needed to book me last minute). Nothing too amazing happened at this school.... regular sized classroom of about 24 students.

On Thursday I was at a school I haven't been to in about a year! It was a busy class of grade 2/3 students. This day ended up getting extended until Friday which worked out perfectly as my Friday got cancelled Thursday morning! We did a lot of writing (they were really into making comic and flip books), Dreambox, and Jump Math. On the Friday I did a Valentine's Day art activity (stay tuned to the blog to see what exactly we did)

One of the schools I was at this week had a room in each class to be used as closets (actually, a number of the older schools in this particular division have these coat rooms)... with all their winter gear packed in there it's overcrowded without there being a single person in there!

School coat room

Finally, one of my students made me a picture on Friday.

No idea who Emma is (it wasn't anyone in our room or myself)

This Week At School

This week at school I...

Helped students practice for 2 different Christmas plays/concerts (it's that time of year again)!

I worked with a 5th year (which over here that is your final year) student teacher for a couple of days which meant I had a couple pretty easy days.

Because of those pretty easy days I managed to finish reading the book Refugee by Alan Gratz.

At one of the schools I was at this week their secretary was leaving to go on maternity leave so the teacher left me baby advice sheets for the students to fill out (and then to give to the secretary)

Baby advice sheet

Finally, happy December 1st!

I've talked before about advent calendars you can use in your classroom but every year I make one for my husband here is what I did for him last year (filled with Lindtt chocolates) and here is his advent calendar this year!

Christmas advent calendar

Looks like he's been good this year!

This Week At School

This week at school I was in just 2 schools! 

I was back at the school I had been at the last couple of weeks for the first half of the week and the rest of the week I was out in a really small school of just 9 students! 

It finally warmed up just enough to do the Terry Fox run so we did that on Monday 

By Wednesday when I left school it was looking like this… 

Snowy October Field

How unfortunate for only the beginning of October! 

Later in the week when I was teaching in a school of all of 9 students I had just 5 students in the morning (although that number dropped to just 3 on Friday morning) and all 9 in the afternoons. Needless to say it was quite an easy couple of days! 

I read to them from this book 

And I think I’m going to go and take it out from my local library (and probably even his other book – “Prisoner B-3087” 

They’ve been practicing for a cross country meet so we went for a run… or rather the older kids all went for a run and I walked with the 2 youngest kids. 

I played Snake with the older students 

And we made these cute foldable Thanksgiving turkeys

Foldable Thanksgiving Turkey

(which were actually kid of challenging to make so I had the older kids practice making them in the morning so they could help the younger students in the afternoon) 

It’s a long weekend here in Canada due to it being Thanksgiving. Hope we all have a safe and fun Thanksgiving!

This Week At School

My home away from home for the last week

I’ve been lucky enough to be in the same classroom all this week 

(and spoiler alert: I’ll be back in this same room next week as well).

I’m also a pretty lucky substitute because I hit the jackpot considering what I believe a grade 8 class could be because they are amazing. They work quietly (and yes, most of them are working), don’t interrupt, and are just overall a lovely group of students.

So what have I been up to in this grade 8 class?

We are reading Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel and they are super into it. I read them about every third chapter or so and we are on chapter 10 already (they had started before I arrived though).   Even I'm into the book... in fact I brought it home with me this weekend to get some reading done and have every intention of finishing it so that I know how it ends.

We are learning about the Pythagorean Theorem in math which is going pretty good. One of my math classes is definitely better than the other (behaviour wise) but for the most part they are getting their work done and understanding the theorem and how to do it… we are still working on recognizing if a measurement is an area or a line (I mean it seems so simple to me).

In Social Studies they have been working on a timeline or family tree. I assigned it for homework to be completed on Monday though so next week we are moving on to some textbook work.

I also teach a grade 6 music education class and they are creating a mix tape. I found a blank mix tape template online and had them colour it one day when we didn’t have access to the computer lab. Their mix tapes have to have an overall theme to them. There are a lot of “happy” “sad” or “dance” themes but I’ve done my best to steer them away from genre themes or artist themes so that there is a bit of variety in these mix tapes. I think the hardest part of the assignment will be to make sure when you add up the songs that they don’t exceed 30 minutes per side.

Yesterday afternoon I was missing about half my class because it was a fun afternoon spent outside (in what I would consider almost too cold of temperatures to be outside all afternoon... I should have tried harder to find some gloves to bring this morning I guess).  We played a bunch of games keeping score and surprisingly the 8th graders came in 2nd place (out of 3 places)... I really wasn't sure they had it in them.

Overall I would say it’s been a really good week and I’m looking forward to having to be back for another week.

AND, this week I managed to book myself not only 5 days for October already but also another 5 days in January (and a few others in between). I’m predicting it being a fairly busy year.

This Week At School

Despite not feeling the greatest all weekend I managed to pull it together enough to work every single day leading up to spring break!

In one of my classes this week I hadn't been in since September (it was actually the class I subbed in for my first day of work this school year). It was nice to go back and see them but it was especially nice because I only had 8 grade 4 students (and after lunch we lost 2 of them and only had 6)! It was a nice relaxing day. I even taught them how to play my favourite game to play while substitute teaching - Snake 

At one of the schools I was at this week one of the teachers apparently brings her dog to work every single day... which is a lot less of a distraction than one might think (I guess the students are used to having the dog come to class with her). Anyways, she came into my class for one period and when she read a book to the class on the carpet the dog (which was a border collie) was sitting watching her read the book and looked just like one of the students... eager to see what the book was all about. while it sat and looked at the book.

The kids in this grade 3 class had what they called "science hats"

Science Hats!

I asked them what they were supposed to be and they kept telling me science hats so I'm not at all sure what that green stuff is supposed to represent... my guess was grass but they thought this was preposterous.

We did an Easter tanagram activity in math class that I thought was great and had them super engaged

Easter Tangrams

They coloured, cut, and remade the egg. Then they tried making those other shapes at the top of the page. Just remind them to be careful when cutting because the cuts have to be fairly presice for it to work well. The activity is from Mathsticks (and when searching for this tangram activity I actually found a bunch of other egg/Easter related activities so you might want to search it out!)

I ended the week going to swim and gym one last time with the one rural school I frequent that goes to this. It was the students last time there so we stopped at McDonalds on the way for a treat or in their case, lunch (my husband, who attended the school many moons ago, says they even did this when he was attending the school so I guess they've kept the tradition going). 

It was an easy end to the week as I was in the same class for 2 days and the list on the board was pretty simply: reading, math, and a science test were the harder things to do that we managed to get almost completed by the end of the morning of the first day.

And with that it's Spring Break!  

I'll be taking a break from the blog next week (although there is one post for next week ready to go so watch for that) and will be back to the blog (and school) after Easter.

Have a safe and happy Easter (and spring break if you happen to be on it)!

This Week at School

This was the week of the big snowstorm here where I live in Manitoba (one has to happen at least once a year). On Monday the weather was fine. I was sending students out for recess and making them put on their snow pants even though they were claiming it was "so hot" outside (it was likely around -20... definitely not hot). 

I went to a new school this week and had such a wonderful time that I left my name and number to hopefully make a return trip there sometime. This new to me school had a climbing wall in their gym that my grade 3/4 students were climbing on during gym class. It was also here that I got to meet Bubbles... the class fish. 

Later in the week we did another Olympic activity (they had already seen the videos I had shown a previous week so we didn't watch those. 

Biathlon was a popular pick for a sport to play

and we played "Sink the Ship" in gym class where I was picked first to be on a team both times (yes I played with them.... there were only 5 of them and they needed me to make the teams even).  I also scored all the points for both teams that I was on 

*pats herself on the back for beating a bunch of grade 1-3 students*

I also got to go on a bit of a "field trip" and we headed back into the big bad city (in which I live) to go for some swimming lessons and gym time (I was at a small rural school this day). It was a super easy afternoon since all I had to do was help with supervision.

I was supposed to be at 2 rural schools on the day of the snowstorm (one in the morning and then driving about 30 minutes to the next one for the afternoon). I checked for school closures multiple times that morning and never heard of any so off I went to the first school. This was also the day I failed to realize I was nearly on empty for gas until I got to the first school (which is when my gas light came on). Not a big deal though... there was a gas station about 20 minutes away that would be on my way to school #2. Anyways, it was on this day that no one (other than the principal) managed to make it in to school. I mean, there are only 2.5 teachers at this particular school but there are 4.5 staff members. Luckily for me, it was jello day on the colony and so I didn't have to share my dessert with anyone!... The staff at the kitchen must have been told I was the only one here though because they did end up sending more individual sized portions

Anyways, in the end, because visibility was so low (which is why no one was making it into the first school) they decided they didn't need me at the 2nd school that day and I should just stay at the colony (which was fine by me). I finished up my day there, drove home (and stopped for gas once I got back into the city) without a single incident (thankfully)

the view out one of the classroom windows during the snowstorm (yes, it's rural so there isn't much to actually see out the window but there is a building out in the distance that would easily be visible on a more clear day - I'll take another picture one day soon).

Sidenote: When I got to the school I mentioned to the principal how I was surprised that school wasn't cancelled for the day and he told me that apparently if the snowstorm would have started an hour earlier and they would have seen then how bad it was going to be they would have cancelled school. So for all of you living in the states (or elsewhere) that get school cancelled at the drop of a single snowflake.... just think of us up here in Manitoba freezing cold, a foot of snow, and with next to nothing for visibility and still going to school.

This Week At School

Not much happened this week... I'm not even sure why the teacher that I was in for one of the days this week even really required a substitute. I didn't have a class of my own and was to just offer support to a few classes throughout the day. Needless to say, it was a pretty easy day.

But the most exciting thing to happen this week was that I got to go substitute teach at the school my husband went to growing up! I was told promises of carpeted floors, no real gymnasium, and just two classrooms and well the school didn't disappoint.  I had a grand total of 10 students in my class too!

In other news... I spotted this book in a classroom this week.

Home Alone - The book

Now we have the movie AND the book to enjoy!

Storyline

Everyone and their mom knows about Tumble Books already (an online version of a book so that you don't have to actually read your students a book... you can just press play sit back and have a few minutes to yourself) but you need to pay for a subscription to use it (or, I think, you can also use your library card here to access it - but if you're like me it's a quick last minute decision to put on a Tumble Book and you don't have time to find your library card or remember the password that the division you work for has set up for it). 

So for those of us that need an online story now (and don't want to search Youtube for an appropriate one) there is Storyline.  No passwords or subscriptions or library cards required.  I've used it a couple of times in classrooms I've been in.  Also perfect if you have a child/student that requests stories about a million times in the span of an hour.  AND... if you watch closely you might even recognize the reader (the reader changes for the different stories).

SNOW DAY

Sometimes even the substitute gets a snow day

3/5 of the divisions I work for have cancelled classes today

5/5 divisions I work for have no buses running today.

the view out my door

I for one am glad I have the day off as I have a long list of things I want to get accomplished today.

At the top of the list is to attempt to revive this blog because it is no longer the beginning of the school year!...we'll see how long I'm able to keep this going.

A Message From the Principal

About a month ago the sub clerk called me with a job.  It was for grade 6 and I happily accepted the job.  Then just as we are saying goodbye she goes "oh wait!  The principal wants the substitutes to know that if any of them have hockey equipment they should bring it for the students versus teachers hockey game"

Well, I own figure skates (I also own a hockey stick so I feel like I was partway there) but I highly doubted the teachers were looking for a figure skater (that doesn't actually figure skate) for their team so my response was "so... no".

When I got to school I found out that it was the grade 12 students versus the teachers so I'm assuming I would have gotten hurt out there.

And, because you are dying to know... turns out the teachers didn't need my non figure skating skills to win the game.  They won 6-2.  But more importantly, a fine time was had by all.

Have you ever had any exciting or odd requests from your sub clerk (or a principal)?

End of the School Day Fun

I was lucky this past week and with the one day of substitute teaching that I had I only ever had a quarter of my class at a time (I was doing running records with the ones I had in the room with me).  This meant that I only had 5 students with me... needless to say it was a pretty nice day for substitute teaching (the downside being that I had to listen to a story about Monopoly about 20 times).  With the group that I had at the end of the day I asked them what they wanted to do with the last 15 minutes or so of school... I offered to put something up on the projector for them to watch but no one seemed too keen on that so then I suggested Telephone Pictionary.  

And that is what we played.

telephone pictionary progression

I think it would have worked slightly better with just a few extra students but they had a lot of fun playing it and reading (and showing) the results at the end of each game (we played 2).  It was a great way to end of off the day!

SNOW DAY

Nothing like a perfectly timed snow day in March!

Yes, I said perfectly timed

Why?

I\ve been feeling a little under the weather this week

I've got [what seems like] a never ending pile of marking

It's report card season!

My plan for the day is to get through this marking and write my ELA and science comments (I would have done French but I left a sheet at school that I need for the comments.  Aww shucks)

The only downside?

Today was our art day and I'm in charge of the all important main hallway bulletin board this month... but we need to get some artwork done first (I might add that we started this artwork about a month ago but Valentine's day, snow days, and substitutes being in for me kept getting in the way of completing it).

Today was also our computer lab day and we were going to learn how to graph in Excel so that I could put up their Olympic Medal Count bar graphs.  Looks like the Olympics continue in class 4CP!... our bar graphs will be going up on our Olympic bulletin board - also in the hallway.  

Snow Cream

I've realized that I haven't shared much of my pre Christmas festivities that I did with my students.

Here you can find some of the art we did 

I told you that we played a gift unwrapping game in my middle years class but I didn't do that in my elementary school class.

The best thing (in my opinion) that we did was make snow cream (it was such a hit we had to make it twice!)

Here is the recipe for snow cream that we used.

I made it into a little math activity by having them double the recipe the first day and then I THINK we tripled the recipe the second day.  

I would highly recommend doing this with your students if you live in a place with tons of snow.  

My 4th graders LOVED it.

Confession:  I got this idea when one of my friends posted the above link on Facebook announcing that it was the worst thing you could do because of all the chemicals in the air.  She said it was worse than drinking rain water.  Well, the day after I read that I was outside for recess duty and saw a bunch of my kids eating the snow (it wasn't dirty snow) and I decided that it would be fine.  Besides, we are out in the country and not getting the snow off a main highway or anything.  

What else did we do?

-  I made sugar cookies and we spent some time decorating them.

-  We drew names for secret santa (everyone remembered to bring in their gifts and we didn't need to use my emergency extras - I had 3 extras just in case) and obviously opened presents the morning of the last day.

-  My teaching partner and myself also opened our gifts.  I got a lot of chocolate (and lots from Germany), baking, ornaments, honey (this isn't as surprising as you think it would be), and Tim Horten gift cards.  But the most surprising present?  A webkin (that was from one of my grade 8's).

-  We went sledding 

-  In the afternoon they also had their party where they ate a ton and watched a movie (I was with my grade 8's in the afternoon though)