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

Before I tell you about this week at school can we just take a moment to appreciate that we are officially down to our last week of school here!  4 more days with students and one inservice day and then I'm officially on summer break!  So... if I happen to not post anything at all that first week of July it's because I'm taking some time to enjoy my first week off (plus, it's my birthday that week) but the posts will continue after that!

Anywho... this week at school

I put the kids into groups and we started practicing debates.  We've been using this book and the short "articles" in it are perfect for my class... especially since the iPads at the school have been super unreliable so this way they all have a bit of research sitting in front of them ready to go.  The plan is to present out debates next week BUT.... I'm getting the morning off from school on Monday which leaves only a couple of other days as possibilities... so we'll probably just play games in ELA instead.

I took my students to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.  If you've never been you really should go.  I'm not sure I would ever arrange a field trip there again though... only because it's a lot of walking and reading (although also very interactive)... you just need to have a class of students that is all interested in that sort of stuff otherwise you'll have a handful that spend the day complaining and I am just not all about that on a field trip!  Anyways, if you are planning on visiting here (or live here) the museum is actually free to get into the first Wednesday of every month after 5pm.  4 hours will not be enough to get through the whole museum but you'll certainly learn a lot!

I played some Settlers of Catan one day with some grade 8 students.  I was supposed to be helping out on a walk to Tim Horten's but this class needed some coverage so I may not have gotten my ice cap but the trade off wasn't too bad.

Friday we had some awards in the morning and then spent the entire afternoon outside.  Luckily the rain held off until I made a mad dash to my car after school but the heat certainly did not.  It was likely sitting around +35 all afternoon.  But the kids were troopers and at the end of the afternoon the schools Rock Band put on an outdoor performance for us which was kind of cool (fun fact: my classroom was right beside the room where the rock band practiced so I could often hear them practicing through the walls... and I didn't mind it).

We had our final TUSC meeting.  It was actually the first couple of periods before we left on our field trip and about 10 or so students didn't make it to school that day because they weren't going on the field trip.  So the meeting ran relatively smoothly.  One of my students had been requesting I do one of the speeches so I came with some banana cookies to tell them about and to share with the class.  On Friday one of the boys who wasn't there the day of the meeting insisted on doing his which was making protein shakes.  He said they were good for muscle repair after a hard workout so he made everyone that wanted one do a single push up.

All in all it was not too shabby of a second to last week of school.

BUT... I'm REALLY looking forward to my summer break!

This Week At School

Ok... it will really be the last couple of weeks at school because I didn't post one of these last week... what can I say other than it was a long weekend and we were getting out of the big bad city for a bit.

Anyways...

Last week Friday I went with the grade 7's on a field trip.  It was at a University listening to some speakers.

The question on all my lovely readers minds... no we still have not finished Underground to Canada.  We were actually supposed to finish it yesterday but the assembly went quite a bit longer than I had anticipated.  We probably have about 5 pages left to read.  The good news is that because we had about a 10 minute class today I cancelled the end of the book assignment we were going to do because I want them to focus their writing energies on some persuasive essays they are writing.

So, persuasive essays... we're writing them.  My original plan was to do some debates first and then write the essays but instead we did a couple of smaller whole class debates and we will finish off the year doing some group debates.  The reasoning behind this is that I need their essays to be finished by the time I write their report cards.

Anyways, we have some really good topics that some students are choosing
-  Should college athletes be paid to play
-  Should there be no paparazzi
-  Should marijuana be legalized

We just started picking topics and researching but hopefully these essays will start taking shape soon!

TUSC is still going well and we've had some pretty good presentations.  A few that stick out are when "internet pick of the week" showed us Ariana Grande's website, when our demonstrator showed us how to throw a frisbee, the lasagna that the cook brought in, and the slime our science experimenter made for us.

Other than that... you already know about the big end of the day power outage that happened.

Today our school is competing in an ultimate tournament that I'm helping out in.  Should be really hot so it's a good thing I forgot my one and only water bottle at school.

Next week the grade 7's are going to camp for a couple of nights and yours truly is going with them!  It should be fun except that we are leaving Monday after school so I've got a full day of work and then we come back Wednesday after school and work the rest of the week.

This MONTH at school

What have we been up to in my classroom?

Well, I got strep throat a while ago and took a couple days off work.  When I came back my students accused me of having a cold because it sounded like I had something stuck in my throat.

But we've done some art and had some displayed in an art show (zebras and elephants).

We made "working" models of our digestive system then went outside and ran water through them to make them "pee"... we all enjoyed that.

We've been learning about our lungs lately.  Yesterday we put one breath into a balloon and measured how much water it displaced in a bucket.  Next week we will do some exercise and check it again.

We have been reading "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" for ELA and social studies. 

 My friend also sent me this template of a museum (okay, she had already made up all the rooms and everything so it was super easy to get my students to fill in the information).  I put a couple of my grade 6 students in charge of the different rooms in our virtual museum (my grade 5's were doing sensitive issues with another teacher).  Then I had them come up with a question for each thing they did that could be answered from reading the information they have provided.  See below for some screen shots of the museum my friend put together (I have our museum with all our info saved on my work computer only).  Hopefully we will find time to get into the computer lab to go through it.  The grade 6's keep asking when we will do it.

One day, when I'm not so overwhelmed with teaching a new grade every year, I would like to change the rooms and use this virtual museum as a template for other topics.

On Monday we are going to start a final project in Social Studies that will have groups of students studying the different decades of the 1900's. In my opinion it's a little late for a final project so I'm really hoping we can pull it off.  The last couple of weeks (there is only 3 weeks left) we will have a decade party a day.

In ELA we are making fairy tales based off of other ones that we read.  And it's taking FOREVER.  Gah.. I thought we would have time for one last novel before we departed for summer but that isn't going to happen.

And in math we are chugging along in math groups.  It makes me happy that some students were excited when we went back to math groups instead of whole class instruction.  I'm happy that they are happy.  I think we are going to quickly get through area and perimeter and do this project on volume and nets.  In grade 5 there is a weather unit that we didn't do in science (because I've been doing grade 5 and 6 science stuff) so this is a good way to incorporate that... even if it is just a little.

Last week we went to the zoo for our field trip.  My group went to the polar bear tunnel at the right time and saw them swimming.  I was super impressed... even if the picture the girls in my group took doesn't show it... they didn't tell me they were taking it.

We had our track and field day on Wednesday.  The rain held off for the most part which was always a plus.

Hopefully everyone is having a wonderful end to their school year!

(only 15 more days here... but who's counting?)

This Week At School

... Honestly, nothing too exciting happened this week at school.

Except that I took my grade 8's on their ski [day] trip.  

I went snowboarding for the first time ever and I'm already fully recovered (from my numerous falls and from my early wake up call - I got up at 5am so we could leave the city by 5:30am)

don't be fooled by the sunshine.  It was COLD

*On day 5's the middle school teachers can send their students to the computer lab over the lunch hour to get work done that just isn't getting done.  This week, I pretty much sent every single one of my grade 8's.  I actually felt super bad about it.  

The good news?  

I just finished putting in their marks and so far it looks like I'll only have to send 19 this week.  Huzzah!

Our report cards are due in a couple of weeks so I spent some time this weekend getting in some grades and starting writing my math comments (it's a start).  Hopefully no one does anything too drastic in the next couple of weeks so that I have to go in and change them.  Luckily, this report card season I'm not house hunting, buying a house, moving, packing, or getting broken up with (well... one can hope I don't start and end a relationship in the next 2 weeks - if I do I don't think I'll be too broken up about it ending).  BUT, you can expect a few less posts until spring break probably.

On Friday we had a professional development day and the guy who spoke to us was AMAZING.  Seriously, I could have listened to him all day. 

What did I get out of it?  

Hooks

I need to give my students a hook to get them interested in what we are doing... which I think I'll apply to my ELA classes.  

Right now, we are about to start writing and illustrating our comic books and I'm super excited for them to look amazing (hopefully).  While writing these comic books we are also to be working on our blogs (which are like on going journals).  The thing is, those blogs have pretty well died.  They have died and I need to resurrect them... Lazerus style.

SO... I spent last night googling and Youtubing motivational, beautiful, and inspirational commercials.  My plan is to end the commercial right before you see the product placement and have them write a blog post on what they think the tag line could mean.  Our speaker gave us an example and naturally I have no idea what the commercial is anymore. Grr...

I'm not planning to show them one this week - because I already gave them the great idea of writing about the ski [day] trip.

But next week... next week we will be watching this commercial 

(I think - I'm actually torn between 2 Sony Brovia commercials right now)

But I prefer this one

1) because I love the song (Jose Gonzales - Heartbeats)

2)  It's a beautiful commercial

3)  There is a message right before the product placement 

* FYI we have a 6 day school cycle here (and likely across Canada).  I believe it is so that if you miss school because of a holiday or an admin day you aren't always missing your Monday/Friday classes (because let's face it... holidays generally fall on Monday's and Friday's).  When we get to university then it changes to a 5 day cycle where we just go by the days of the week.

What I Wore

A thousand apologies.

I took the picture.

I thought "I should upload this and schedule the post"

and then I didn't.

What a way to announce my triumphant return to my blog... by not posting for a week.

I'm sorry.

Anyways...

Today's post requires 2 photos!

Spoiler alert:  We went on an outdoor field trip on a VERY chilly day!

I also wore mitts and wool socks that I forgot to include in the photo

I know what you're thinking... were those boots warm?

The answer:  Not particularly.

But they came on tour with me across Canada last school year and if they were good enough for all of Canada they were good enough for our outdoorsy field trip!

PS.  You can read all about my tour life here