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

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).

Classroom Christmas Party

Welcome here!  Today I'm linking up with my other blog:  Confessions of a Modern Day Mennonite to talk about Classroom Christmas Parties for Blogmas.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Because.. tomorrow is the last day of school before Christmas break (oh how it's flown by... or not)

For those of us that are throwing together a Christmas Party for our students last minute have no fear!... I'm here to help!

Kids are easy to please... all they want is to eat and to hang out (most of the time)

So...

Make a sign up sheet for what kids can bring to the party (baking, drinks, veggies, fruit, chips, and whatever else you want to show up at the party!)  I've never had problems with kids not being willing to sign up... in fact last year I made them sign up for one party each (Christmas, Valentine's Day, Spring Break, and end of the year) so that we wouldn't have an abundance of food and all go home feeling sick.

One year I looked up a bunch of Minute to Win it games on Teachers Pay Teachers.  There are tons that are free and the supplies are super easy to get your hands on.  We formed teams and battled each other in them.

One year I made my students sugar cookies in the shape of gingerbread men and we decorated them (this likely wouldn't take very long... but it could take up part of the time AND you could even get students to practice measurement by getting them to make the cookies (and icing).

Movies.  All mine ever wanted to do was to watch a movie.  And so, we often did that.

One year I had a karaoke machine show up to a classroom party (you can find a number of karaoke songs on Youtube)

A little while ago I posted about Just Dance.  I think students could still be into Just Dance even without the actual game... you can find it on Youtube too.

Get students to bring in any games they want to play.

When I was teaching grade 8 one year I wrapped a pencil up again and again so that it was in a box that a bunch of plates came in eventually.  I had students sit in a circle on the floor and roll a dice.  Anytime a certain number was called (like 1 for example) they had to put on a pair of oven mitts and try to unwrap the present... only using their hands.  They really liked it.  The pencil ended up breaking at some point in the madness though.

Print off some Christmas colouring pages and there you have it... you sir (or ma'am) have yourself a great party that took you no time at all to plan.

Are you having a Christmas Party in your classroom?
What are you doing for your Party?

Let me know in the comments!

Just Dance

Did you know that you can find Just Dance on Youtube? 

Did you know that doing it with your class of nursery and kindergarten students is just the cutest thing ever?

The class that I was substituting for loved their One Direction!

We used is at a break after carpet time and as a replacement for gym.

Of course it doesn't actually monitor if you are doing it correctly but that class didn't know the difference!  Plus, the older grades might just want to dance and be happy with that!

I could also see this being used:

- For indoor recess 

-  To do during a class party (at the end of the year last year all the grade 5 and 6 teachers worked together to plan something different in their rooms.  We had a game room, movie room, and karaoke room (maybe this could have replaced my karaoke room).

How else could you use Just Dance in the classroom?

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!

End of the Year

My students finished classes on June 26th and then I was at school on June 29th and 30th this year (how sad that we actually had to go right to the end of June this year).

I really hadn't been doing so great at snapping pictures lately and the end of the year was no exception.  

So let me just share with you what we did

1) Decades Parties.  

I put a pair of students (some worked in groups of threes) in charge of a decade of the 1900's to share about it with the class.  I gave them a sheet with some suggestions and whatever they picked from there had to total 100 points.  We had a lot of Power Point presentations, food, dressing up in clothes from the decade, and trivia games.  Some groups did a really awesome job at it.  We had at least 1 "party" a day for the last 2 weeks of school.

2) Loonie Carnival

This year my students were in charge of helping the teachers at the different centers.  Mine were puzzle races and fish races... Fish races were a huge hit until I switched the candy from sour soothers to gummy bears.  We did this the morning of our last day.

3) Parties!

The kids threw me a surprise birthday/going away party (my birthday is July 3rd).  There was food, games, a movie, and even a karaoke machine!  They were so thoughtful and when I came back to the room (after being kicked out so they could set up) my desk was covered in presents!

Then about a week later they asked what I was going to do for them.  My original plan was to walk to the ice cream store and to get them each a cone but then someone suggested I just buy ice cream and toppings and stretch that dollar a little more... so that's what I did.  I think I spent about $50 on all the ice cream and toppings and boy were we stuffed!  We ate our ice cream outside... it was a REALLY hot day.

4) Movies, Karaoke, and Games

On Friday afternoon the grade 5 and 6 students got to pick a room to hang out in.  We knew we were going to do games in one and a movie in another... when I asked my students what they wanted in our room they said karaoke... again.  And it had to be my room since I had the mic.  

5) Art and Poetry Books

Throughout the year I was collecting all the artwork my class had done and adding it to a folder with each students name on it.  For every piece of art that we did I also had them write a poem to go with it.  At the end of the year I took out their folders and they organized them how they would like it to be in a book.  They also made a cover for their books.  I spent a looong time binding all those books together BUT it was so worth it.... last year I saw a lot of art work end up in the recycling bin... at least this year it didn't end up in there (at school at least).  I'm definitely going to continue this.

And Finally, something that didn't happen.

I didn't end up getting a teaching position for next year in my division.

I wasn't eligible for another term and I suppose they couldn't hire a permanent teacher.

So, it looks like it is back to substitute teaching for me.

I'm still applying to other teaching jobs that I'm seeing posted but right now, the plan is to substitute teach starting in September.

So, look forward to some more stories from the substitute teacher's classroom!

When at first you don't succeed...

What have I been up to?

I'm making my own Welcome sign for my classroom.  I had mild expectations for this... mostly because I thought making an ombre sign would be easy... it isn't hard to tell that it doesn't really look all that ombre though.  Whoops!

This one is confusing for everyone who doesn't see my vision (I'm assuming none of you have been inside my head recently to know my vision).  

Do I have money on the mind?  

Maybe the letters are in the wrong order?

Pretty sure for middle school camp we had something called the "Omal" award... why omal?  It was lamo spelt backwards... 

We gain access to the school on the 18th for the first time all summer.  You'll just have to wait until then to see this vision.

Today is a civic holiday in Canada.  For me this means a family gathering in the park. 

I was to bring some kind of baking (my mom said cookies and naturally I choose to not make cookies) so I'm making homemade Twix bars.  The only problem?  I realized at around 8:30 last night that I didn't have enough caramels to make it.  Not sure when stores open today but I figure it I walk to one around 11 even if it doesn't open until noon I'll only look like the lady desperate for her next caramel fix for half an hour or so... or I'll just show up to the gathering with just this... 

Other things:

-  I finished the writing folders a while ago (I still need to test this permanent marker being able to be removed with nail polish remover before I decide what to do with the names)

-  I've been dreaming up ways to make my math class more exciting.  I found some interesting stuff on interactive math journals that I want to try.  I wasn't sure on the price but it has good reviews on Teachers Pay Teachers... plus I heard it through the grapevine that there is a 20% off sale on Teachers Pay Teachers today and tomorrow so I loaded up my wish list and I'm ready to do some purchasing!

-  Since I'm teaching a split class I can choose between the 2 grades what I want to teach for Science... I based my decision on what the teachers taught last year and picked my 4 units... I'm excited!

-  I found some fun activities to do for the first week or so of school - math pendants, science experiment (if only I could find some sodium polyacrylate at a reasonable price!... I think I'm going to try getting it straight out of a diaper), bio poems, and group work challenge.

-  I received some other stuff on getting your students for group work in the first 20 days of school.. just little activities for them to do each day that I think I'm going to work through

-  I've started collecting picture frames for my classroom... I want to frame our classroom rules (one rule/frame) and then put some frames up on the bulletin board permanently for student work to go in.  So far I have 4 so I'm looking for about 10 more for the bulletin board alone...

- I made a template for my classroom newsletter

-  I've come up with a really great idea for every classroom party I have this year.  I'm excited and I think it will be right up a class of grade 5's and 6's alley.  

Speaking of classroom parties... when do you have all of yours?  

Here's my tentative thoughts...

-  Fall (Halloween is taboo where I am)

-  Christmas

-  Valentine's Day

-  Spring Break

(the reason why end of the year isn't on the list is because we do whole school stuff at the end of the year)

Oh, and I fixed my Welcome sign

When at first you don't succeed... 

try, try again!

The first time I took turquoise paint and added white... I found it to work much better by using white paint and adding in the turquoise.  

Stay tuned to see if I remedied the Twix situation...

This Week At School

I know, I know... I didn't post this last week (so forgive me if I talk about 2 weeks in this post... you'll never know anyways).

-  We started fractions in MATH and we've been playing with different manipulatives to help with learning them (and I must say we are doing pretty good with fractions so far).
-  We started Rocks and Minerals in SCIENCE.  Lesson one involves them mining a cookie.  They used a toothpick to do this and if they broke their toothpick and wanted a new one they had to buy a new one off of me with something that they mined out of their cookie.  I'm not sure if anyone broke their toothpick... no one bought a new one from me though.  We also talked about destroying their cookie and how that represented the land around the mine.  Would the people that lived there be happy if you blew it up into pieces?  Let me tell you... some of the pretend people living around those cookies would not be happy with them.
-  I took a personal day and it was wonderful.
-  In French we are moving on to learning about school supplies and other objects in the classroom.  I feel like I maybe should have done this first.  Ah well.
-  In Health the kids are making comics about stressful situations and positive ways to make the character feel better.  Most of their comics are about salads and bananas beating other fruits and vegetables up.
-  We had our last student share for "Star of the Cycle". I can't believe it nearly took us all year to get through everyone!  We decided that we would turn that time into show and tell for 3 people and then afterwards we would go for a walk outside (we also went for a "rock walk" for science and I had them run a lap after finding their rocks... this may have been where they got the idea).
-  One of my grade 8 classes earned a celebration for filling up a cup with marbles.  They chose to play some beach volleyball/play in the playground.  Then we sat outside and read for a bit and worked on some poetry.  It was a really great class and I'm impressed with how well behaved (and able to listen and follow instructions) most of them were!

The kids made fraction flip books with the substitute.  Later we will add in decimals for the fractions as well.

They also made Mother's Day candles with the substitute

Dutch Tulip Fields

we've been writing a bunch of poems in grade 8.  I find that if  we write at least part of one together they understand what I'm looking for... so every day weird poems end up on my board.

Remember this.... I feel like this deserves a post of its own... I mean look at my eyes!

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)