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!

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?

When a Soccer Tournament Turns into Something Else

A week ago I mentioned that I took a class to a soccer tournament where we spent all day outside.  

Naturally, when you go to any school activity or event a teacher takes pictures (a substitute doesn't normally though so I did not take pictures).  Well one of the other adults at the tournament turned to me at some point near the end of the day and goes 

"People are going to think we went to a gymnastics meet, I've got pictures of kids making pyramids, doing handstands, and giving piggy back rides but not a single picture of kids playing soccer"

So the question needs to be asked... at what point does a soccer tournament turn into a gymnastics meet AND... if there are no pictures of the tournament itself... did it really even happen?

This Week At School

This week at school I...

I went to a soccer tournament and spent all day outside.  Luckily it wasn't too cold (although I definitely wore gloves and a toque most of the day) and the rain held off until the bus ride back to school.

I went to a different colony school (but one that I had been to last year) and taught middle years.

I went to a kindergarten classroom and quickly realized that kindergarten is tricky this time of year... routines are being drilled into them so much they definitely do lose their minds when anyone strays even the slightest from their routine.

I had a half day turn into a full day.  The teacher that I ended up covering for the in the afternoon was also away for the morning but they couldn't find a substitute teacher for her (so I think someone else covered the couple of classes she had in the morning).  I doubt anyone thought there would be a substitute teacher shortage this early on in the year!

I was a French teacher... very little French was spoken.

I was in a classroom with a student teacher!  Huzzah!  These always make for easier days.

We played some Silent Ball and Snake.

Needless to say it was a busy week at school (and I've already got quite a bit booked for next month already too).

This Week OFF From School

School has officially started back up where I live but this substitute teacher still had this week off!

We went to the lake for the long weekend (a different lake from all the other times we've gone to one this summer though).

Although I wasn't feeling the greatest all weekend I did manage to still go out for ice cream (black forest - YUM), play games, a long hike, and catch the "live action" Lion King in the theater in the park!

Here are a couple of shots taken from our hike

Last week I mentioned I found a cake recipe that required lots of apples that I had made and I went ahead and made it again this week for the lake.

Apple Cake

You can find the recipe here but I made a few changes (after reading some of the comments)

1) I used a half cup less sugar

2)  Then I used 3/4 cup white sugar and 3/4 cup brown sugar instead of just using white sugar

3)  I used an extra cup of chopped apples (so 4 cups)

4) I added a generous 2 tsp of vanilla

5)  Before I poured the batter into the bundt pan I greased the edges with butter and then made a cinnamon sugar mix to sprinkle on the edges (it will stick to the edges because of the butter)

6) I baked it in a bundt pan at 350 for about 55 minutes

When it comes out of the oven it will smell like doughnuts and you'll understand why I made it twice in 2 weeks!

I FINALLY went to the doctor after getting back from the long weekend because my ears were making it feel like I was stuck on an airplane in the sky for the last week.  After telling me I have a sinus infection she wrote me 3 prescriptions and told me to come back in a few days if I'm not feeling much better.  

Unfortunately, I'm STILL not feeling much better (or at least my ears aren't) so it'll be back to the doctor next week probably.

I made salsa!

Homemade Salsa

This is the result of about 2-3 hours of chopping!.. well half the result our pots weren't big enough until it cooked down a bit so I started it in 2 pots.

At this point everything but some of the tomatoes (we ended up buying 50lbs of roma tomatoes from Superstore because they were on for an amazing price - $16 for 50lbs) and the onions were from our garden.

So, peppers, tomatoes, chilies, and jalapenos all came from our garden.

In the end it only made 3.5 quarts which I'm pretty surprised by... it originally seemed like so much more!  But it should last us for the year.

I went to a friends birthday party.

I'm hoping that by next week I manage to work at least a half day to report on but if that fails I did manage to book what could potentially be my first day back in a couple of weeks from now!

This Week OFF From School

Well, I can't say I feel like I accomplished much this week off from school.

My cough is nearly gone (it's about time) and is being replaced with a stuffy nose in the evening and mornings especially (a girl just can't win).

I did manage to go for another really long walk

Can you believe this place is in the city?

I also made some more slow cooker meals for our freezer.  These ones are marinara chicken (and I actually made 4 other bags of just the chopped up zucchini because we had some that was ready to be used.  So I'll have 7 of these meals in the freezer... it will likely last us until next summer.

I made a cinnamon raisin loaf for Saturday morning

This was taken a couple of hours before it was done baking... I had to get the blog up before it would be done!

And I made a bunch of these coconut chocolate chip cookies (they are my favourite!)

I spent the day at the lake with some friends.  It was a bit chilly so I didn't go swimming but I did venture out for a paddle in the canoe (that we managed to stay dry for)

I have a friend that is going to school in the next province over so we had a little good bye party for her... which consisted of us mini golfing.

I've officially got one more week of summer break and then it's back to school for the kids.  My guess is as a substitute I likely have 2 more weeks of break (I checked for jobs online this week and there was still nothing).  

Still plenty of time to start feeling better!

... hopefully!

This Week OFF From School

Not going to lie... this week was a bit of a rough one.

I'm STILL sick.  It's got to be about week 4 of my cough (which in my opinion has actually improved quite a bit since week 1 but I'm just over it)

If last week was all about fitness this week was all about home improvement.

To start with we (as in my husband) broke up our back patio area with a jackhammer and then we (yes... we) hauled 2400lb of busted up concrete to the dump.  It was hard work!

I wish I would have taken a before picture but here are some during pictures

We were rained out for day 1... here's what we got accomplished

and our first load of concrete that we took to the dump

here's the progress after day 2.  We took our the grass between the patio area and the shed (and removed the rest of the concrete and took a load to the dump)

day 3 I can't take much credit for.  I helped spread some of the gravel around but I was pretty sore from the previous 2 days

 I FINALLY made my goal to walk/run 30km in a week!  And I did it a day ahead of time too!

Some pictures from the walk that put my over my goal

What I love about this particular walk is that I can stop in at a Starbucks beforehand and walk from there with my iced coffee and it's almost an 8km walk that I do which definitely helps to make my goal!

I finished painting around our door

I picked all our apples that had fallen on the ground already..

crab apples (and some tomatoes from the garden too)

and then promptly used them to turn into apple buns (which I used to have a recipe for but it disappeared from the interwebs so I had to kind of make my own recipe up... needless to say they turned a little dark but still taste good!)

I peeled, cored, and baked the apples in a muffin tray for about 20 min at 350

apple buns (with some rhubarb muffins that hadn't gotten eaten or frozen yet in the back corner)

I also made some hotdog and hamburger buns in preparation for our weekend

I got an email saying that I had to do some online classes in order to substitute teach in one of the divisions I've worked in for the past few years.  It came as a bit of a surprise... especially since what they wanted me to complete would take a few hours but I sat down and got it [nearly] completed.  I'll finish the last section or 2 next week!

And... I haven't done it yet (but as I type this out it's only Friday afternoon) but I may make some kind of caramel popcorn today in preparation for the weekend as well!

This Week OFF From School

This week off from school was all about fitness.  

As of Friday evening I had walked or ran 24.15km.  Which if you are keeping track means I was just shy of 6km to my 30km in a week goal (I'll update at some point on Saturday to let you know if I ever got those extra few km in).

In addition to all the walking and running I did this week I also finished one level of a workout video I had been doing and moved on to level 3.  I don't actually know how long one is supposed to do each level but I figured I would know once I had mastered it and I felt like I had.

Last weekend happened to be a long weekend so we were at the lake for that.  Which was perfect because I finally got to wear my "birthday suit" (only a month after my birthday) and it was a scorcher so it was so nice to be able to jump in the lake to cool down.

Other than that I made another batch of slow cooker freezer meals.  This time I made some butter chicken (which is delicious).  We use already frozen chicken which is why it sits a little funny in the bag.

Butter Chicken

I also FINALLY painted the trim around our front door from our renovations that we did nearly a year ago!  It had actually cooled down enough that I figured having the door open for an hour during the day wouldn't let in all the bugs and heat so I did it!

I couldn't get a great before or after picture but I think you'll get the idea.

Front door before being painted

Front door after being painted

Also, that piece that I left at the bottom of the door and window is actually metal so I wasn't sure if I should attempt to paint it or not... we've since decided that I should try to paint it... but that's a job for another week!

I'm also feeling like now we need to replace our front door hinges and door knob to be black to complete the look.

And, I really spent a lot of time working on the rest of this months blog posts.  Something you may now know about me is that I typically write posts about a month in advance when possible.  If something comes up I'll shuffle things around a bit but it's a really good feeling to be working a month ahead of yourself... so it's odd that now that I have time off I had only been working a week ahead of myself (and sometimes just a couple of days).  So I'm feeling kind of accomplished.
Of course if you ever want to collaborate on something I would be more than happy to and my blog posts are easily adjusted.

And that folks, was my week!

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).

All Kids Should Play

So, there's a short film about playground inclusion that's been circulating around lately

Some things I would do with this video:

Show it to my students

Have them talk about what they think is happening (especially in the first half)

Have them come up with ways to include everyone at recess

Have them share with the class when they follow through with some of those inclusion ideas.

In my opinion kids are often excellent at including others which is awesome because sometimes I'm sure kids don't want to spend their recess with their EA (Education Assistant)... it's like having to spend your recess following your teacher around.

But I'm not so naive as to think that all kids are excellent at doing this.

This video could help.

How would (or how have you) used this video in your classroom?

If you want to know more about the video or find some resources visit Respect Ability

Snow Pass

I found a brochure about this in a classroom last year sometime (I'm assuming it's still hopefully a program that is going on). Basically, you pay just under $30 and your child (who has to be in either grade 4 or 5) can snowboard at any of the listed places up to 3 times in a 2 year span (assuming they are in grade 4 the year you purchase the pass - once your child hits grade 6 it looks like the pass will no longer be valid).

You can apply on line here and it should list the places where your snowpass would be valid. Manitoba (which is where I live) only offers 3 places so it's only 9 trips to the ski hills total here but if you lived in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, or Quebec there are over 20 qualifying places (in 2017) to ski in each province (which if you do some quick math - 20x2=60 trips to go skiing for just under $30... I don't know how much lift tickets cost but this seems like a really great deal).

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 OFF From School

I've been taking it a little easier again this week due to my back issues again and the fact that its been pretty smokey outside due to the fires out west but this week I did visit the chiropractor not once but twice for adjustments so hopefully things are going to be getting better soon!

I visited another flooring store and got different recommendations for what we should put in our house.  One store says waterproof laminate, another click together vinyl and this third one says glue down vinyl. 

I also brought home some more samples for John to see and this time they are too dark (last week they were too light)... it's like I'm living with Goldilocks here!

I made these cucumber chips in a dehydrator that we borrowed

They weren't my cup of tea but if you are interested in the recipe you can find it here

I'm proud to say we FINALLY have our cucumber situation under control... now to just get the zucchini under control.. maybe zucchini chips are in our future next week.

We made some chocolate cherry ice cream. 

We make this one a lot!... so it's definitely delicious and you can find the recipe here

We've altered the recipe a little to add chocolate because that's an important ingredient for my husband.

We also attempted to make some Turtle Ice Cream but we haven't been having a whole lot of luck with our ice cream attachment lately so as I'm typing this it still isn't frozen (but hopefully I'll have a better update on this situation for next week)

I hung out with my cousins kids once this week

I emailed another company to get a second opinion on our kitchen renovations (and to see what they would quote the renovations at).  Still waiting to hear back though.

Speaking of our kitchen renovations I'm starting to stock pile stuff in the freezer so that we don't have to eat out too often while the renovations are happening. Between the slow cooker, microwave, toaster oven, pizza oven (John insisted we needed one), and the bread maker I'm hoping we will be able to get by without an oven for a bit.  Right now we have 5 pizzas (I usually make them homemade but the frozen ones were on sale for a good price so I stocked up!), and a bunch of slow cooker meals (butter chicken, chicken marinara, roasts, steak fajitas, and sweet and sour chicken) all prepackaged (for the most part... we desperately need chicken to go on sale so we can get that main ingredient in most of them).  I'm also hoping to get a few soup options into the freezer as well.. the problem with this it's really not soup weather here and what I usually do is make a full batch and we'll eat half of it and I'll freeze the other half.  I'm expecting us to start eating a lot of soup come September... hopefully.  I also still need to make a couple of batches of cookies for the freezer as well.  I'm thinking peanut butter and my coconut chocolate chip ones.  And likely one lasagna will get added as well.  At this point the freezer should be decently full and we should hopefully have enough dinner options to last us a month... at least.

I went on a shopping spree for the kitchen yesterday...

Who would have thought the first things we purchase for our kitchen would be the sink and faucet?

as in I bought 2 thing for it.. but sinks and faucets are expensive!

Anyways, with a 90 day return policy I feel like we still have plenty of time to make returns if they don't work out with the kitchen design and they were on sale now.

The vacuum I used a bunch of gift cards to pay for... so that was free (and I might add a really good price.  If you are looking for a Dyson vacuum Best Buy currently has them on sale... I bought mine at The Bay - they price matched it).

Finally, we spent more time at the lake.  It was REALLY hot this past weekend... like feeling above 40 kind of hot so we were pretty thankful to be able to spend time there!

This Week OFF From School

Here is the run down on weeks 2 and 3 of summer vacation

I've now made it to running for 30 minutes.. which is actually the end of the program so now I'll probably increase it every week by a couple of minutes until I get to about 35 minutes and then just work on increasing speed.

We went to the cabin a couple more times.

I picked 8 more liters of strawberries!... and froze the majority of them.  We should be set for strawberries in our smoothies until March (hopefully).

We've been eating a lot of zucchini around here.  Something has to be made out of zucchini every week and we still are having to freeze some.  So far we've had roasted zucchini with parmesan and spices, zucchini cake, and once we substituted zucchini to use instead of pasta with some spaghetti... but the cheapo spiralizer I got is much too small for our massive zucchini's!

We made more ice cream... John insisted on s'more ice cream and we quickly regretted attempting to make it when we realized marshmallows are incredibly sticky after been roasted in the oven... who knew!?!... it's a joke.

We are planning some pretty big renovations at our place so I went and visited the fine folks over at Kitchen Craft to help us design our kitchen.  It's still in the beginning stages but I'm hopeful that we can find a way to have then oven in a spot I like and still have a pantry in the end.  *fingers crossed*

I go for walks with my cousin that lives in the area a couple of times a week.  This week we visited a Starbucks on our walk and you know what grinds my gears... that we don't have a single Starbucks in my area where we can redeem our stars.  

On another walk I found the most perfect dress at Winners but it was just a bit too small for me... so I went in search of it at 2 other Winners and Marshall stores and haven't been able to find it again.  I'm hopeful I'll come across it again though because I want to wear it to a wedding I'm going to at the end of August.

I did find this dress though

In a mustard yellow and another one in red.  I'm tempted to go back and get it in red.

I've been a weed pulling machine.  The front, back, and side yard are looking a lot better these days!

The backyard... with the garden in the back

Of course if you really wanted to find a weed in the grass somewhere it wouldn't be hard to do but I'm pretty impressed with the job I did regardless.  Now it just has to rain so the grass can go back to being green!

We went mini golfing and despite me getting 3 hole's in one and John getting none I still lost.

This Week At School

... was the last week of school!

There wasn't a whole lot to do this last week of school.  I would have had my students present their debate topics in the process of an actual debate but they were doing very little in all their other classes it just wasn't working out for them to get much accomplished in ELA.  We did do a couple of them informally though.

I went for many walks to the local 711 with my students.  When one girl walked out with an extra large slurpee announcing that her mom doesn't even let her get a medium I told her that if her mom happened to find out about the size of slurpee she decided to purchase that she should just tell her mom "but mom, you don't let me get mediums"

I even found time to squeeze in a half day personal day in this last week.

I helped teachers stuff report card envelopes.

I helped a new teacher start the process of setting up her classroom.

And on Friday I got appreciated at a staff lunch because I won't be there next year.

For those of you wondering... as it stands currently I don't have anywhere to be next year.  Hopefully a lovely grade 4-6 position opens up in a lovely school that I manage to snag soon... hopefully it's also permanent because then the classroom is actually mine.  Boy would it feel great to have my very own classroom where all my teaching stuff can just stay for forever instead of always having to come home with me at the end of every school year.

But anywho, I hope all the teachers reading this have a lovely and well deserved break... and remember... I'm available to sub for you!

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!

Winged Distractions

Birds used to (and likely still do) fly into the big living room window at my parents place often. They just thought inside looked super inviting I guess. Never have I ever been in a classroom when a bird has wanted to get in there though. What this says about my classrooms I'm not sure... I guess they weren't very bird inviting?

That is until the other day.... I'm going to leave out the grade level and we can all play a fun little game where we try to guess what grade I was teaching.

So we are all quietly doing our work when all of a sudden we hear a bang at the window. A couple of heads turn around and I ask "did a bird just fly into the window". That's when nearly every student in the room instantly got up and dashed to the window. The window in this particular room wasn't even very big.. so kids were sitting on the counter, standing behind the counter and then standing on chairs just to catch a glimpse of the outside world and the bird that may still be there.

Turns out it was a bird that flew into the window... or at least they found one on the ground (I'm assuming the two instances are related). Of course, when you see a bird on the ground your first instinct is to go out and help it out. Numerous students then asked me if they could go outside. I told them they couldn't because I didn't want them picking up the bird. They also asked if they could bring the bird inside... I definitely told them no to this because I didn't want to be the one responsible for a bird flying around the school. Eventually though a couple of very concerned girls didn't care and rushed out there... the rest of the class looked on from inside.

About a minute later one of the students from inside told me that one of the girls was now holding the bird... great I think to myself... so I go outside and see her stroking the tiny bird's head. Eventually the vice principal happened to walk by and I told him what happened and he convinced the girls to put the bird back on the ground (apparently it fell right over as soon as they put it down) and we all got back to the classroom.

This was when everyone had to share their bird stories.

"Once a bird flew into our window"

"Once a bird flew into our house!"

"Once I had a pet bird"

It went on and on... in typical grade 1 fashion. Only this wasn't grade 1... it was grade 8.

I guess you are never too old to share related stories when something exciting happens.

This Week At School

I'm going to try something different for this TWAS post...

In my other life (my time that I don't teach) I belong to a church small group where we share our highs and our lows from the week.  So to help keep this post a little shorter I'm just going to share a high (or two) and a low from the week.

LOWS

-  I've had to make some phone calls home to parents this week.  I'm just fed up with a couple of my students behaviour and I'm hoping my talk with both of them has had some kind of impact on them for the following week... I'll have to follow up with them on the talk first thing Monday morning to remind them.

-  Why oh why can't students listen when I'm telling them things?  I feel like I just give instructions, I ask if there is any questions and immediately a hand shoots up to ask "so what do you want us to do?"  Good thing on our "Ask 3 Before Me" chart there is a listening category.

HIGHS

-  In science we made levers out of random objects.  

CD cases, rulers, spoons, forks, knives, chop sticks, even a pool noodle.  

I gave each student a marshmallow that they put their initials on (and I told them if they did not eat the gross markered up  marshmallow I would give them a good one at the end of the day... which was an hour away).  I gave them a couple minutes to think about how they would use their object and then I took them outside to launch them at me.  I grabbed some goggles from the science teacher announced to my class "safety first" and then let them shoot them at me.  They had a lot of fun.  No one hit me or had theirs land in the bucket but we had some close ones.  

When we came back inside we talked about 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class levers.

Later on we are going to try it again but this time they are going to build catapults.  I'm looking forward to it!  But the REALLY interesting part was who could not wait until the end of the day to get a nice, clean, full marshmallow to eat... They knew they wouldn't get one if they ate theirs ahead of time.  

Some of us need to work on patience it seems.

-  We had our last cross country run on Friday!... and someone from my grade 5/6 team got first for her grade and gender category!  

I'm super impressed with all of my students... 

the previous Friday we were running in about +30 degree weather which was wonderful 

and then this Friday... 

I think it maybe got up to +3.  

But that wasn't the worst part... 

the worst was that it was snowing some of the biggest snowflakes I had ever seen!  Seriously, they were huge.. if you would of looked up at the sky and trees you would have thought it was the middle of winter.  Luckily, the snow was melting as soon as it hit the ground... unfortunately that just made for a very muddy and wet run.  

But everyone completed it and so everyone deserves a big HUZZAH!

I've signed my lovely self up for a teacher question and answer period... I'm not exactly sure what questions are going to come through but I would like you all to have a say in it!

If you have any questions about teaching (or substitute teaching) you should comment below OR email them to

confessionsofamodernday@live.com

I plan to use all the questions I get in a future blog post... so stand by.