This Week At School

-  In SCIENCE my students created commercials on different things that use light (as in scanners for barcodes, automatic doors, cd's, telephones, and solar panels).  I really wish I could post one of them because I think they did a fantastic job (if only they would have spoken up a little more).  They were really creative though (pulling moving whiteboards, making pretend solar panels, having catchy starts, one group wrote Walmart on the board and I was confused all day why someone did it... then I watched their video and it all made sense.  I feel like such an awesome teacher this week and mostly because of this because awesome teachers video their students light commercials.  Next week we are going to watch the commercials, talk about how they could improve, and self grade the projects (and review for a science test).

-  I'm also really excited about how well we are all doing in MATH.  Seriously, 4CP is shining like a star. Everyone is getting their grades pulled up and just doing awesome.  While working on multiplying we are also doing a graphing project for the olympic games (see out bulletin board below).  On Friday's we work on our bar graphs (not in the picture).  Eventually I'll remove their predictions and replace them with bar graphs that we make in Excel in the computer lab.  One day at recess as I was stapling new medals up to our board I heard the class across the hall commenting about how many medals the countries were getting.  It's nice to see our bulletin board getting noticed!

-  We FINALLY started the comic book part of our unit in grade 8 ELA.  I have one class of grade 8's that to be honest isn't normally quiet.  But on Thursday all was quiet as they were finishing up work and flipping through comic books (and graphic novels).  Right now we are in the process of learning about comic books. Basically, I printed off 4 articles that we will read and answer questions on to learn about fonts, writing styles, and pictures then in about a week (or 2) we will get down to actually turning one of our short stories into a comic book.  I REALLY hope they do an awesome job.  I'm excited to switch up those bulletin boards in that class with some exciting comic books.

-  In FRENCH we have finished reading our 5 very basic French books.  Now we are in the process of creating our own books.  I'm excited for this as well.  I rarely have anything French related to showcase on the bulletin board so hopefully their books will turn out awesome.

-  I sadly got cut from the board members visit schedule since I will be teaching French and not ELA while they are here.  I might try to get them back out to my hut though.  The students could read them their French books (either the ones they make or the ones I gave them).

-  Next week is the ski "trip".  Don't get excited... it is a day trip.  6:30am - 6:30pm.  Which means it will be a 5:45am - 7:15pm day for me.  I guess the roads won't be busy on the drive to work!  This means planning for a substitute.  So far they will be doing problem solving, St Patrick's Day art, and heading to the computer lab.

-  My grade 4's were lucky enough to watch Canada's gold medal game in curling (they had been begging for at least a week to watch some curling over the noon hour).  I put it on while they did some math in the morning.  That same day Canada also won gold in woman's hockey.  We weren't watching it because I was reading my students the first couple of pages of an article in grade 8.  I did put on the medal ceremony for them later on.

-  On Thursday I stayed a little later to get some work done and one of my grade 8 students came at the end of the day to get some work he had to get done.  Praise the Lord they do bring stuff home with them occasionally!

It was another really great week in my classes.  I'm REALLY loving my job which is a huge change from before Christmas break when I wasn't sure if I was doing anything great.  So thankful for everything I've been blessed with there and to finally have the opportunity to show someone what I'm able to do in the classroom (other than substitute teach).

It's true

Our Olympic bulletin board (on the right are their predictions for how many medals they thought each country would get  - then broken down further to gold, silver, and bronze).

And because I teach grade 8...

What I Wore

Once again I find myself apologizing for the lack of posts.  

My excuse?

I had friends from out of town (province) in and I wanted to spend tons and tons of time with them.

Anyways, this post was easy enough so this should hold you over until my TWAS tomorrow and hopefully a lesson (or 2) next week.

I had duty yesterday.

When I have duty I wear pants.

I also wore boots outside.

Pleas notice that I got brave and tried colour on top AND bottom!

(originally I had thought my purple pants would be okay because yellow and purple are complimentary colours but it didn't look right... plus bonus: it looks like I'm supporting our football team with this colour combo!)

AND, as a bonus

3/5 of us are not from around these parts!
All dressed up for a wedding

I had all these items for forever because I was supposed to go to a wedding in November.  Then breakups happened and call me crazy but I didn't go to a wedding for his friends after that (plus I don't think I was invited any longer).  So I finally got around to taking the tags of the dress and putting it to use.

The bag I scrambled for at the mall the weekend before... I didn't know what I was looking for other then I needed something smaller than my brown bag. 

 Then I found this for $5.

  Score.

This Week At School

-  In ART we finished up our Valentine's Day project (okay, we actually took a science class to do this)

-  We are basically done our SCIENCE unit on light.  The kids are planning commercials to demonstrate the different uses of light in creative ways (solar panels, sensors, and cds are all playing a part)

-  Everyone is still loving multiplying (which makes me feel awesome)

-  We've been watching a lot of the Olympics (I've been putting it on for my grade 4's during lunch).  One day I put it on early and we were watching figure skating.  Those kids, such critics!  They were having none of the girl from China who fell a couple of times.  They really want to watch curling but I haven't let them.  Do they know how entertaining it is?  I've told them I'll put it on when Canada is playing.

-  We have been graphing the Olympics in math and our bulletin board is looking great.  I'll snap a picture of it next week sometime.

-  I love that my grade 4's loved Valentine's Day.  It makes me so happy.  I honestly didn't plan much except that I booked us on the tobaggon run.  Apparently that was all they needed.  We also made envelopes to put our valentines in, moved and cleaned desks, and ate cookies I made for them.  It was a successful morning.

-  Projections for staffing for next year are in.  Let the fun begin!

Paul Klee Valentine's Day art... we missed a step.  Stay tuned for what we did.

So many pink cookies.  I had 2 boxes of strawberry cake mix from the states (because you can't get it here... or at least you used to not be able to) and made my recess helpers and grade 4's cookies.  I thought they did not taste good.  They loved them.  

I let them do whatever they wanted for their Valentine's envelopes... the only criteria was include your name and make it have to do with Valentine's Day.  I'm really impressed.  The girl who did the 2nd photo took the time to sharpen a red pencil crayon and then rub the shavings of colour onto her page with a kleenex!  So creative!

Sidenote:  I kept telling them we were making valentine envelopes for the last few days.  Apparently I say it wrong by saying it "on-ve-lope".  "it's en-ve-lope Miss Penner" so now I can't say envelope or more.

Descriptive Words (Part 2)

You may recall my lesson on Sandwich Making. Well, that did not fill up an entire hour with my lovely 8th graders.

After we calmed down from making sandwiches I told them they were going to be aliens from another planet. Being aliens from another planet they have no idea about the type of things we have on Earth. I told them I was going to give them something and they would have to write out (in a short paragraph) what it looked like.

So I gave them each a Hershey Chocolate Kiss. I told them they weren't allowed to use any of those 3 words "Hershey" or "Chocolate" or "Kiss" in their writing.

A lot of them described it as a volcano.

Then we moved onto "feels like" they were not allowed to unwrap the chocolate yet.

Then at sounds like they dropped it on their desks a few times and then I let them unwrap it and listen to what it sounded like.

Then smells like and finally tastes like.

My room was SO quiet.

After every short paragraph I had a few students share what they had written.

This lesson (part 1 and 2) would go over great with my grade 4's (but I don't teach them ELA) so definitely use it at other grade levels!

Also, just as a heads up. One of my students was out of the room when I passed out the chocolates. When he came back and saw what everyone had he definitely said "Miss Pener can I have a kiss?". It was hilarious and the class made fun of him (it was okay, he could handle it). But if the word spread that my student asked me for a kiss it may have gotten out of hand. I was sure to tell him "yes, you may have a CHOCOLATE kiss"