This Week At School

I had a really awesome Friday that is causing me to forget a lot of what happened at school this week... but Friday was amazing.  I'll tell you why at the end of all of this too.

-  In math we started time.  The kids are understanding it (every last one of them).. although we have really only just talked about changing dates into numbers.  But still... I love it when we all get it.  So I introduced calendar and time and the on Wednesday I had PD in the morning and planned this awesome tangram lesson for my students to do with the substitute to get them used to talking about fractions (because it will be coming up).  They apparently loved it and I'm kind of sad I wasn't there. So sad that I had us do more tangram work the following day and then for the last 30 minutes I had races with students to see who could figure out how to build different tangram shapes first.
-  I also planned an awesome Science lesson for that morning I was away.  The students had been working on making instruments that could change their pitch.  Some got it, many brought in maracas (and didn't get it).  But the truly awesome thing?  Their instruments!  We had some really amazing instruments (some of them brought them home so I never got to see them).
-  We are wrapping up our unit on Family in French
-  We are in the middle of our poetry unit in ELA (this coming week I'll have them actually start creating poems now that we have read and thought about a bunch of them).
-  Last week in Health we talked about coping strategies for when bad things happen to us.  This week we talked about coping strategies for when we are stressed out.  This coming week students will show me what they learned by making a short comic strip that shows a character getting stressed out but then shows a positive coping strategy to deal with that stress.

I'll leave you with some photos of some of the instruments my grade 4's created 

(I think some of them had A LOT of adult help with them)

OH, and that interview?

Well I didn't get THAT job.

But that's okay because after hearing what the job was exactly I didn't know if it was right for me.

Then on Friday I found out that I got a different job anyways (I won't give too many details just yet but I'm really happy about the term).

HUZZAH to getting to take a summer off!

What I Wore

This weeks weather has been all over the map.  It's been nice, it's been rainy (we even had indoor recess a couple of times), and yes, it has even been snowy.  Luckily it isn't May yet... otherwise we could all cry over the fact that it snowed yesterday!

Sidenote:  I won a bet with one of my students because it snowed.  Apparently we bet $2 and I have zero recollection of any of this but I do remember telling this class that Friday was not going to be nice and so we would have their outdoor celebration the following week sometime.  No, I won't collect that $2 from him.

I also had an interview this week so I had to show up to school fancy (even though I was only at school for a half day because I had PD in the morning).

Check back tomorrow to hear more about this interview I went on

Pranks

It all started a few weeks ago when one of my grade 8 classes would try to prank me.  Their attempts were mostly putting a stack of chairs in front of one of the doors to my room (I have to doors to my room though).

I guess the other class found out and so now EVERY TIME they try to get to the room before me (I see them right after lunch so if I have a lunch meeting they will always beat me there).  

What have they done?

1. They've put 2 stacks in front of the door along with the recycling bin (they've done this twice now)
2. They've taped down everything on my desk (this I actually thought was pretty good)
3. They've left sticky notes on my chair so that when I sit down it would stick to me... the sticky note always advertises "free hugs" and I always see it
4. They put tape between my desk and a table so that when I walked by it I would get it on my pants (to make sure I would walk that way they also put a chair beside my desk so that I would choose to walk around the other way rather than move the chair - another good one).
5. They stacked tables in front of BOTH doors... I was able to push them out of the way
6. They put tape all over my white boards.

By number 5 I had had enough and I talked with them about it.  It's okay to do it every so often but when you do it EVERY SINGLE CLASS it becomes too much.  Plus, now they are wasting school supplies and that isn't cool with me.  Hopefully they got the message.

BUT myself and the other grade 8 teachers are on a mission to get those kids back.  We just need to come up with the perfect prank... that class told me that I should make them cookies as their reward for good behaviour and I told them if I made them cookies they were going to be vinegar cookies for everything they have done... they thought it was funny... but it has to be something else.  Something much, much better.  

So, did your teacher ever play a prank on you or your class?  What was it?

Are you the queen/king of playing pranks on students/children/others?  Fill me in on some of your better ones!

I leave you with this video on a prank that some university/college students played on their professor.  

Enjoy!

This Week at School

I hope everyone is enjoying their Easter weekend!

My body seems to know when there is a holiday more often than not and so I've been dealing with a cold.  Hopefully I'm better by Monday!

In my tired, sick state it's hard to remember exactly what we did this week at school but here's what I do know...

-  We FINISHED number sense!  Hallelujah!  (I still have their division tests sitting in my school bag to mark.
-  We started making instruments to wrap up our unit on sound.  One of the criteria (that we even put a star beside) was that the instrument either had to be able to change its pitch or play different notes.  So I have about half the class making maracas... I guess that half of the class is choosing to forfeit those marks.
-  Flamingos are up (see below).  I think I called those flamingos peacocks at least a dozen times... I should really have them make peacocks sometime.
-  Speaking of peacocks I had someone put peacock feathers in my school mailbox.  I've since figured out who it is... now to think up something to do with them (until I think of something to do with them I'll likely add them to my peacock wreath

-  We started poetry and I am [mostly] over the horror that was my first lesson (okay, be saying it was a horror makes it seem REALLY bad... it wasn't that awful).  I'm having the kids do some higher level thinking while filling in poetry journals, answering questions about poems, and writing reflective responses.
-  We are wrapping up our unit on Family in French by making books about our families AND we will be doing a short presentation on our families as well.  I also gave them their Etre and Avoir test.  I wasn't entirely sure if we had talked it to death yet or not... and I was definitely expecting about half the class to get it and half the class to not get it... judging by their tests that was about right.
-  Nicer weather has FINALLY arrived and I'm thinking we need some spring type art project for Monday (I'm thinking something to do with tulips in Holland) stay tuned to see if I come up with (find) anything.

Stay tuned for the lesson on flamingo drawing!

My grade 8's have handed in their comic books and some of them look AMAZING!

I made it into this students comic... but is that really what I look like?