Five For Friday: Christmas is Here!

Today I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching to bring you another Five for Friday post.  This week I'm not talking about the classroom (because I'm on break!) so I thought it would be 5 pictures from this Christmas.  I spent this Christmas away from home (by about 30 minutes) at my boyfriends parents place... then in true Christine fashion I promptly got sick just in time to not be able to fully enjoy the holidays!

Enjoy!

1.

I got together with this lovely lady and ate a waffle burger and let me tell you it was delicious.  We all need a little more waffle burgers in our lives!

2.

I made these delightful Hot Cocoa Cookies and they accompanied me to my family's Christmas.

3.

A few weeks ago John bought me flowers for no reason... I picked these ones out and I clearly did a great job at picking them because they are still just as good as when we got them!  Seeing them on my table every day makes me smile

4.

I flipped over the last day on my advent calendar 

5.

Santa brought John's sisters, mom, myself, and him animal socks for Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Starwars Yoga

All things are Starwars lately with the latest release of whatever Starwars movie just came out (I was supposed to see it but I messed up on the dates I was busy and so I didn't see it.. I'm not too disappointed except that it was apparently important to John and mine relationship that I did see it).

ANYWAYS, 

A couple weeks ago I was in a grade 2 classroom (I was lucky and had a student teacher that day and apparently I can’t stop talking about it).  Anyways, we started the day off with a 20 minute yoga video.  The kids all went and got a foam square to sit and exercise on (and to let them know where their space was).  I was not at all into the story or the yoga but the kids were!

Timelines

Looking for some classroom decor that can also lend itself to learning?  How about putting up a timeline around the border of your room?

The Social Studies curriculum where I teach would work perfect for this (at least in grades 5 and 6)... the curriculum goes over things that happened in Canada over a span of time (starting with the ice age and ending at anything current).  

All the grade 5/6 classrooms at my school last year came with this timeline already put up around the room (I'm assuming previous teachers did them) but not a lot else was done with the timelines (I'm also guilty of not doing much with the timeline in my room).  In my room the timeline included pictures of all the prime ministers and students would often check who was leading the country during a certain time OR if we were talking about one of them they would find them on the timeline to see what they looked like.  

If I ever teach in a grade 5 or 6 class again I would put my timeline to better use though.

How?

Before I do anything with the timeline I think I would have students create their own personal timelines.  We did this last year and students struggled with it a bit... BUT I'm not sure you can fully understand how a timeline works if you don't understand how to make one yourself.  If I did this again I think I would make the basic timeline for them (sectioning off the years of their lives for them and photocopying it).  I had my students put in 10 life events on their timelines.. it could have been anything:  the birth of a sibling, a trip they went on, first day of kindergarten, losing first tooth... whatever they wanted to include I was fine with because I mostly just wanted them to familiarize themselves with timelines.

Over the course of the year whenever we talk about a major event I would put it up on the timeline... perhaps with a picture and a sentence or two to summarize what happened.  I think it would be good for students to help write this summary... I'm starting to think of making up some kind of  Interactive Social Studies Journal where this would be part of what they do (because it is similar to what we did last year for our math journals).

Whenever students did some kind of project that could fit on the timeline I would select one project and put it up on the timeline where it belonged... of course not all projects will fit up there so in that case I would take a picture of the project and put it up.  

I think that even just by doing these couple of things students will glance up at the timeline more often and have it be a more useful part of the classroom.

What do you think?

Do you have a timeline in your classroom?

How do you use the timeline?

This Week At School

I go into sub for one teacher regularly and he had me help set up their classroom Christmas tree!  Well, the tree was already set up the kids just put on ornaments.

And boy do they have a talented teacher in their classroom!

I was told the teacher coloured this (it was on chart paper)

He had me do some Christmas art... this was my example

A picture one of the students drew for me.  At first I thought it was of me (because in the morning she was having difficulty thinking up something to draw for the word "pretty" so I had her list some things that she thought were pretty.  She said myself, her and the Christmas tree... so I suggested she draw us standing beside the tree... I never saw that final product).

Then I spent not 1, not 2, but 3 days in nursery/kindergarten.

Still not loving those younger grades!

But I walked out with 2 paper bracelets and a ring... so one can't really complain can they?

And tomorrow there is no school!

Hope we all enjoy our Christmas break!