A Day in the Life (Part 5)

Catch up on the last few weeks of this story by reading:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

So you've survived your day as a substitute teacher 

and are heading home... what will you do?

Well if you are me, as soon as you get home you will jump online to check if any jobs have been posted. You will make sure your phone is always near you in case Subfinder calls. Forget going to the movies, or the library... you need to be able to answer your phone... a job could disappear within seconds if you don't see it first.

And your day as a substitute teacher will start all over again tomorrow.

Only tomorrow you will be in a new school and classroom (sometimes even a new division/district). The students will change, the rules will change, and what you will be teaching... it will all change.

Substitute teaching is often times like starting a new job every single day.

So let's all have a little more respect for our substitute teachers! Tell them when you think they are doing well, tell them where the staffroom is, tell them where the staff washrooms are, pick them a flower, and compliment their choice of footwear (necklace, hairstyle, nail polish).  

Next week:  The question remains.. why do I substitute teach? 

Area and Perimeter

One of the last things I did with my grade 4's in math was to talk about area and perimeter.  

This was the first time some of them had ever heard of it so there was no test or too many worksheets... we just had fun with it.  

Here is where I first talked about area and perimeter with my grade 4's.  We watched a video of someone reading a story that we stopped often to think about how table settings could be arranged and finding out the area and perimeters of our names.

I don't recall how I came up with the idea for this math/art lesson (they questioned me this day if we were actually doing math because they were positive it seemed more like art - sneaky sneaky me).  If you've seen it elsewhere on the internet I'm sure I am not the first person to ever do this!

Anyways, we had our names all done and this day we were going to figure out the area and perimeter of ourselves (kind of).  We started off by each having a piece of graph paper that they were to draw themselves on (using the lines of the graph paper).  I told them to not cut too many boxes in half or do too many diagonal lines because it would just make things more confusing later on when they had to count all those boxes.

I had spent sometime after school the previous day (and the morning of this lesson) cutting up construction paper into tiny squares... looking back on this I would have cut the paper into even smaller squares... they were just too big when you put a bunch of them together on a giant piece of paper.

To get them working on the project right away I told them that they were going to make themselves based on what they were wearing that day.  This way they didn't have to waste all kind of time deciding if they wanted a pink or purple shirt... they were stuck with whatever colour they currently had on.  Luckily, I had on a stripy dress which (I feel) took forever to lay out on the paper.  But alas, rules are rules and I should probably obey my own rules.

When they had their final version done all nice and big (likely on 2 pieces of paper) they were to count all the pink, blue, white, black, etc squares that they used.  They would eventually add all these numbers up together to get the area of the person they did in units squared.  Then they had to add up the entire perimeter of the person... so every outside edge.  They wrote that down with just units.

Here are our some of our finished masterpieces:

Here's mine!  We worked together at finding out all the numbers.

Someone apparently had a purple face the day of this activity (he also told me that the pointy things on top of his shoulders were his hands)

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...

We Care

Today's post of mine is simple

You should all go and read:

"What Students Really Need to Hear"

Why?

because I think it is well written and deserves some more reads

because I want students to know that we (their teachers DO care)

because I to worry/think/stress about my students (even after the last bell rings)

This isn't to say all teachers care this much... some likely are in it just for the paycheck.  But for the sake of being positive and friendly... let's say most of us (teachers) do care.