This Week At School

Okay, I've been falling behind on these (but in my defence I warned you all this might happen now that I have a full time job).

So let me fill you in on what's been happening at school for like the last 3 weeks.

1) I went to camp with the grade 7 students.  It was REALLY humid.  Luckily, the station I was running was indoors for the most part and luckily it was more of a camping resort we stayed at... air conditioning, running water, there was even a hot tub.  It went well... the only middle of the night emergency was because one of the girls had lost her cell phone in the middle of the night in her room... so in other words... there were no middle of the night emergencies.

2) We got our persuasive essays written and handed in and I've already marked them.

3) Speaking of things being marked I've also already written my report cards (and if you don't know... this can be a HUGE task and it feels great to be done!)

4) I used up my first 1.5 sick days.  At that point I had pretty well run out of them (which never happens).  Where I live teachers get 2 sick days a month AND if you aren't on a term you can stock pile them and carry them over year after year (because really, you likely won't need 20 sick days a year).  Since I got hired so late in the year I hadn't really had time to build up those sick days yet but I'm really thankful I had at least 2 of them to use.  I know 2 sick days a month seems like a lot but you have to understand... we work with kids... many of whom come to school when they are sick and sneeze and cough all over you.

5)  Just 2 weeks left of school!  Huzzah!  I know many places in the states have likely been out of school for almost a month already but where I live we go right to the end of June so our last day is the 28th.

Summer is Almost Here!

You may remember last week when I mentioned that one of the grade 6 classes at my school were doing music and poetry to learn about figurative language.

Well today I'm partnering with Education.com to offer a lovely summer themed crossword puzzle that will also have your students learning about figurative language.

For more figurative language worksheets like this visit education.com

Writing Around the Room

There's one teacher at my school that is so creative with how she gets her students to show and do work... she has them writing around the room.

To be honest I never even thought about how many surfaces in a classroom a whiteboard marker could be used on.

She has them using whiteboard markers on their desk tops, any window you could find in the room, and then today she had these white clingy "papers" stuck to the wall for students to write on (after very little research it looks like they are likely something like this). 

Not only does she have them using every surface possible that a whiteboard marker could be used on but she also has a closet door painted with chalkboard paint that they use and a smart board is for another group of students to use.

Somehow they all know exactly where they need to be and what they need to do once they get there.  It gets them up and moving out of their desks and working with others in the room.

In my opinion it's a pretty fantastic idea.

Music and Poetry

One of the grade 6 classes that I help out in has been doing a figurative language project for the last couple of weeks and they are loving it.

For the project they have to look up songs (current ones, old ones, rap music, country music... it really doesn't matter what kind... as long as they are appropriate) and find different forms of figurative language in them.

They are looking for 

-  Similies

-  Metaphors

-  Personification

-  Onomotapia

-  Hyperbole

There might be one other that I'm forgetting but if you decide to do this you can really do whatever ones you want!

I can't really get into much specifics of the assignment other than that because they are doing it on iPads with certain programs that I'm not well versed in at all (their teacher has been teaching them how to use these programs during class times when I'm not in the room).  But basically they are creating different slides explaining why the different lyrics are these different types of figurative language and then they are inserting short clips of the music videos into the project.

Why do I think they are loving it?

1)  They get to use the iPads

2)  They get to listen to music

3)  They get to create something 

They really are having quite a bit of fun with it.  Let me tell you, it's going over much better than my grade 8 poetry unit.