This Week Off From School

Another week off from school and another week of self isolation done.

It only took just over 2 weeks off from school and a big snowstorm before it finally happened... I cleared out both our fridges and totally cleaned them.  

I'm pretty happy with my work!

I also went to the grocery store in the first time in "forever".  I must say the one way aisles are confusing but it seems that they are doing a pretty good job at forcing us to stay socially distant from each other while doing necessary things (like getting groceries).  I shouldn't need to go back for at least a couple of weeks.

I made some resurrection buns - a good thing to keep kids occupied for a while and you can review the Easter story while you make them!  And I made some paska.

I put together those plastic Easter eggs with treats inside of them for my husband every year and send him on an egg hunt Sunday morning so I started putting those together.

 This is about half of the eggs I have.

I've been doing my basement workouts (and they are paying off... I'm not gaining weight during this isolation period!) and I've already walked 18km worth.  I predict that within the next couple of weeks it should finally be warm enough for me to want to go for a run.

Otherwise, we're doing fine over here in isolation.  

How is everyone else doing?

Kindness Challenge

Spring is here (and spring break starts tomorrow at 3:30)!

So here is a flower related kindness challenge (that could actually even work in the winter time because of the how this teacher is growing her flowers).

First, a bit of a backstory.  For Christmas I bought my husband an Aerogarden.  Which is a fancy hydroponic indoor garden.  We are growing tomatoes in ours (but I'll post about ours another time).  When I bought it for him I naturally tried to learn as much about it as possible and so I joined an Aerogarden Facebook group where not only did I learn about how to use our Aerogarden but how teachers are using them in their classrooms!

Here's what one teacher is doing:

It may be hard to read so I'll summarize it.  Basically, this teacher now has to Aerogarden's that she is planting flower seeds in.  Her grade 2 class has a kindness challenge in that when they see someone who's day needs brightening up they will come and snip a few flowers for them from their garden.

Awww....

How would you use an Aerogarden in your classroom?

This Week Off From School

Well, it was a much different spring break for most people I am sure.  What with having to try to socially distant yourselves and not being able to go on vacation.  But, for this gal  it wasn't too different than what I had originally planned.

Obviously I hadn't planned on covid19 or not being able to see friends or go to the mall or out for drinks... but it was fine... I got through it and I'm expecting next week (and possibly many weeks into the future to be pretty similar... unfortunately).  

So what did I do with my spring break?

I made homemade cinnamon buns (and they were AMAZING)!

I went for a long, sometimes mucky walk.

I tried that coffee that is apparently blowing up Tik Tok (no I don't have it) by mixing a tablespoon of each: instant coffee, sugar, and hot water.  Personally, I think my iced coffee is better.

I did a lot of reading!  About 3-4 weeks ago now I went to the public library to pick up a couple of books I had on hold there... if I would have known that the libraries were all going to be closing for the foreseeable future I should have taken a few more home.  Anyways, I was very uncertain if I would be able to get through the books before I had to return them.  Now that the libraries are closed I have had more than enough time to get through them!  To get me through the rest of my time at home (more on that later) I think I'm going to have to organize some kind of mailbox book swap with some friends.

We had a lovely first half of the week (as you can see from the picture above).  The sun was shining and the grass was showing.  In fact, we had no snow in our front yard and patio AND our backyard was nearly snow free.  Then Thursday happened.  I think we now have more snow than we did all winter... ah well... no one wants to go out in this so I guess that helps encourage us all to just stay home!

So what's going on with teaching in the foreseeable future?  Well, in my province they have officially closed schools indefinitely.  Most people are taking that to mean that they will likely be closed until September.  So, it's looking like the remainder of the year will look very different from what it typically does for this girl!

Stay safe and stay healthy!

What's the school situation look like where you live?

Easter Bulletin Board Ideas

Now that you have some Easter art up it's time to transform your bulletin board (or, you know, maybe not because we can't be changing it for every.single.season).  BUT, if you are keen on changing your bulletin board (or maybe have a lot of parent volunteers in your room that can help) here are a few ideas I found on the inter webs.

These first 2 I couldn't actually find the site they originated from to link back to it... I thought the first one was fun though.

and this one I thought I would have each of my students decorate a paper egg to add to the bulletin board

This one comes from here

Do you decorate your classrooms bulletin board for Easter?

Post a picture of it in the comments!

If you are looking for bulletin board ideas for other seasons and holidays here are a few other posts I've done:

Spring

Valentine's Day

Winter

Christmas

Remembrance Day

Halloween

Back to School

PS.  Happy April Fools Day!  I can't imagine there's a lot of pranks being played in a time like this but have you ever played a prank on your students?  Here and here are what I did last year to my students.