This Week At School

I'm going to try something different for this TWAS post...

In my other life (my time that I don't teach) I belong to a church small group where we share our highs and our lows from the week.  So to help keep this post a little shorter I'm just going to share a high (or two) and a low from the week.

LOWS

-  I've had to make some phone calls home to parents this week.  I'm just fed up with a couple of my students behaviour and I'm hoping my talk with both of them has had some kind of impact on them for the following week... I'll have to follow up with them on the talk first thing Monday morning to remind them.

-  Why oh why can't students listen when I'm telling them things?  I feel like I just give instructions, I ask if there is any questions and immediately a hand shoots up to ask "so what do you want us to do?"  Good thing on our "Ask 3 Before Me" chart there is a listening category.

HIGHS

-  In science we made levers out of random objects.  

CD cases, rulers, spoons, forks, knives, chop sticks, even a pool noodle.  

I gave each student a marshmallow that they put their initials on (and I told them if they did not eat the gross markered up  marshmallow I would give them a good one at the end of the day... which was an hour away).  I gave them a couple minutes to think about how they would use their object and then I took them outside to launch them at me.  I grabbed some goggles from the science teacher announced to my class "safety first" and then let them shoot them at me.  They had a lot of fun.  No one hit me or had theirs land in the bucket but we had some close ones.  

When we came back inside we talked about 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class levers.

Later on we are going to try it again but this time they are going to build catapults.  I'm looking forward to it!  But the REALLY interesting part was who could not wait until the end of the day to get a nice, clean, full marshmallow to eat... They knew they wouldn't get one if they ate theirs ahead of time.  

Some of us need to work on patience it seems.

-  We had our last cross country run on Friday!... and someone from my grade 5/6 team got first for her grade and gender category!  

I'm super impressed with all of my students... 

the previous Friday we were running in about +30 degree weather which was wonderful 

and then this Friday... 

I think it maybe got up to +3.  

But that wasn't the worst part... 

the worst was that it was snowing some of the biggest snowflakes I had ever seen!  Seriously, they were huge.. if you would of looked up at the sky and trees you would have thought it was the middle of winter.  Luckily, the snow was melting as soon as it hit the ground... unfortunately that just made for a very muddy and wet run.  

But everyone completed it and so everyone deserves a big HUZZAH!

I've signed my lovely self up for a teacher question and answer period... I'm not exactly sure what questions are going to come through but I would like you all to have a say in it!

If you have any questions about teaching (or substitute teaching) you should comment below OR email them to

confessionsofamodernday@live.com

I plan to use all the questions I get in a future blog post... so stand by.

Fears

Congrats!  We all made it to October and the first month of school is behind us.

I guess it is time to start getting some grades in so that I'm ready for report cards.

In the spirit of October and Halloween here are some fears that apparently, teachers have.

Do you have any teacher fears?

2 of my fears would be...

Budgetcutaphobia - This isn't a fear I have because of budget cuts... it is a fear I have because my term only goes until April.  I don't know what will happen after that.  If I can manage to stay at this school until the end of the year I will be up for permanent which would be amazing... so I'm hoping and praying that the lady I'm doing a mat leave for maybe decides she doesn't want to come back until next year.

Applicaphobia - I'm quite certain this happens every year.  

But desksquishaphobia - how is it that the desks ALWAYS move to the front of the classroom?  I always tease my students that they must just want to be closer to me... because they all notice the day I get them all pushed back to their original spots.  Also, I should note that this is not a fear... they can all slowly inch their tables closer to the front if that is what they want.

Gift Bag Simple Machines

I mentioned in my TWAS that in science class we are learning about all the different kinds of simple machines.  I figured I would let them explore and learn about each machine on their own first before we went more in depth for all of them.  This week we are starting to talk about levers but last week students explored different types of simple machines by looking at random objects I put in gift bags.

What I did:

- I gathered together a bunch of random objects... math compass, ruler and eraser, nut cracker, can opener, stapler, car jack, tweezers, and a bunch of objects that we didn't have an official name for because we didn't know what they were (that I picked up at thrift stores) and I stuck them each in a bag that you couldn't see through.

-  Then I put them all by the window and let them sit there for a few days until we were ready for them.  Every day students would ask me what all the presents were for, who gave them to me, and if they could open them.  Anticipation was building (I actually didn't mean to do this so early but it just happened that we lost a science class somewhere and so it happened)

-  Finally, one day I scattered the bags around the room and explained this sheet that students would fill out with a partner.

-  I like to partner my students up with a grade 6 student and a grade 5 student because the grade 6's would have already done this unit (but they forget) so they went around the room opening each bag, trying to figure out what the purpose of the object could be (or making it up when they had no idea) and examing it for simple machines.

I gave them this worksheet to fill in while they went around the room.

-  They had an hour this class to look at the objects (well, slightly less because of the time it took to explain). Some got through them all (because they rushed) and some didn't get to them all.  So the next science class we took time opening each bag together and talking about what was in each bag and what simple machine was in it.  I originally planned to do it as sort of a debate but they just agreed on the simple machines for the most part.... no one wanted to play devils advocate because they were all just so smart about simple machines by this point.

-  For every time they said something was a lever I had them point out the fulcrum on it and by the end they were all experts on the fulcrum as well.

I should mention that prior to this class we filled out an illustrated dictionary on all the simple machines so they had a basic understanding on what each machine did AND they also played an Edheads game that took them through all the simple machines (and compound machines).

This Week at School

I feel like I was hardly in the classroom this week at school (this is a lie I suppose as I didn't have a single meeting or outing until Thursday but I'm clearly choosing to remember the end of the school week here).

-  My students are so smart... I put a bunch of random objects that involved simple machines in gift bags and had them walk around the room pulling the objects out of the bags and picking simple machines that were in that object.  What did we discover?  A lot of objects use levers and (none that I brought in) use pulleys.  Now we are ready to start learning more about each specific simple machine.

-  We are still working on our Picasso portraits in art class.  I'm hoping to move onto something more fallish for our next art class... but with so many unfinished it may not happen.

-  In math we pulled out the textbooks for the first time and it was nearly a disaster.  I need to figure out how to teach 2 groups at once.. I feel like it is nearly impossible BUT I'm not the first person to ever teach in a split grade class so it must be doable... I just have to figure out a routine that works for me.

-  In SS we are learning about beringia, the land bridge, and the ice age.  I'm teaching both grades SS but didn't want to split the class in half for that class so we are just going to plow through both grades... but it has taken us nearly a month to get started so I'm thinking I'll just be picking and choosing what we learn.

-  LUCKILY, the grade 5 curriculum is on First People's and on Thursday we had aboriginal day.  I lead them in a craft so I'm not sure exactly what they did at all the other stations but hopefully they learned a lot so we don't have to spend so much time on it.  What was my craft?  Sash weaving.  Some got it... many found it hard.  I guess it didn't help that there was a bit of wind this day.  If I'm still around for next year I'll have to come up with another craft I think.

-  In ELA I discovered that many of my students don't know what a paragraph is.  So we took their writing folders and a story that I made with a bunch of errors in it and worked through the editing process with it.  We did the first half together and their job will be too fix up the last half.  We only got through checking spelling and punctuation so we'll be working on this for a while.

-  On Friday we had our first cross country meet (our 2nd and last one is this coming Friday).  It was the perfect afternoon to spend outside (I don't think we will be so lucky next Friday).  One of the students on my team got first and the grade 9 boys also came in with a first and second place.  I see some banners in our future....

-  Other than all of that I've had meetings for 2 of my students.  I've got some extra programing to do which is kind of frustrating but if you have a class where everyone is working at grade level without adaptations well then... lucky you. Our first step is going to be instilling the "ask 3 before me" rule for all subjects.  It is just too much for me to teach 2 grades in math and then deal with everyones questions and those who want me to just sit next to them and read them the problem.  So for our next health class we are going to talk about each of our strengths and make a poster for "ask 3 before me" where each student signs up for 2 subjects or areas that they think are their best that others can come to them when they have questions.  I'm thinking what people can sign up for will be:

- Math

- Social Studies

- Science

- Reading

- Writing (this person will hopefully be good at spelling)

- Listening (this person will hopefully be good at listening to instructions)

- Art (for everyone who needs me to draw them a circle (yes, it has happened this year)

Once everyone has signed up for someone all students have to do is check the poster to see who they should ask for any topic and pick a couple of people from there BEFORE asking me.

-  I switched up my seating plan after school on Friday... one of my students needs to be sitting in a way that she sees the least amount of distractions in the room.  So, I tried to sit her where she wouldn't see the back wall at all and instead mostly see the front which is just white boards.  I even sat in that spot for a while to make sure it was the least distracting.  

I'm feeling good by at least taking 2 of the suggestions given to me at one of these meetings already.

-  I also booked my classes first field trip!  We are going to see a local performance of Peter Pan right before Christmas.  It is kind of expensive so I'm going to try to use some of my classroom budget to off set the ticket costs for them... but I think it should be a fantastic play!

Next week is another busy week with meetings and a cross country meet... this time my meeting is after school so I guess at least I'll be in the classroom.

ANYWHO,

a while ago I mentioned I would start showing off bits and pieces of my halloween costume

for the record we do not celebrate halloween at my school

but I'm one of those people that doesn't think the idea of halloween is something that needs to be celebrated anyways.

But we do have a day where we get dressed up and we will likely have our first classroom party of the year.

so without further ado... here is the part of my costume that I didn't need to go out and buy.

It's hard to tell what it is because it is all black... on the left we've got some black tights and on the right is a black long sleeved shirt.

Any guesses as to what I could be going as?