How tall are we?

After measuring our feet, we first lined up to see visually who was tallest to shortest in the class.
Then we stood one at a tme against the wall and I marked how tall each student was. This being grade one, it's all about non-standard measurement, so each student was measured in approximate lengths of various items in our classroom. A very popular activity!

Shoe Measurement

Every year when I teach measurement, I like to do as many hands on activities as possible.
One of my favourites is to have us line up our shoes from longest to shortest.
Easier when you do it against a wall or with a stick, but we made due using a line on the floor. I recommend doing it against the wall like I did last year.

Colour theory

Our Schools art teacher had the grade 4/5 class go through magazines and cut out 12 squares in various shades of the same colour. They turned out pretty cool!

Learning about the Seasons

I love teaching about the seasons, and for the last few years I've relied on Mrcollinson to develop my unit plans. This year when my job was suddenly changed to teaching grade 1, I started off by doing a short science unit on Daily and Seasonal changes. I drew matching trees on colour coded trees and had my class draw and colour to match their assigned season. The next day I distributed these seasonal activity cards and we took turns taping to te wall below the appropriate trees.


Mr. Collinson has been my go to, but his page is now no longer sharing his resources. Like many a well meaning teacher, he thought he wasn't doing anything wrong by sharing his unit plans, except that it turns out some of his resources were copywrited, so he has to take some time to create his own. Good luck Mr. Collinson!

OCD chairs

Does the way these chairs were put up for the night give anyone some OCD itches?

Midterm Fun

Just before report card time I had to give midterms to the junior high and high school classes.

I may have had a BIT of fun with my multiple choices....

Brain Pockets

With My 4/5 English Class I did a TON of lessons from Writing Power. One of my favourites was the day we learned about Brain Pockets, as I had a student who spent too much time in his imagination pocket.

Ice cream rewards for class management

The science teacher had an interesting method of getting students to do their best in class.

As seen below, she drew a huge Icecream cone. Beside it was a set of categories. If they got a checkmark in at least 5 caetgories they got to colour a line across the bottom of the cone.

When the cone was full, the class got an icecream party and then started over.

I've never seen anything like it before, but I LIKE it!

Learning Names

Since I had to quickly learn the names of half the school  (and most of the names I had never heard before since it was a Muslim School), I had to come up with a way to learn the names. I decided the fastest way was the typical Elementary method of names on the desks.

Here was my solution:


 Pretty simple, I know but the name tags I usually use would take up too much space on the desks if I needed three names on each desk, and I was pretty sure that post-it notes would peel off every day, and since I only had each class once a day, I wouldn't have hours to learn the names. I don't know how high school teachers do it, it was really hard to learn the names for everyone so quickly.

First English Assignment of the Year

The first assignment I gave all three classes for the year was this list. The responses I received were varied, and interesting. Of course there were some students who said they didn't like any books, and some I had to explain what a genre was. But I consider it a successful day.



In case you can't read it, it reads:
1. Favourite Book
2. Favourite author
3. A book I didn't like
4. A book I want to read
5. Favourite Genre
6. Least Favourite Genre
7. YOUR Superhero name
8. Paragraph about your summer break

It really amazed me how many places HARRY POTTER fit in this for students in the classes. Some called it their favourite, a few said they didn't like it, and at least one said they wanted to read it. I was surprized that there could be students who hadn't read it, but now I know better.

The most common dislike was the book the junior high class read last year. Almost everyone said they disliked it.

I learned that junior high and high school students have a better concept of what exactly is a genre, but the 4/5 class needed a mini lesson right then and there to be able to answer that question. I've never taught above grade 3 before, so I had a learning curve to figure out these kids abilities.

You might be wondering why the Superhero question? I figured it would lighten the tension of first day jitters, and the kids might reveal something real about themselves.

English classroom door

I began this school year offered a job teaching English and History in a small private school. My students were grades 4-12.

I welcomed them the first week of school with these quotes on the door.

Job decisions

This has been a whirlwind of a year career wise.

I will not say anything bad about the job I accepted in September, but the stress got to me, and I decided it wasn't the place for me. so This month I gave my notice after getting a doctors note for stress leave.

Please don't judge me, it was a hard decision, and the right one for me.

This will be all I say on this subject.

The next several posts will be from that job.

Neat Idea: Chill Out table

Here's a Neat idea I found this summer.
If your school has enough space in the halls or common areas, I would say go for it!

HopScotch for Beginners

This summer I drew SO many hopscotch boards for my DD.

I mostly drew simple ones like this since at 3.5 she couldn't wrap her mind around the two foot blocks.

At what age do you start teaching your kids how to hopscotch?

Berenstein Bears

Did you read these books?

I had a seriously geeky moment about them this August.

Neat pdf app

I LOVE apps, and teacher apps are pretty awesome.

Here's one I would have used as a substitute teacher or student teacher.

Endless possibilities. Just be careful of copywrites! TPT files are one teacher only.

Fall in love with TPT

I had a friend finally find teachers pay teachers this year. I loved her reaction!

Holiday Traditions to try

I was teaching at a Muslim school this year, so every Christmas or other holiday thing  I found didn't get done.

Here are a few I found that would be awesome for Christmas around the world.

Pink Shirt day 2016

I updated my VERY popular Pink Shirt Day file this year and have made HUGE plans for an update for next year.

My ideas to make it even better for next year:

An Emergent reader (or 2-3)

A Readers Theatre

Posters of my poems and songs already included in the package

A comprehension/fluency page

Interactive Notebook pages

Trivia Game

Crown

100s chart hidden picture

What would you like to see?

I'll probably add these to the existing file as a bundle, and then sell parts as smaller files as it's getting rather large!

Here are a few pictures of Pink shirt day 2016:

The Bag of Wind

I'm already ready with my third YouTube read aloud.

This one is called The Bag of Wind.

It's about a seaman who comes ashore with only a macaw and a bag he says is filled with Wind. A greedy man in sure it has treasure in it and conspires to get it for himself.

Tell me what you think about my read alouds so I can improve as I add more to the playlist.

Thanks!!

A Baby Is Born

Here for your classroom's enjoyment is the second of my read alouds now found on YouTube. This is one of my daughters favourites, and a much easier read than the others in the playlist.

For your enjoyment
A Baby Is Born

Henry's Awful Mistake

I am MONTHS behind updating my blog, and will update you with things I've seen and done this year soon, but for now I want to share with you my new venture.

I'm not sure if anything will come of it, but I have begun uploading videos of childrens books read by ME to YouTube.
The first went live today, and I will try to upload a few every week until I run out of books, lol.

So here in all it's amateur glory is one of my Favourite chidren's books from my own childhood: "Henry's Awful Mistake"