Saturday, December 22, 2018

This Week At School

Well this is it folks, yesterday marked the last day of school before Christmas break and I had the day off (which I expected).  I'm back at it in exactly 2 weeks though... I managed to get a subbing job on the very first day back to school!... not only that but I'm at a school I haven't been at in a couple of years.. so it should be interesting.

Anyways, this week at school was actually a bit busier than I had originally anticipated.

I was a surprise gym teacher early in the week (I say surprise because I was actually supposed to be doing other things but the day got all switched around which meant I stayed in the gym apparently).

I did a bunch of Christmas math activities with some grade 7's.

I was back at the school with just 9 kids and this time 2 of them were away so I had only 7 (and only that many in the afternoon because they are split up for the morning)!  We cleaned in the morning and watched movies in the afternoon which was perfect for me because I was not feeling the greatest.

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas (and a happy New Year)
Here's a picture of our Christmas tree this year




Since it's Christmas break I find it only fitting that I also get a break for 2 weeks and so I won't be posting (at least I don't plan on it) until January 7th. 

Enjoy your break!


Thursday, December 20, 2018

Christmas in the Classroom

Last year I wrote a similar post to this one with all the Christmas-y things I found in classrooms... and to be honest I didn't find a lot. 

This year was a little bit different..










Psst... to check out my post from last year click here

Monday, December 17, 2018

How to Eat a Rice Krispie Treat

Apparently everyone knows this is how you eat a Rice Krispie Treat (and since I didn't know I figured I would be the one to inform my readers before we all start eating them like a bunch of weirdos).

You take your Rice Krispie Treat (the prepackaged individual kinds) and you put it on the floor.
Then you stomp on it until it's as flat as a pancake.
Perfect, now you can take it out of the wrapper and enjoy it. 

I'm sure it tastes much better this way!
... or at least that's what one of my middle school students insists on.

Saturday, December 15, 2018

This Week At School

This week was a lot of the same as previous weeks... Christmas concert practices
BUT.. I also got to watch not 1, not 2, but 3 movies this week at school (well, actually just parts of all of them)... in case you're wondering they were some an episode of Planet Earth, Hairspray, and Happy Feet.

I ended off the week in a new to me subject, classroom, and school for this school year.

home ec room!

I was teaching home ec!  And, they were making the perfect things (mostly because I had just made my own about 2 weeks ago) and we made some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (most thought they turned out pretty good)



home ec is fun

Then on my way out I saw this poster that a student had made.  
Home ed IS fun!

Then I forgot that I was still wearing my substitute teacher lanyard that is actually the schools and totally brought it home with me.  
I went back after I was done eating lunch (I was only at this school in the morning).

Thursday, December 13, 2018

Look Alike

I heard some boys talking amongst themselves insisting that someone tell me something.

What was so important that had to be told?

No I did not have a rip in my pants or toilet paper stuck to my shoe... it was very important that I know that I apparently look just like Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Apparently I look like a few celebrities... when Hunger Games was popular I looked like Katniss Everdeen and some girl from the movie Rock Camp, but more often than not it's a person of asian decent. 

In fact, this happens so often this isn't the first time I've written about it here is a post, here's another one, and another.


Monday, December 10, 2018

Growth Mindset

With Christmas break right around the corner I thought this was the perfect month to talk about some changes we could all be making in our classrooms. 

So today, I'm going to talk about Growth Mindset.  A growth mindset is all about thinking positively, not giving up, and practicing to gain new skills that you didn't have before.  We've all had a growth mindset before... you likely couldn't ride a bike the first time you sat on one... but you likely can now.  Same with writing, or reading, or adding, or pretty much a lot of what happens at school.

A growth mindset is an excellent thing to have but you know what kind of sucks?  Sometimes we have fixed mindsets... we can't do something straight away (or maybe even after trying for a while we still can't do it) so we give up on it.

But I think what we should be teaching our students is to have growth mindsets where they want to continue learning more.  And I've found the perfect resource to help with this... It's called The Big Life Journal and as I write this they have it available for kids and are working on one for tweens and teens (hopefully it's already been released).  Not only is this resource great because it talks about having a growth mindset but it also has reading material to go along with it and writing sections (So, psst... you can definitely use this in your ELA grades).

I don't currently have a classroom of my very own but if I did I think I would be ordering at the very least the PDF version of it (mostly because it's a little cheaper) to go over myself. 

If you've already used this in your classroom drop a comment below to let us all know how it has worked and if you've noticed any improvement with your students mindsets.

Saturday, December 08, 2018

This Week At School

This week at school was more of the same as the previous week...

LOTS of play/Christmas concert practices!

In one of the classrooms we also made some of these 3D paper origami snowflakes


Otherwise not much has been happening

BUT... just 2 more weeks (that's just 10 days!) until Christmas break up here!



Thursday, December 06, 2018

Christmas Elf Writing Activity

This is for those classrooms that have an elf on the shelf.  It's a cute (and free) writing activity from Mel D-Seusstastic for you to download and use close to Christmas break (so students can write about one of their favourite hiding spots and what he/she did.

If you use the Elf on the Shelf in your classroom I would love to know more about it.  Leave a comment below telling me how you use it in your classroom!

Monday, December 03, 2018

Penguin Art

I saw these adorable penguins in a grade 2 class I was subbing in probably about a year ago. 

penguin art

I did a quick search and found some instructions for how to make these guys (or something similar) on Instructables.  I could see these being used if a class was studying about a place where penguins live and I feel like teachers often do entire units just on penguins... or they seem fairly easy to make that a kindergarten class learning about the letter "P" could probably manage making these with some assistance.  How would you use these in your classroom?

Saturday, December 01, 2018

This Week At School

This week at school I...

Helped students practice for 2 different Christmas plays/concerts (it's that time of year again)!

I worked with a 5th year (which over here that is your final year) student teacher for a couple of days which meant I had a couple pretty easy days.

Because of those pretty easy days I managed to finish reading the book Refugee by Alan Gratz.

At one of the schools I was at this week their secretary was leaving to go on maternity leave so the teacher left me baby advice sheets for the students to fill out (and then to give to the secretary)

Baby advice sheet

Finally, happy December 1st!
I've talked before about advent calendars you can use in your classroom but every year I make one for my husband here is what I did for him last year (filled with Lindtt chocolates) and here is his advent calendar this year!

Christmas advent calendar

Looks like he's been good this year!

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Snow Pass

I found a brochure about this in a classroom last year sometime (I'm assuming it's still hopefully a program that is going on). Basically, you pay just under $30 and your child (who has to be in either grade 4 or 5) can snowboard at any of the listed places up to 3 times in a 2 year span (assuming they are in grade 4 the year you purchase the pass - once your child hits grade 6 it looks like the pass will no longer be valid).

You can apply on line here and it should list the places where your snowpass would be valid. Manitoba (which is where I live) only offers 3 places so it's only 9 trips to the ski hills total here but if you lived in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, or Quebec there are over 20 qualifying places (in 2017) to ski in each province (which if you do some quick math - 20x2=60 trips to go skiing for just under $30... I don't know how much lift tickets cost but this seems like a really great deal).

Monday, November 26, 2018

Nursing Homes

I had one grade 6 student ask me 

“If you’re an old lady and homeless couldn’t you just live in one of those old folks homes?” 

“Those places aren’t free” I responded. 

“Oh well, that’s where I’m putting my mom” was his response. 

Uh… good to be thinking ahead… I guess?

Saturday, November 24, 2018

This Week At School

This week at school I was in a couple of new to me classes

One of them I walked in and saw this....


For those of us that aren't aware... this is in Spanish
I do not speak Spanish

So I did my very first day of Spanish immersion!
Luckily it was grade 1 and 2 and there were only 12 students... so we spoke in English this day.

This isn't my first time "teaching" something that I don't know.  I've been a French music teacher, high school computer teacher, guitar teacher, and violin instructor.

Later in the week I was also a nursery/kindergarten teacher at a school I haven't been at this year yet.

I went back to my old school from last year and taught grade 8 as well.  The kids were not the greatest and I'll often use this as a reason not to come back to that particular class.  BUT, in this case (and likely only a handful of others) I did tell the teacher I would come back.  Why?  Because I've been the one with a class that no one would want to teach that likely would have been nearly impossible to find a sub for (luckily, I never needed one) and so I decided to offer my services again (so long as I'm not already booked elsewhere)... plus I know a lot of those students from last year and I do think they are capable of improving their behaviour.

But to finish things off... I finally was in a classroom with class pets again!


It's been a looong time since I've seen some class pets in a classroom!

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Teacher Ranking


A student told me a while ago that in his ranking of teachers I was his third favourite.

I asked who came before me and it was his homeroom teacher and band teacher.

My only question now is... should I be happy with being third place because at least I ranked?

Do I assume whenever a student doesn't tell me their ranking it's because I don't make the cut?

Monday, November 19, 2018

50% OCD

Students were doing an All About Me project and filling a section out about what they want to be when they group. One girl said she wanted to be an interior designer when she grows up.

That's when another student responded with "You'd be perfect for that because you are like 50% OCD!"

.... so what does that say about what this student thinks of interior designers?

Saturday, November 17, 2018

This Week At School

This week at school I was at a couple of new schools for this school year.

I started off the week teaching kindergarten where we celebrated one of the students birthdays with chocolate cupcakes!

I took some students to gym and gym in the city (formally known as swim and gym but the pool flooded so now they get double gym instead).  My car of students were well behaved so we stopped off at Subway on the way back to school because apparently if they bring money and we have time to make the stop they can run in and get something.  I think they came back to the car with about 2 dozen cookies.

I sat in on a grade 12 pre calculus class.  That took me back (and I didn't even take pre calculus in grade 12!). I wasn't much help in that class but thankfully I wasn't the one teaching it.

I was at a colony school and they sent me home with some chicken noodle soup!

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Book Orders



Scholastic Book Orders

Am I the only one who loves to peruse the Scholastic Book orders?
Just dreaming of my one day classroom.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Dungeons and Dragons

I was teaching in a grade 7 classroom the other week where I happened to have a student teacher (huzzah!). When I asked him what the students call him he told me his name and then continued to say that some students call him “Mr. Cool” because he is starting up a Dungeons and Dragons lunchtime club.

Uh… k. To be honest never in my wildest of dreams would I have thought that “Dungeons and Dragons” would be related to a name such as “Mr. Cool” but different strokes for different folks… right?

Anyways, he continued to tell me that he was very excited for the group and was expecting it to be quite popular.

Uh… k. Never in my wildest of dreams would I have thought a Dungeons and Dragons club to be really popular. Am I really that out of touch of what these middle school kids are into… is Fort Nite not the “in” thing anymore… have we already moved on to Dungeons and Dragons?

I went back to the room over the lunch hour at some point to grab something when I noticed this club consisted of the student teacher and just 2 other students. At this point I felt a little bad… I mean he was genuinely excited for the group. But this did not get him down… he was quite certain that the low attendance was due to him not putting a message in the announcements.

The following day I was back at the school in a new classroom. And guess what came up on the announcements?

“Do you like dungeons? Do you like Dragons?...” yes the Dungeons and Dragons group announcement had hit the airways… or at least the announcement sheet in the office. And do you know what the class I was in did when they heard about this new group? They cheered. And it wasn’t just like one or two of them in was about half the class that was pumped to play Dungeons and Dragons at lunch. So maybe this student teachers enthusiasm will pay off and he will get his quite popular Dungeons and Dragons group after all.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

This Week At School


This week at school I attended 2 Remembrance Day assembly’s. This got me thinking, how many adults attend Remembrance Day ceremonies? Likely not too many. I on the other hand get to attend one every year and spend time remembering those that fought for my freedoms. 

At one of the assemblies they displayed a bunch of pictures of people that fought or are currently fighting or worked for the Canadian army in some fashion on the projector that were related to students and teachers that attended the school currently. I was surprised at the number of students and teachers that had a connection to the army. 

At the other assembly they showed us Charlie Brown Visits Flanders Field… it was pretty good for elementary aged students.


I’m not sure what everyone’s plans are this November 11th but I would highly encourage everyone to take a moment to think about those that have fought for the freedoms you currently enjoy.

Thursday, November 08, 2018

Teacher Calendars

I found this huge desk calendar in one of the classrooms I was in recently 






And thought it was super adorable. 

But would I use one if I were a teacher? 

The nice thing about having a giant desk calendar would be it would hopefully keep your desk clutter free so that you could actually see your calendar! A day book is essential for myself as a teacher, even as a substitute teacher I keep an agenda book with me (what can I say, I’m sometimes an organized gal) and because I know I would use my day book just about every day a huge desk calendar, although adorable, may not be something that would really keep me all that more organized and so I don’t think I would spend my money on one.

Monday, November 05, 2018

Substitute Teacher Blog Spotlight

It's the beginning of November, what better time than for another substitute teacher blog spotlight!

This month we have the Substantial Blog. Not only is this a blog with information for substitute teachers; such as what to do when you have to teach gym and how to use substitute teaching as a stepping stone to getting that classroom of your very own but it is also aimed at districts and what they can do to help improve a substitute teacher's experience and how they can get subs to come back to their school/district. 

Last month I shared a bit about Sub Sidekick's blog and what their publishing to help fellow substitute teachers.

Want a shout out to your lovely blog on here? Contact me! I only do one a month but would love to acknowledge your blog one month soon!

Saturday, November 03, 2018

This Week At School

Last week at school I was in a new school that I hadn’t yet been in this school year and this week at school I finally made it to the third division I sub in!... I actually ended up going back to the school I used to teach basic French at so a lot of my former students recognized me (they are now in grade 6!)

The rest of the week was kind of slower though… mostly because I developed a cold over the weekend and by Tuesday I was ready for a day off. But taking a day off is apparently a bit more difficult when you already are scheduled to work somewhere when you are a sub. You see I waited until the morning to decide if I thought I could handle the day… so around 6:40am (about 2 hours before the start of this particular school) I decided I likely couldn’t handle the day so I went online to cancel it. When I tried to cancel I got a message saying I couldn’t because the job started in less than 150 minutes. For those of you trying to quickly do the math 150 minutes is 2.5 hours… surely I’m not the only one that doesn’t need more than 2.5 hours in the morning and gets up later? Anyways, I couldn’t cancel the job on my own so I ended up texting the principal at the school asking if he knew anyone that would want the sub day (it was also We Day here so I already knew there wouldn’t be a lot of substitute teachers available) and if he knew a way around this 150 minute thing to cancel the job for me. In the end it all worked out… the principal found someone right away to cover for the class and cancelled the job online. Anyways, lesson learned… if I think I might not be well the day of a sub job cancel it the night before (or set an earlier alarm just for cancelling purposes).

I also ended up getting Halloween off as well… likely because it was Halloween and schools plan fun things for kids to do on days like that.

Later in the week I went back to the school of 9 where we did some pumpkin seed counting activities and some poppy making activities and on Friday I was at the school I used to teach at. At this school I was a SERT (special education resource teacher) so my job was fairly easy.

And today is Saturday and I’m feeling much better!

Thursday, November 01, 2018

Campaigning

Campaigning for student council began a couple of weeks ago at one of the middle schools that I frequently sub at. Posters have gone up, announcements are being made and while walking through the hallway I heard one students excitedly announce that he did in fact have his own hashtag.

The following day I saw one student holding a paper in front of him and silently walking through the very busy halls hoping to garner some attention I guess? What was on the paper? His information and what position he is running for.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Halloween in the Classroom


So I'm starting to notice that not a lot of teachers are decorating their classrooms for Halloween (but now that I think of it I can't really recall a classroom I was in as a student that was decorated for Halloween.

Anyways, I don’t get out to nearly as many schools as I used to (I now have about 3 that I frequent that keep me fairly busy) so I don’t get nearly as large of a classroom sampling but once again I didn’t see much this year.


Ok, I'm not really sure if this was a decoration but it looked like a spider web

This is something I'd be more likely to do... fall leaves on top of the smart board

But then I thought? Would I decorate for Halloween? I mean I don’t decorate my house for Halloween. I think I would be more likely to put up Fall decorations and leave them up for the entire season than Halloween to be honest. 

Do you decorate your classroom for Halloween?

If you are looking for other things to do with Halloween I've written a lengthy post linking to a bunch of free Halloween material for your classroom, talked about a Halloween writing activity I did to go along with a book I sometimes bring to classrooms around this time of year, and a post going over a couple of the Halloween costumes I've gone to school in.

Saturday, October 27, 2018

This Week At School

This week at school I was at a new school (for this year at least… I’ve been to the school in previous years). It was also my first day in a kindergarten classroom (this school year). 

After that I was back at one of my regular schools for the remainder of the week teaching 
grade 6 and 7. 

The highlight of my week was Friday for 2 reasons. 

1) I had a student teacher in my room and she was pretty fun to chat with (we had a couple of preps to hang out) 

2) I got to teach art and I participated in the lesson. We used water colour pencil crayons to make some art… it was pretty much up to them what they made but I wanted to make something similar to this zebra I had made back when I taught grade 5/6 so I made a very colourful giraffe to go with it 


watercolor pencil giraffe

watercolour zebra

It was a pretty easy week actually… which is good because by the end of the week I was starting to feel a little under the weather and then yesterday I stopped to get my flu shot on my way home… I figure since I work in a bunch of different schools it’s just a good idea to get it and hopefully it helps prevent at least some of the illness’ I might pick up otherwise.

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Reading Bingo

Here's an idea that I hadn't seen until I went subbing one day

Reading Bingo

Give students a bingo sheet with the squares filled in with different genres of books and other categories for books to fall into (a book with a number in the title, a book with a blue cover, etc).  When students read a book that fits one of the categories they show it to you and you initial the space to mark it off.  Once they have 5 in a row they can bring it to you for a prize.  If you google "Reading Bingo" lots of examples of them come up so you likely don't even have to create your own if you don't want to!

What other ways do you encourage your students to read?

Monday, October 22, 2018

O'Canada

At one the schools I teach at the entire school (which consists of 9 students) meets in the morning in one of the classrooms where they will go over any announcements, sing O'Canada and say the Lord's prayer.  O'Canada is always played in the form of a Youtube video

Well, the last time I was at this school they watched this video for their O'Canada


At the end of it one of the students pipes up
"those guys all look like twins!"

Not everyone can catch on quite so quickly that it is actually the same person singing all 4 parts.

Friday, October 19, 2018

This Week At School

This week at school I was at one school the whole week (other than Friday which is actually a provincial school closure day for a big conference for all teachers).

I started off the week in grade 6, eventually made my way to French, and ended the week off back in grade 6.

Because I was in the same classroom for the majority of the week I don't really have a whole lot to report on. The grade 6's are doing a big All About Me and Kingdom projects that they did a lot of work on... which made things easy for me because I didn't actually do a whole lot of teaching.

Sorry for the very uneventful week... but last week had enough events to last me a couple of weeks anyways.

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Current Editions

I found this in a classroom I was in recently and thought it was a nice way to display current editions of magazines so students can easily access the latest ones. 

how to show the current edition of a magazine in a classroom

The clips that they are hanging from are actually glued onto the wall… I think if I were to do this in my classroom I would put nails in the wall and then hang the clips from the nails that are holding the magazines… just seems like an easier way to get the magazine back on the clip.

Monday, October 15, 2018

Calculator Plus

… is the new cell phone. As a way of getting around talking about cell phones in a grade 8 class I was recently in students started to refer to them as “calculator pluses” because they aren’t allowed to actually have them (cell phones) in class. For the record, I saw no cell phones in my class… or uh… calculator pluses. And in my books as long as they stay put away I’m good with them keeping them in their pockets (even if they are technically supposed to be in their lockers).

I did however see many calculators in my class… these are also fine… we are doing square roots after all.

Saturday, October 13, 2018

This Week At School

This week was a shortened week of school due to Canadian Thanksgiving being on Monday.  

Over the course of the week I did manage to teach grades from 1-8 (and you'll see why in a minute).

I was back at that small rural school this week!  9 whole kids to be in charge of... what a dream!  This time it was swim and gym in the afternoon which is when we take them to the University in the city for a gym class (it was archery) and swimming lessons.  Now that they are down to just 9 students in the school the teachers just drive them... which meant I had to drive them.  Everything went fine with that though... until it came time to leave which is when I thought my car had gotten towed because I accidentally did not park in visitor parking.  But we eventually found it (and it didn't even have a ticket on the window!).  Also, during their swimming time the fire alarm went off in the pool building... which if you recall from the other week it's already started to snow here and although the snow didn't really stick around it is still fairly cold outside.  Luckily, the kids did not have to go outside, they just had to get our of the pool.  But all the adults who were watching the kids had to leave the building (we also didn't go outside though... but it was odd to be separated from your students during a fire alarm instead of having them all line up behind you).

I also went to a colony school this week and ended the week in the middle school I was teaching at last year.

Here's the classroom I was in on Friday


Thursday, October 11, 2018

What One Doesn't Belong

While doing my little stint in grade 8 the last couple of weeks I've been attending the meetings the teacher I'm in for would normally go to... and every so often you learn about something kind of cool.

It's called Which One Doesn't Belong and it's a website comprised of a bunch of 2x2 grids of pictures, numbers, shapes, etc. where students have to decide which of the 4 pictures doesn't belong and give some reasoning behind it.  Usually, if not always, you could argue in some way that each of the pictures doesn't belong with the other 3.

How would I use this site in my class?  I think I would start math classes off with it to get students thinking and having to work through a reason why that particular number, shape, etc doesn't belong.  It's quick, it's easy, and requires you only to get to the website and select one of the grids.

Saturday, October 06, 2018

This Week At School

This week at school I was in just 2 schools! 

I was back at the school I had been at the last couple of weeks for the first half of the week and the rest of the week I was out in a really small school of just 9 students! 

It finally warmed up just enough to do the Terry Fox run so we did that on Monday 

By Wednesday when I left school it was looking like this… 

Snowy October Field

How unfortunate for only the beginning of October! 

Later in the week when I was teaching in a school of all of 9 students I had just 5 students in the morning (although that number dropped to just 3 on Friday morning) and all 9 in the afternoons. Needless to say it was quite an easy couple of days! 

I read to them from this book 


And I think I’m going to go and take it out from my local library (and probably even his other book – “Prisoner B-3087” 

They’ve been practicing for a cross country meet so we went for a run… or rather the older kids all went for a run and I walked with the 2 youngest kids. 

I played Snake with the older students 

And we made these cute foldable Thanksgiving turkeys


Foldable Thanksgiving Turkey

(which were actually kid of challenging to make so I had the older kids practice making them in the morning so they could help the younger students in the afternoon) 

It’s a long weekend here in Canada due to it being Thanksgiving. Hope we all have a safe and fun Thanksgiving!

Thursday, October 04, 2018

Pumpkin Investigation

I saw this in a classroom nearly a year ago (and I've been saving it for a more appropriate time to put up on the blog)... to be fair I did happen across this bulletin board in December and thought it was not quite right for the season.

The papers are hard to read but one of them says: 


"Introduction and Naming our Pumpkins"

"We began our investigation by naming our pumpkins. We have a big one and a small one. First, we brainstormed a list of names for each pumpkin. Then, we took a vote to decide what their names would be. The vote concluded that the big pumpkin would be "Alvin" and the small pumpkin would be "Theodore"

Below that the paper says:

"Describing Alvin and Theodore"

"Next, we thought about all of the things that pumpkins "can do", what pumpkins "have" and what pumpkins "are". We came up with these lists as a class. Then, each student recorded the lists on their own sheet of paper. We hope to use these descriptive words as our pumpkin investigation continues!"

Their "can" list included words such as: roll, rot, light up, break, be white, float, and grow. Their "have" list included words like "seeds, stems, guts, bumps, scratches, dent, lines, and pulp. Finally, their "are" list included: round, orange, fat, big, small, yummy, heavy, squishy, and a fruit.

More hard to read pictures of words but here's what they say...

"Pumpkin Read-Aloud and Art"

"During the month of October our classroom library has remained stocked with plenty of books related to the autumn season. We read several books about pumpkins including one called "The Ugly Pumpkin" which served as our mentor text for our pumpkin art. In this book, the students noticed that not every pumpkin is perfectly orange and round... some pumpkins are actually quite funny looking! We also discussed how some fruits, like squash, like to masquerade as pumpkins just like the character in our story. The students were given two primary colours, red and yellow, so they could create whichever shade of orange that they liked. Our art turned our fantastic with some pretty creative, silly, and unique looking pumpkins!"

"Descriptive Pumpkin Writing"

"When we finished our pumpkin art we thought it would be a great idea to write about our pumpkins. It was fun to look at all the different pumpkins that the students created and to notice the differences. I demonstrated what format that writing might take by first creating my own pumpkin art and then describing the pumpkin in writing for the students. The students offered me suggestions on ideas about how I might describe my pumpkin. It was a real collaborative effort! The students' creativity and wonderful ideas continued to shine through in their writing"








"Pumpkin Predictions"

"Our class had many questions regarding our pumpkins, Alvin and Theodore. We compiled a list and decided to investigate Alvin to discover some answers. In groups of four or five, I showed the students a small sample of tools we would be using to help us answer these questions. For example, I would show them one unifix cube next to Alvin. Then I asked, how many unifix cubes would we need to make a tower tall enough to reach the top of Alvin's stem? We did the same thing with a piece of yarn. If one centimetre of yarn looks like this, how many centimetres of yarn would we need to reach around the centre of Alvin once? We answered each of our questions in a similar manner. Before carving Alvin we measured everything together and recorded the "official" answers. The students were very surprised with some of them! Others were very excited with how close their educated predictions were!"

"Skip Counting Pumpkin Seeds"

"After carving the pumpkin, removing the seeds and drying them out for counting we discussed as a class which method of counting would be the easiest and quickest. As a teacher, I was very pleased when the students came up with idea of skip counting piles of seeds almost right away. Every day during our morning we practice skip counting. The students suggested that we make piles of two, five, and ten to count all the seeds. We decided to make five equal groups of students. Two groups were responsible for skip counting their pile by two's, two groups were responsible for skip counting their piles by five's, and the final group skip counted their pile of seeds by 10's. We ended up counting 426 seeds!"

Monday, October 01, 2018

Substitute Teacher Blog Spotlight

I haven't done one of these in a while so here's another blog all about substitute teaching.  Today I'm sharing with you about Sub Sidekick if you are just starting out as a substitute teacher, a retired teacher that's not quite ready to leave the classroom just yet, or thinking that one day you might just be a substitute teacher this blog is loaded with great information!

This blog talks about lessons you can do (which will especially come in handy when you are left without a plan for the day... and it WILL happen), Podcasts you should be listening to (and ones your students might like), and how to manage a classroom as a substitute teacher.  And... they might also mention some substitute teacher blogs on their blog and maybe just maybe mine happens to mentioned

Want a shout out to your lovely blog on here?  Contact me!  I only do one a month but would love to acknowledge your blog one month soon!

Saturday, September 29, 2018

This Week At School

Another full week teaching grade 8. 

It was mostly just a continuation of everything we were doing last week. 

In math we were talking about Pythagorean’s theorem 

In ELA we were reading Half Brother (and we also did an Orange Shirt Day activity, a listening test, and some writing activities). 

In Music Education kids continued making their mix tapes. I had them colour a photocopy of a tape to go with their themes and write in the songs for one of their sides… here are some of their tapes 



In Social Studies they handed in their family trees or timeline assignments and we moved on to some textbook work.

And nearly all week my homeroom begged for me to take them outside (because I had taken my other math class outside to measure triangles earlier in the week) but it was such a crumby week outside that I decided they could do the activity with their regular teacher (today it was even snowing on and off throughout the day!)

I must admit... I'm going to miss this class.


And I know they're going to miss me too.
It's been a swell 2 weeks.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Orange Shirt Day

On September 30th we honor residential school survivors and the painful experiences they had to endure.

Why an orange shirt?

Phyllis Webstad wore an orange shirt on her first day of school when she was 6 years old. It was a shirt her grandma had purchased for her with what little money they had. She was proud of that orange shirt. But when she got to the mission school that shirt was taken from her and she was given other clothes to wear. She never saw that orange shirt again.

The orange shirt represents more than just a shirt though… it represents the many things that were taken from these residential school survivors (their families, their language, their heritage, their freedom, etc.)

Tomorrow , Friday, September 28th the school I am subbing at is participating in orange shirt day… I’ll be wearing orange. Will you?

If you are looking for resources to help you plan something for this year (it’s never too late). I found some here.

If you want to share Phyllis Webstad’s story with your class here is a short video on YouTube about her.

Monday, September 24, 2018

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's just about Thanksgiving here in Canada and I found this great writing activity you can do with your students around Thanksgiving.

Go visit Mel D-Seusstastic's Teacher's Pay Teacher's store for this 100% free resource and download it for your students.

When your students have completed it come back here and let me know how it went!

Saturday, September 22, 2018

This Week At School

My home away from home for the last week



I’ve been lucky enough to be in the same classroom all this week 
(and spoiler alert: I’ll be back in this same room next week as well).

I’m also a pretty lucky substitute because I hit the jackpot considering what I believe a grade 8 class could be because they are amazing. They work quietly (and yes, most of them are working), don’t interrupt, and are just overall a lovely group of students.

So what have I been up to in this grade 8 class?

We are reading Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel and they are super into it. I read them about every third chapter or so and we are on chapter 10 already (they had started before I arrived though).   Even I'm into the book... in fact I brought it home with me this weekend to get some reading done and have every intention of finishing it so that I know how it ends.

We are learning about the Pythagorean Theorem in math which is going pretty good. One of my math classes is definitely better than the other (behaviour wise) but for the most part they are getting their work done and understanding the theorem and how to do it… we are still working on recognizing if a measurement is an area or a line (I mean it seems so simple to me).

In Social Studies they have been working on a timeline or family tree. I assigned it for homework to be completed on Monday though so next week we are moving on to some textbook work.

I also teach a grade 6 music education class and they are creating a mix tape. I found a blank mix tape template online and had them colour it one day when we didn’t have access to the computer lab. Their mix tapes have to have an overall theme to them. There are a lot of “happy” “sad” or “dance” themes but I’ve done my best to steer them away from genre themes or artist themes so that there is a bit of variety in these mix tapes. I think the hardest part of the assignment will be to make sure when you add up the songs that they don’t exceed 30 minutes per side.

Yesterday afternoon I was missing about half my class because it was a fun afternoon spent outside (in what I would consider almost too cold of temperatures to be outside all afternoon... I should have tried harder to find some gloves to bring this morning I guess).  We played a bunch of games keeping score and surprisingly the 8th graders came in 2nd place (out of 3 places)... I really wasn't sure they had it in them.

Overall I would say it’s been a really good week and I’m looking forward to having to be back for another week.

AND, this week I managed to book myself not only 5 days for October already but also another 5 days in January (and a few others in between). I’m predicting it being a fairly busy year.

Monday, September 17, 2018

Carpets

A couple of boys in one of my grade 8 classes I've subbed in were looking at a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" book (or something similar to this) and asked me if I would want a certain rug in my house that was pictured in the book. The rug just so happened to look like it was made out of human skin. I told them that I wouldn't want that rug in my house and when asked why I told them that I already had carpet in my house so I didn't need a rug to put on top of the carpet and then walked away. As I was walking away I heard the boys talking about my decision..

They must have been wanting a certain response

"How was I supposed to know that she had carpet in her house?!?"

For the record... even if I wanted an area rug for my house I would definitely not want one that looked like it was made out of human skin!

Saturday, September 15, 2018

This Week At School

First classroom I subbed in 2018-2019 school year

I finally got my first day of subbing in this week!

It was sort of minute but luckily it was at a school I had subbed at a bunch the previous year and they even provided with me with a lunch (so one less thing to do before heading out the door that morning).

Anyways, at different points throughout the day I taught grades K-8

The really nice thing about this day was that I already had a massage previously booked for right after school.

Other than that I would love to say nothing much is happening but we've got this going on...

kitchen renos
We stayed home last weekend to order our cabinets and then decided it was time to start putting some holes in the walls.

and I joined a gym.

I'm booked solid for the next 2 weeks... an excellent way to end off September... the month I figured I would be lucky to get even just 10 days of work I'll end up with 11.  So I'm pretty happy.

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Class Pets

I can't say I see very many of these anymore... but I was in a classroom a looong time ago with these little fish (complete with name poster) and figured I would start snapping pictures of all the classroom pets I spotted this year... here is my compilation of classroom pets.

Fish Tank

Fish Name Poster

I forgot to take a picture of Bubbles (he was a fish)

If I had a classroom of my own and if I had any kind of class pet it would be a fish... something that has to stay in the aquarium, is quiet, and easy to take care of.

It wasn't too long ago though that I was seeing all kinds of different class pets. I recall bunnies, hampsters, stick bugs, butterflies and of course, fish... lots and lots of fish.

Psst.. last week I shared about plants in the classroom

Monday, September 10, 2018

5 Things to Keep You Organized as Substitute Teacher

It's that time of year again! School has been back in session for precisely a week now and so I'm hoping to start getting subbing jobs any day now (I currently have one booked... for the end of October... something will definitely come up before that though!). So, I've compiled a list of 5 things that I think could help any substitute teacher keep it together.

1) An Agenda Book

This is a must for me. I substitute teach in 3 different divisions so I can't rely on the sub systems not to double book me (mostly because they all use different ones). When I book a day I write it in my agenda to make sure I don't double book myself and on Sunday's I usually double check to make sure I haven't double booked myself and put in all my unavailability for the different divisions. I also use my agenda to make some notes about the classes I visit. Did I have a good day? Do I want to go back (or more importantly... do I not want to go back?). Finally I use it to keep track of what divisions I've worked for and when so that I can make sure my pay and everything looks correct.

2) Lunches Ready To Go

This last year I was pretty fortunate to often have the majority of my subbing days booked in advance. But there was the occasional day when I booked something last minute. On those days it's good to have something for lunch ready to go... just in case. Be it dinner from last night or a pizza pop.. it just needs to be something. Especially if you don't want to be spending money on your lunch. Some things I do is freeze leftovers in ready to grab containers, make mason jar salads, and I always, always, ALWAYS have a bunch of muffins in the freezer just ready to grab.

3) Packed Bag

I showed you all this picture of my winter gear all packed up. In the nicer months I really don't need to grab much on my way out the door (wallet, keys, phone and that's pretty much it - I used to always bring a picture book to share with the class and leave gym clothes in my car just in case that ended up being my assignment but I really haven't done either of these in a while). Everything is often just stored in my purse so it's not really a problem but in the winter it is handy to keep everything together and ready to grab just in case.

4) Wake Up!

If you are really a keener ahem*I've never actually done this*ahem you should make sure you wake up at a reasonable hour every morning just in case a school calls you last minute. This means, waking up and going about your morning acting as if you are going into work so that you can leave as soon as you get that call (if need be). Like I said, I've never done this. Does this mean I never accept last minute calls? On the contrary. I just grab a quick breakfast and dash out the door somewhat put together. To be fair, I'm usually awake by the time my husband leaves in the morning... but if I can lounge around in bed for another hour... why wouldn't I?

5) Charged Phone

Chances are if you've accepted a job the morning of that your phone must at least be somewhat charged... you did accept that job after all. I've been in the subbing circuit for a number of years now but I still sometimes don't know where a school is or exactly how to get there. That's when I pull out my handy phone and type in the name of the school and a route comes up lickity split for me. It saves me the time of writing out directions. Of course, if you have a car charger for your phone I guess you don't really have this problem.... but some of us don't have that luxury ok?

Did I miss anything? What is something that helps keep you organized as a substitute teacher?

Saturday, September 08, 2018

This Week OFF From School

(hopefully this week is my last week off from being in the classroom)

With summer basically winding down here and everyone going back to work and school it leaves this substitute teacher with very little to actually do.

We did manage to head to the lake for a family gathering over the long weekend.  After talking about them for likely the last 2 or 3 years we FINALLY got our beavertails (I got nutella and banana and I HIGHLY recommend).

We should be officially putting a deposit down on our kitchen cabinets today... I'll fill you all in next week but fingers crossed that all goes well.

I made some apple pie filling (and then promptly stuck it in the freezer) and I've officially used up almost all of our apples.  I'm thinking I'll use the last bit to make some apple buns for my Bible study group.

We bought a half bushel of roma tomatoes because they were only $3 at Superstore!  How could we pass up such an unbelievable deal?!?  We'll be dealing with those tomorrow.

Like I said, not a lot going on this week.  I can definitely tell that our summer weather is fading quickly so the days that it still feels hot out I've been spending time outside enjoying that last little bit of heat we'll be feeling for a few months.

I managed to book a few subbing jobs... sadly nothing for next week still but I'm hopeful something will come up!

Hopefully all my teacher friends are enjoying their classes!


Thursday, September 06, 2018

Plants in the Classroom

Last school year I was collecting pictures of how teachers use plants to decorate their classrooms... 
here are a few examples of plants in the classroom that I've come across 






decorating a bookshelf

Table centerpieces
This teacher had a whole greenhouse in her classroom!

Psst... last week I shared what I know (and have seen) about Maker Space's

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