Winter, begone!

Well, last week I realized that we were still working on a winter craft and my classroom walls were filled with winter artwork.

It was our fault that Spring wasn't here!

I told my students so, and we've been working hard at doing what we can to hurry the arrival of my favourite season. We replaced the snowflakes hanging from the ceiling with flowers, took down our polar bear art, and sent home our penguin craft. The walls are starting to fill up with Spring art grids.

And what do you know, here comes Spring!

You're welcome! Sorry about the long winter.

Not so quiet anymore!

It's funny that a month ago I blogged that nothing much was going on in my life because now I'm super busy! And things won't be slowing down anytime soon. I'm looking forward to the next 2 months because they bring some fun things, but it's going to be a VERY busy 2 months!

2 months from today, the following will have happened:

-Senior Drama Dessert Theatre (I'm one of the directors)
-LOTS of rehearsals
-My grade 1s' recitation of two poems at the Music Festival
-Regional Drama Festival with the senior drama
-Another wedding shower for my sister
-My birthday (yay!)
-Possible trip to Regina for best friend's mom's art show
-Trip to Hawaii for my sister's wedding
-Provincial Drama Festival in Regina
-and hopefully some sleep somewhere in there!

So ya, busy busy!

Here's a cute quote from school today: I try to tell my students how I'm feeling when I'm frustrated or impatient with them, so they can understand the impact of their behaviour. Today I found out that one of them sure has been listening! After we had a talk about her less than stellar behaviour, she said, "Miss Smith, I'm going to be on my best behaviour now so that you're not frustrated with me."

One of these things is not like the others...

One of my EA's has been out sick for a couple of months. My students have been asking about when she's coming back, so we made her a booklet of get well pictures and letters. Most of them wrote things like "I miss you, Mrs. C!", "Are you coming back soon?", "I hope you feel better soon!", and "I hope I can see you soon!".

As I was looking through them, I found one that was not like the others. It said, "Dear Mrs. C, I played on the snow hills today. It was fun."

Just keeping her caught up on current events, I guess!

Father and Daughter Part 2

Our story ran in the Star Phoenix and Leader Post today.

Here it is!

Good Teachers Part 2

Mr. Nethercut taught us Grade 10 Social Studies and Art. He certainly caught our attention. In a small town where new teachers are always a novelty, Mr. N was even more so. On the first day of grade 10, he walked into the room, slammed the door and proceeded to YELL at us "THIS COULD BE THE WORST YEAR OF YOUR LIFE." We were listening. He continued, "Or we could have a great year. The choice is up to you." He handed out blank pieces of paper and had us write down one word: RESPECT. He told us it was his one rule and that if we showed him respect, he would show us respect.

Background info: we were a very difficult class. Substitute teachers didn't want to sub in our classroom. The driver's ed. instructor threatened to walk out on us and fail the whole class. Teachers had meetings about us when we were in grade 8. So ya, no teachers had ever talked about respecting US before.

Mr. Nethercut had no problem controlling us. He didn't need to. We respected him because he respected us. He had high expectations of us and we actually wanted to live up to them.

Father and Daughter

Dad and I are both teaching Grade 1 Math this year, in different schools of course. I was telling my principal and he suggested emailing the Bulletin (The STF monthly publication). A couple of weeks ago, one of the writers visited my classroom on a day that Dad and I had set up our classes on Skype to chat and ask each other some math questions.

Here's the article! Page 7.

World Teacher Day

Yesterday was World Teacher Day and we didn't even realize it! Oops.

I've known that I wanted to be a teacher since I was in Kindergarten. Now I am a teacher and sometimes I can't even believe it. My days are crazy and my life is full of meetings and prep work; my head is always full of things I need to get done, needs of students, and thoughts about how things are going. But then my day starts and I have a bunch of small people around me, needing and talking and laughing and learning, and all that other stuff gets put on hold. In grade 1, my students' victories are small and gradual: remembering a letter sound that they couldn't remember yesterday, remembering to get out their books without being reminded, learning routines & procedures, and making better decisions than they made yesterday. Their little light bulbs flicker all day long as they learn and remember new things and all of a sudden something big happens--like they recognize a word or the concept of "adding on" becomes natural to them.

It's pretty exciting.

So I'm going to pay tribute to some of the teachers that had an impact on my life.

Mrs. Gropp-Kindergarten

Mrs. Gropp had contagious enthusiasm. She was always wide-eyed and smiling. I was already a reader when I went to kindergarten (much to the surprise of my parents) and yet I was never bored with learning the alphabet. We sang songs and read exciting stories; we played in the sandbox and dressed in high fashion from the dress-up centre. One of my clearest memories from Kindergarten is of Mrs. Gropp standing at the front of the room, leading us in our exercises. It was the 80's, so she often wore a bright coloured, one-piece pantsuit and had big, heavy beads that she would throw over her shoulder so they didn't hit her in the face as she jumped up and down.

Another clear memory from that year was one day that Mrs. Gropp asked me to come out in the hallway. She told me that I was a great kid and very special. Then she gave me a big, scratch-&-sniff sticker of a banana that said, "I think you're Top Banana!" I remember feeling so special and singled out. She probably did the same thing with every student, but I of course felt like I was the only one.

Kindergarten was the first time I remember wanting to be a teacher. I remember watching Mrs. Gropp, thinking how much fun her job must be. It's definitely harder than I thought it would be at the time, but it's just as much fun. Thanks, Mrs. Gropp!

Beat that!

One of my adorable grade 1 boys was playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with a boy in grade 5 at recess today. After a few rounds, my grade 1 boy, Jonathan, added in "worm" which he claims, beats everything.

After watching him beat the grade 5 boy a few times in a row, I inquired further about the new addition. "Jonathan," I said, "how does a worm beat everything?"

"Because I made it up."

"But if it beats everything in the game, wouldn't you just pick it every time?"

To which he replied, "Obviously."

Mathematical Funny

Yesterday one of my Grade 2 boys came to me and asked me what 8 + 8 is. Of course, I replied that it was 16. He asked if I knew what 8 + 8 is in high school. When I said 16 again, he said, "No, it's B."

Algebra. The funny thing is that he probably doesn't even know why it's so funny!

Time is ticking away, tick-tick-ticking away!

That title is a throwback for all you old school DC Talk Fans like me.


Anyway, time. Yes. I remember posting this and how I felt. Just under 2 years ago, I was freaking out and feeling very surreal about my first day of school as a teacher. Now, I'm a week away from the end of my second year of teaching! Wow. I will always love my job, but I am SO looking forward to summer!

I had a wonderful summer last year, but it was SO busy. This year, apart from working a day and a half a week for fun (I mean, I'm still getting paid) at the flower shop I used to work at, I am taking it very easy. I'll be living at my favourite house on Baker Road (the Day house) and enjoying summer fun in Saskatoon. I'm going to catch up on my big pile of books and catch up with friends and just have fun. SO EXCITED.

Oh, and I might go to a couple of short courses offered by the STF in Saskatoon. Learning where I don't have to do any work? Sign me up!

What a month!

June.

It's always going to be a crazy month for teachers. But this June? It's a doozy. This month I have:

-2 weddings
-1 field trip
-2 wedding showers
-1 best friend coming home from Vancouver for a visit
-28 report cards
-1 teacher retirement event (obviously not for me)
-2 board meetings
-and a bunch of school events that I'm too tired to even think of.

Yikes!

I love the way his mind works!

I wish everyone could meet this kid. Lucas is one of my grade 1 students and he's just the coolest, most inquisitive kid I've ever met. His questions are SO funny, but he doesn't ask them to be funny! It's really just the way he thinks.

I was walking home from school today, listening to my iPod. Lucas saw me and came over to say hi. Here is our conversation:

Lucas-So, did you have lots of fun at school today, Miss Smith?
Me-I sure did, Lucas, did you?
L-Is that your iPod?
M-Yep.
L-Oh. What colour is it? Oh, it's blue?
M-Yep.
L-And do you just like it a lot?
M-I do like it a lot.
L-Oh. (taking it out of my hand and smelling it) What song are you listening to now?
M-I'm actually not listening to a song, I'm listening to a book!
L-How do you listen to a book on there?
M-Well, someone reads the book out loud and then they record it and I put it on my iPod!
L-Oh, how big is the book?
M-Well, it's about this big (holding up my fingers to show the novel thickness).
L-Oh, so that's probably 100 pages I bet.
M-Well, it's probably more like 300 pages.
L-Oh. So is your iPod really old already or is it new?
M-It's probably almost 2 years old.
L-Oh. Where did you get it?
M-I got it for a Christmas present.
L-From who?
M-From my mom and dad.
L-So, I bet it costed about a hundred dollars probably?
M-Well, I think it was more like about $150.
L-Oh. So, they put all their money together to buy it for you?
M-Ya, something like that.
L-So, what does your dad look like?
M-Well, he's pretty tall and he has short dark hair...
L-Is it blacker than yours is?
M-It is. And he has glasses.
L-What kind of glasses are they? Are they like yours?
M-Kind of, but his are glasses for boys.
L-Oh, so are they blue?
M-I think they're black.
L-Oh. So you got your iPod for a Christmas present?
M-Yep.
L-From your mom and dad?
M-Yep.
L-Where did they buy it from?
M-I think it was from Wal-Mart.
L-Which one? (Thinking hard) In Saskatoon?
M-Maybe. Or it might have been in Medicine Hat.
L-Oh. And it was 2 years ago?
M-Ya.
L-Oh. So are you going to have some supper now?
M-Yep.
L-Okay. Bye!

Seriously. Don't you just want to meet this kid?

What a day

I really could make a strong case for having just a half day of school on the first day back from a week off. At least for elementary students. Especially ones who are 6-8 years old in a classroom of 28.

THEY WERE NUTS TODAY!

I mean, they weren't BAD today, they were just nuts! Crazy! Overstimulated! Energetic! Loud. It was like they saved all their Easter candy and ate it ALL this morning.

Thank goodness we had Phys. Ed. this afternoon. I threw out a bunch of balls and hula hoops and just told them to go nuts. And they did!

And now I'm exhausted.

Blurg.

As a teacher, being sick is so much work. In what other profession do you have to plan out your day to stay home? And even more so as an elementary teacher, as I pretty much have to plan out my day minute by minute.

Well, I just got home from planning my third sick day in a row. Tomorrow I will sleep in and then go to the hospital to get my throat checked out. I have a bump in the back of my throat where my tonsils are. Or rather, where they aren't, as I had them removed when I was 6. Then they sort of grew back when I was 12ish. Bet you didn't know they could grow back, did you? Apparently if some tissue remains, they can regenerate. So, is that what's going on again? All I know is I feel like I'm trying to swallow a tennis ball.

And I don't even play tennis.

Really? Not even on fish?

I was hurrying my students out of the computer lab the other day by flickering the lights because I have a few dawdlers. The lab doesn't have any windows, so when you turn off the lights, it's quite dark.

Lucas, one of my grade 1 students, was the last one in the lab and I had flicked the lights a couple of times before I turned them off completely. As he was coming down the steps, I heard Lucas mutter, "Oh, tartar sauce!"

Perplexed, I asked, "Lucas, did you just say tartar sauce?"

"Yep," he replied.

"Why did you say tartar sauce?"

"Because I don't like being in the dark."

"But why did you say tartar sauce?" Still confused.

"Because I don't like tartar sauce either."

Ye olde wilde west

This morning I overheard a conversation between two of my students about the "Olden days." Jill was telling her friend about cowboys and cowgirls.

"If you were a cowgirl in the olden days you would have really long hair. The women had really long hair because there was no such thing as hairdressers. Or scissors."

How she thinks the men kept their hair short, I'm not sure. Maybe back then the men's hair just didn't grow.

A Shaky excuse...

Today one of my grade 1 boys told me he couldn't run in Phys. Ed. because he was sick.

"Oh," I said, "What are you sick with?"

His reply? "I have the hiccups."

I almost made him run an extra lap.

What a nut.

Today I was telling my students that I'm going to be gone on Friday. Before I could tell them it was to a town nearby for an inservice, Mindy, who is a very quirky girl in grade two, blurted out, "Where are you going, Miss Smith? China?"

To which I replied, "Of course."

And without missing a beat, she replied, "Oh, well bring me back a fortune cookie!"

You mean teachers DON'T live at the school?

It's always funny witnessing different students' reactions to seeing their teacher outside of school. Some kids' parents have a lot of teacher friends, so seeing teachers out of school isn't a big deal. Other kids have older brothers and sisters, so the whole teachers as real people is an old concept for them.

Tyler's mom invited me over tonight for a jewellery party. Tyler was happy but underwhelmed to see me there. 3 or 4 more of my students were also there playing in the basement and thought it completely normal that I was around. Sarge, however, is the first of his siblings to go to school and I don't think his parents have many teacher friends. When Sarge saw me, he just kinda stared at me and waved. Then he turned to Tyler's little brother and whispered, "Hey, Tim, that's my teacher." Tim just said, "Ya, I know." Then Sarge grabbed Dallas' arm and said, "Dallas, did you see who's here? Look, look who it is!" And of course, he thought he was being quiet but everyone could hear him and all the moms were giggling.

So just to set the record straight, no, we don't live at the school and yes, we go grocery shopping just like everyone else.

Just in case you didn't know.

Now that's a 75 cent word!

So, in the classroom this week, my students were making their own cornucopias for Thanksgiving. (Out of paper, not basket weaving. That would be very cool, but maybe a bit advanced for grade 1 and 2 students). Anyway, they were having trouble saying the word and I heard a few different pronunciations.

My personal favourite, though, was Haley's. When she finished hers, she excitedly exclaimed, "Miss Smith! I'm done my cornucoppity!"

Happy Thanksgiving, Canadians!