Well, after being away from school for close to two weeks, I am back teaching again. I hope and pray that I never, ever get bronchitis ever again! I am still a little under the weather and definitely feel more fatigued than usual but I am glad to be back at work.

Yesterday I taught the grade 1's Science. We are working on force and motion right now. I did an experiment about friction. We were all surprised to discover that an ice cube did not move very quickly down a laminated surface and stopped completely on construction paper! I was so happy to hear that one of the grade 1's went back to his class and gave a very clear and correct description of friction. Mission accomplished!

Today we had a professional day. We went to visit at a school that was built a couple of years ago. It is not quite the same floor plan idea of our new school (that is currently being built) but the teachers there do a lot of team teaching and collaboration. It was really informative and gave me some really good ideas about what we can do in the coming months to prepare us for our new building next year.

We got to take a tour of the school and, of course, I found some neat ideas and just had to take pictures! I would like to do some of these things in our classroom!

I enjoy teaching everything (except gym!) but some days, when I look at all the cool ideas I have for art projects, I wish that all I taught was art. Being creative is such a HUGE part of me and I want to find more ways to bring that passion into our classroom. Recently, I have been re-reading a book I bought a year ago called The Power of Pictures - Creating Pathways to Literacy Through Art and I am finding it really inspiring. Don't be surprised if you see some photos on here with student writing inspired by their art!