Friday Favourites

1) I survived the first week in the new school.

2) I survived the first week in the new school.

3) I survived the first week in the new school.

4) I survived the first week in the new school.

AND....
 
5) I survived the first week in the new school.

What else is there to say?

Ms. Hughes

Friday Favourites

Seems I should rename these something with the word Saturday in them since I haven't managed to do them on a Friday in a couple of weeks!!!

Here goes:

1) Completing all of the goal setting conferences this past week. Between the conferences and packing for the move, I put in a 12 hour day each day this past week but I survived! I was so happy to see that each and every family made it to the goal setting conferences. Now to make all of those goals come to fruition!

2) Centres on Friday was awesome! I got some Lego from the teacher next door that needs to be packed for our community. I put it out for the kids to use and some of the little guys, who have boundless energy, played happily, quietly and (best of all!) co-operatively for over 45 minutes! It was a miracle!!!

 

Do you see the little bed that didn't get packed up with the Fisher Price Centre? I'm thinking this class will love it when I get to unpack all of that stuff. They haven't even seen it yet!

And the kids who weren't playing with Lego were sewing. Yep, you heard me right! Sewing! Two of the girls asked me to bring some needles to school and so I pulled out my tapestry needles (they can go through fabric with a bit of muscle power but aren't sharp enough to do damage) and a group of students sewed with me. It was so fun and so relaxing. We seriously discussed creating a sewing centre for centre time in our new school!

3) Being given 2 extra prep periods so that I could finish packing the primary book room materials. Thank you to my admin for that!!!! It is finally done (HURRAY!!!) Now I can finish off the classroom!

4) Starting our directed drawing lessons. I love teaching these (well, honestly, I love teaching anything art related) and it never fails to amaze me how each child can follow the same directions and yet end up with such unique drawings.

5) Getting to 11 minutes of read to self. WOOHOO!!!! It was tricky to do what with movers coming in to take furniture while we were trying to read but the class did really well. This coming week I am going to start pulling kids over to do some reading assessments. I want to get our RAZ kids going!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ms. Hughes

The Last Friday Favourites of September

It is hard to believe that it is Friday again already. How did that happen?

Overall it was a good week.  It is always a good thing when the good outweighs the bad. Don't you think? It was a little less bumpy behavior wise but a whole lot chattier!!! So, without further ado, here are my favourite things about this week.

1. That I got an iPhone in June so I am able to start this post while waiting for the non-existent Dunbar bus!!! Most days I don't mind the bus but today after watching 4 (count 'em, 4!!!) "Sorry Not In Service" buses pass me by, I am heartily sick of transit. Especially since it is almost 6 o'clock and I am ready to be home!

(Sorry for not posting this last night. The bus arrived right after I wrote number 1. FINALLY!!! I got home and then was out for the evening and exhausted when I got home at 9:30. How sad is that? In bed by 10 on a Friday night. And then, to add insult to injury, I wanted to sleep in today and woke up at 6:15. Wow! I slept in for a whole 50 minutes longer than normal!)

2. Holy Pattern Makers Batman!!! This group can ALL do patterns with 3 colours. Colour me impressed. I started teaching the patterning unit only to discover that my first lesson was beyond easy, peasy, lemon squeezy for this group. I gave them a quiz the next day and each and every one of them got 100%!!!! On to more challenging sorting and patterning lessons...

3. Getting to 5 minutes of independent, quiet (almost silent) reading!!! This may not seem like a big deal but it has taken us TWO weeks to get here. The first day we did not even get to 30 seconds before someone failed to meet expectations and we had to stop and go over the criteria again. We are building our reading stamina. Eventually, we will get to 20 minutes and I will be able to run small reading groups while the class is actively involved in reading and writing activities. (Also, this just goes to show that the students can control their talking. They are just choosing not to at carpet time!!!!)

4. I survived teaching gym! I enjoy going to the gym but do not really like teaching gym. And I have managed to not teach it for a number of years. I have traded off with other teachers and taught a subject for them in exchange for them teaching my gym. Unfortunately for me, schedules don't allow for that this year. But, apparently, it is like riding a bicycle. You don't really forget how to do it. And it was actually kind of fun. Who knew?

5. And probably my most favourite thing that happened this week is getting to go in and see the new school and our new learning community space. It was so exciting and I am so looking forward to setting up in the new space. It is going to be awesome. I love the space and I really enjoy working with my teaching team. The students are going to benefit so much from having the expertise of three enthusiastic teachers. How can it get better than that?

Have a happy weekend!

Ms. Hughes

Friday Faves

Okay, there were quite a few things this week that are contenders for my favourite five happenings in our class this week.

Here goes:

1. Math: We did our first math quilt this week. I found a great lesson plan with black line masters on Teachers pay Teachers (TpT) and we did the September quilt. It looks wonderful and was a very successful lesson. Most of the kids could do it independently once I showed them the basic cuts. Yeah!

2. Meet the Creature Teacher Night: I was thrilled to see so many parents come out to find out about our class and 1/2 community. I will be posting the overview on the blog asap. I am really looking forward to doing all sorts of wonderful activities with our class/community parents. We are so lucky at this school to have such awesome families!

3. Meals: I was pleasantly surprised by the sushi dinner provided to us by our administration on Meet the Teacher night. Some of us were here for 11 hours by the time the evening was done and being fed was a treat!

4. Terry Fox Run: The biggest plus for me was surviving it. Walking 6 blocks away from school so early in the school year is CRAZY!!! No grade 1 class is cohesive enough or (let's just say it) trained enough in expectations to do the trek without a fuss/problems/issues arising. Thank goodness for the mums who stayed to walk with us. I quite literally would not have tried to walk this class over there without them. You rock Moms!!!!

5. The new school: We got the official move in date for our new school!!!! Yippeeeeeee! Our last day of teaching in this building (barring unseen problems arising) will be Thursday, October 18. I can hardly wait to be in the new building and working with our whole community. It kind of feels like being on a different continent at the moment with us at opposite ends of the building and on different floors. 

And that's that for another week. Enjoy the weekend!!!

Ms. Hughes

Friday Favourites

There are some days when all I can think is, "I don't get paid nearly enough to do this job."

Today was one of them.

Activities that I had planned to take 20 minutes took close to double that because I had to keep stopping (a bad case of chatter boxes in our class today!) to wait for listening. And then wait some more and then some more. And then, well, you get the idea...

We did our spelling review and they all looked at me like they had no idea what words I was saying. And this after working on the words each and every day this week!!!!! At one point, my grumpy, frustrated, very annoyed and on the way to truly cross voice came out and I had to stop, count to ten in my head and then start again.

But, on the bright side, it was a great teaching moment. See? Even teachers go in the red zone sometimes!!!! What great role modeling! See kids? This is a strategy to use when you feel like your head is going to spin around in circles and blow off the top of your neck!!! Try it sometime! It really helps!

So, I think it is good that I am starting Friday Favourites this week because it will force me to stop paying attention to all the things that seemed to go wrong today and focus on the wonderful stuff that happened this week.

So, here goes. My five favourite things that happened in our classroom this week....

1. I got a good laugh when one of the students who had brought in a chocolate cake for his birthday (pre-sliced by his parents. Thank you very much!) told me that I had to try some because "my heart would blow into pieces it was so good!" I don't eat wheat and definitely did not want to deal with the stomach issues that would have resulted if I had eaten a whole piece but I did have a very small nibble and, he was right, it was delish! (And, trust me, I needed the laugh today!)

2. Watching a group of very physical boys being completely absorbed by a game of UNO for almost half an hour. Wow! Is there magic dust in UNO? I want to get me some of that!!!!!!

3. Getting snail mail (I love real mail, don't you? There is just something so exciting about opening up the letter or package that I don't get with email) from Amazon with new books to read to the class.


Great book for descriptive writing lessons



Wonderful book by Angela Johnson for teaching personal narrative writing



Used this book to introduce using a pencil to do all writing (no more writing with crayons!!!!) before I gave each of the students their personal pencil for their pencil cases.

4. The feeling I got when one of the students asked me out on the playground, "Ms. Hughes, when is the rest of our community coming out to play?" My heart did a little flutter at how easily the students are accepting the idea that we are not a stand alone class with one teacher but a community with three teachers and a lot of friends!

5. Getting the go ahead to order the math program our community wants to use this year (more on that coming soon!) Now we just have to order the books. Yeah!!!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Ms. Hughes