So, I keep having people ask me how it is going in the new school. Well, does this quote give you an idea? (Just kidding!!!)  Although there were a couple moments on that first day....

What can I say? This week has brought lots of changes, new routines in a new space, trying to apply old routines in a new space, dealing with the (ever constant) talking when they need to be listening (same old, same old!!!!), not being able to find things because they are still packed in a box somewhere and not enough sleep!

As to the actual physical space...I love it! It is open and bright. The spaces just call out to be used (although they also call out to be run in which we are working on!) I feel good when I am in them. It feels all shiny and new like a Christmas present the day you first open it.  I am loving having the use of two spaces each morning. And am so looking forward to teaching the other divisions starting next week.

Of course, I still have a lot of boxes to empty and I haven't quite wrapped my head around the schedule (or where everything is stored) but I know it will come in time. After all, it took many, many weeks to pack up. It will take as long (or longer) to unpack!

I just hope we can keep it looking shiny and new for a long time. I have already had to send out a plea for boxes of baby wipes. It is the one thing I can think of that will be safe for the kids to use to clean off their puzzle piece carpet each day. And I am needing a broom desperately. Suddenly we can see all the dirt and muck that the kids were tromping into the old building. Only there it was hidden by the carpet! YUCK! Now, it is just there to see. I am thinking that indoor shoes (slippers with rubber soles or slip on runners with velcro) are going to be the way to go. Clean shoes, clean floors. At least in theory!!!

Today we did read to self for 16 minutes during Daily 5 time. Students were reading in the yellow studio, the DaVinci studio and the Community Commons. It was really cool to see! And they were on task (for the most part) so I managed to test a student yesterday and today! Woohoo! I should have the RAZ kids set up by Halloween. Tomorrow we are going to start doing another area of Daily 5: Word Work. We are starting with work on our spelling words thus far. (Speaking of spelling words...Our review week pretty much bit the dust. Not enough time or energy. We will go to week 7 next week) I saw this great storage system for Word Work on the blog Seusstastic today. I wonder where I can get one? I need it!!!!!

 



I won't lie and say that this move has been all wine and roses (though I will admit that there has been wine involved every evening upon returning home!) but, overall, it has gone more smoothly than it could have. So, thank you to all the families who have helped to make the transition smooth for the children (and teachers!) Keep checking in because there is more to come in the next few days. That day of costumes and candy is fast approaching!!!!

Ms. Hughes

 

Pinterest Wish List

One of my biggest failings (or perhaps it is a blessing in disguise, I really don't know) is that I have a gazillion ideas that will not get done in a day, a week, a month or even a year. Probably not in a lifetime! This is evidenced by my pinterest board which at last count had 50 boards and 6,464 pins!!!!

I have a ton of home ideas and an equal (or higher) number of school pins. I tend to get more of the school ideas accomplished since I spend most of my waking hours there but I haven't given up hope of accomplishing some of the decorating ideas for home!

That said, with the move to the new school and Halloween fast approaching and I have pulled a few pins that I really, really, really want to get done. Some are about organizing the new space and some are lessons I'd like to do in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed that I manage to do them!

from dandee-designs

 

Aren't these great? Simple to do and will let me colour coordinate. Oh, I do love me some colour coordination!!!!


from deliciously organized

Having my office area looking something like this - although I know that I do not have anywhere near this amount of shelving. I still want to create an organized, calm working space for myself.





from Rowdy in First Grade

I really like the visual for this lesson on adjectives. I will definitely be making time to do this lesson in the next week. And them maybe a poem can come out of it?

 



from Saylorslog

 

This lesson is just truly awesome. It is a lesson on differentiation. A lesson that is meant to show students that teachers do not give students what they might perceive as "fair" (the same for all) but what they need (meeting the needs of the individual). The teacher has each student imagine a pretend "owee" and then proceeds to put a band aid on the same spot on each student regardless of where they say their pretend owee is. The lesson is about giving everyone the same thing (putting the band aids on the same spots regardless) versus giving each student what they NEED (putting the band aid on the spot that is "hurt"). It is a great visual lesson and I think it will really bring home the reasons why not all students have the same work, same expectations etc. I'll be doing this one!

 

from kindergarten lifestyle

 

I want to do this to my rollie cart. Now that we don't have teacher desks in our rooms, I have created a rolling desk in a cart like this. Doesn't it look cheerful all dolled up? This one is on my do soon list!

 

 

 

from etsy.com

 

This is the first art lesson I want to do in the DaVinci studio. I am so thrilled to have a real, honest to goodness art room. You may not know this but art is my favourite, favourite, favourite subject. Expect to see a lot of art integrated into my lessons now that I have an art studio at my fingertips!!!!

 

another Halloween idea from here

 

How cute are these!!!! I think that with all the wonderfully unique personalities in our class that these will be a sight to behold! Love them!

 



Christmas countdown from here

 

Love this idea! Used it last year, too. It was a fun lesson to teach and a great way for the kids to countdown to the big day!

 

from a teacher's treasure

 

I like the idea of this. Put it in the front of their Daily 5 notebook and add reading strategies as we learn them. 

 



 from peace love learning

 

I really like this. It promotes independence in the children, puts a stop to the "When's lunch, Ms. Hughes?" and teaches math skills. What's more is there to say?

 

 

This anchor chart from here

I started talking about schema the other day. I love this anchor chart. We will definitely be having something like this hanging up in our new space.

So, that is the current pinterest wish list. Doable, you think?

 



School on the Brain

I went to bed every night this past week thinking about school and woke up every morning thinking about school. In between I dreamt about school! It was crazy!!!!

Right now I do not ever, ever, ever want to see a packing box again!

EVER!!!!

Of course, I will be met with the sight of a gazillion boxes when I go in to start unpacking on Sunday. But that will at least have an outcome that I will like. The only outcome from all the packing is fatigue! Big time fatigue! (Note to self: Never work two 14 hour days in a row ever again. You will feel horrible!)

Today we had a professional day which was spent with my new community colleagues planning for the coming weeks. I was so tired that all I wanted to do was sleep in (I was asleep before 8:30 last night!) but we got lots accomplished and I was happy in the end that I got out of bed.

I wanted to share some of the work that the class did last week. We wrote thank you notes to the construction workers and the moving crew. They turned out so well. I think that it is one of the best writing jobs the class has done yet! These ones are the ones to the construction crew. First, check the card fronts out. The pictures are so bright and unique...

Now, check out the writing. How wonderful is this? I did give the class the spelling for "Dear Construction Workers" and "Thank you for" but most of the students did lots of Fearless Spelling. I thought that they did a great job! I have seen great progress in their writing over the last couple of weeks. I love when that happens!

 

Were you able to read all of those? I hope so because they all made me smile. The ones to the moving crew were also great. One of my favourites is the one that read "Thank you for all the hard work. These boxes are heavy. How do you carry them?" So sweet! And the other student who said "Thank you for moving our Smart board" (I agree! And can only hope that it is up and running on Tuesday!!!!)  Hope you all have a great weekend!

Ms. Hughes

Friday Favourites

Again on a Saturday! This is becoming a very bad habit!

This has been a long week! What with the move so close and all, I am pretty darn tired and not sure if I can think of one thing to tell about this past week (much less five!!!) but I'll give it the old college try!

1. Creating our math glyph about our feelings regarding leaving the old school and moving into the new school. I took some photos (sorry about the blur!) of the charts and a few of the finished glyphs.

 

Aren't they wonderful? I was so pleased with how they turned out. I put them up for the walkabout tour today and they are fab! Please check them out when you come to school on Monday and see if you can figure out which one YOUR child made!

2. The final walkabout for the old school. It was such a great turn out. I met a lovely lady who was in grade 1 in 1936! She had such wonderful stories!!! Did you know that they used to have a gramophone outside the office to get the kids back to class after recess? Apparently they came marching back in to a song called "Captain Boogie"!

3. The cardboard box "classrooms" the kids are creating. We made charts of needs/wants for our new class. I was very surprised to hear that the students think centres are a want and not a need. I, for one, think that centres are a need in grade 1. Learning through play is vitally important at this age.

4. Enjoying the last of the sunny days before the weekend rain started. It was really nice to be able to take the class out for a play on Thursday afternoon.

5. Learning how to do Partner Reading for our Daily 5 time. We have gotten to 5 minutes! It will be back to Daily 5 Boot Camp once we get into the new building but I am very pleased with the progress so far!

Have a happy weekend!

Ms. Hughes

Five days left but...who's counting?

ME!! That's who!!!!

I can hardly wait to be in the new space and be able to get into a proper routine again with the class. I miss our morning calendar, all of our books and knowing where to find the extra pencils. I miss having more choices for centres than Lego and art, having furniture instead of boxes and being able to find notebooks when I need them. If there is anything that grade 1 students need to be successful in class it is routine, routine, routine!

I have been doing the best I can to maintain routines as we go through this seemingly never ending moving process but it is really hard to keep doing things like quiet, independent reading when there are three guys pulling furniture across the room. Distraction much? And that is just ONE of many, many similar events!!!!

Today we started working on the math glyphs we are making for the Final Walkabout this Saturday. We are creating pictures of the school that provide information about our feelings through the pictures. I will try to post a few of them this weekend for you to see. They are really wonderful and unique.

For example, one of the questions asked the kids if they were feeling tired, excited or scared about this whole moving thing. Kids who were tired drew 1 tree, ones who were excited drew 2 trees and the ones that are scared drew 3 trees. I found out that most of the class is excited but a couple of the kids were tired of it all and a couple others are scared about it. We will be looking at everyone's pictures and compiling the data to see how we are feeling about different aspects of the move. Glyphs are a great way to teach data collection (I love glyphs!!! Expect to see many more over the course of the year!) This is really important information for me to have so that I can do everything possible to make the move smooth and anxiety free for the class (and me!)

As the move comes closer and closer, stress is popping out in all sorts of interesting ways around here (from both staff and students!) We all show stress in different ways. Me? I feel a bit like I am perpetually revving my engine and about to zoom off to the red zone. The actual move doesn't stress me out but fatigue does it to me every time (plus, it makes it really hard to maintain a good level of patience. Another thing that is vital when teaching grade 1's is patience, patience, patience!) Regardless of how excited I am for the move, I am starting to feel like I am burning the candle at both ends.

In addition to packing and preparing our classroom to move, I have personally packed the entire primary bookroom (about 40 boxes) and organized the archival photos for our walkabout on Saturday. (Did you know that we have photos going back all the way to the 1920's? Cool, huh?) What it all boils down to is extreme fatigue. Tired doesn't even cut it anymore. In fact, I am not sure fatigue cuts it either. Is there another word that means more fatigued than fatigue?

As a result, I am becoming the Queen of S.T.A.R. breathing. Today I simply stood at the front of the class, breathing in, breathing out while I waited for them to stop talking (which, by the by, took almost 5 minutes!!!) If you happen to walk into the classroom in the next week and see me flopping like a balloon, twisted up like a pretzel or doing S.T.A.R. breaths, you will know that I am trying to get back into the green zone before becoming the star of my very first movie "Fast Ride Into the Red Zone - A Teacher's Horror Story." 

I want to say thank you to all the parents who have offered to help with the move. I am kind of particular about my packing having done it so many times in my life (up to a point where I just throw everything in boxes and figure I'll deal with it later! Must say that I hit that point a couple of days ago!!!) However, we could use some help on the last Thursday in the classroom to help pack up the last of our centres and our book boxes. So, if you have some time around 2pm, come on by!!!

Ms. Hughes