First Field Trip!

My stay at home mom dreams came true last week when I accompanied Little m on her first ever field trip with her preschool class. Big yellow bus included! I'm fortunate enough that if I need to be away, M's work schedule is flexible enough that he can stay home with the baby and work while she naps, which was the plan for Friday's field trip... until he was scheduled for an out of town client meeting. Until now we have only really used family or friends to watch the girls, which wasn't possible this time, so may I introduce you to the next best option, UrbanSitter!

UrbanSitter is a really cool website and app that makes it, dare I say, effortless to find a babysitter. As soon as I found out that M had to be out of town, I logged into UrbanSitter and registered for an account. I used the search function to look for a sitter who was available during the time slot I needed plus had completed a background check. I took a look through a bunch of profiles, read reviews from other parents, and watched a few of the sitters' personal videos. I then sent out some requests to see who could accept the job. I got a quick response and in no time, had a babysitter booked! I didn't schedule an interview with the sitter beforehand because she had over forty 5-star reviews and I felt confident that she would be great. One of the genius features to UrbanSitter is that you can link it with your Facebook account and see which sitters your friends have used in the past and how they reviewed them. So, friends, if you need to make your life easier and want to try UrbanSitter, here's a code for free month of membership: FORFREETRIAL

And now, back to the field trip! If you have little kids and have never heard of Elephant and Piggie, you are truly missing out. It's an amazingly funny book series by Mo Willems that I love as much, or maybe more, than Little m. Her preschool class has been reading these books all year, so of course they couldn't miss Emerald City Theatre's Elephant and Piggie show.

(source)

We all boarded the school bus and I had the best time watching all of the little kids enjoying their first ride. One of the best things about being a parent is seeing the joy in the little things. Look at how excited Little m looks!

Giddy with excitement!

School bus selfie!

The play itself was really cute, full of singing and dancing. We had to wait a looooong time for it to begin because some classes were running late, which in turn made it hard for the little kids to sit for such a long period of time. Overall, I'd totally recommend the show for kids aged 4+.

Halfway through, Little m crawled onto my lap, which to me was the icing on the cake. I loved being able to spend some quality time with her, knowing my other baby was being well taken care of as well. After the play, we boarded the bus and it was a happy ride home, me squeezed into a bus seat with two squealing preschoolers who talked nonstop about ice cream! Oh and one last perk about UrbanSitter? I took the option to pay the sitter by credit card so I didn't have to worry about stopping for cash on the way home. So convenient! 


I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Counting Down

Today after school I was writing the date on the board to get ready for tomorrow. Do you see what I see?

Let's get right in there.

Holy smokes, only 18 days of school left! I can't quite believe it. My class this year has probably been the best I've had in my five years of teaching. We've had a lot of fun.

On another note, I've been so confused by this picture in the staff washroom lately. It appeared one day and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was a picture of.

I actually had to ask another staff member. Ha ha, I'm a little slow some days.

It's hard to see in the reflection, but of course it's another countdown! I'm pretty sure teachers are always more excited about summer vacation than their students! By the way, look at the concentration on my face in that pic, lol!

I have some franfreakingtastic summer plans in the works, how about you?

Seeds From Space!

As a teacher I'm always looking for interesting things to do in the classroom. I somehow found out about the Tomatosphere project and now in my class I have two sets of tomato plants growing. One set being from normal, ordinary tomato seeds and the other from seeds that were on board an International Space Station. Yes, space seeds! Here they are below, floating with Astronaut Robert Thirsk. Pretty cool, eh?

This is a blind experiment so I don't know (yet) which seeds are which, but as you can see, one set of seeds grew much better than the other.

The main reason for this experiment is to understand issues related to long-term space travel. Traveling to and from Mars could take up to three years so astronauts need to learn how they can grow food for their journey. How does the carbon dioxide that plants inevitably consume from the astronauts' breathing affect their growth?

The plants are big enough now that they are beginning to smell like tomato plants and the kids are obsessed with putting their noses right in there. Kinda funny.

So, do you think the space seeds yielded the faster or slower growing plants?

Holy Busy, Batman

Work for the past couple of weeks has been ridiculously busy. I feel like I've gotten nothing accomplished! For example, this week on Monday I had a workshop, Tuesday a presentation, Wednesday a dress rehearsal for our spring concert, and today I was at a conference with my boys reading club. Combine all of this with double recess each day for track and field practice, and time is disappearing! Not a bad thing, actually!

Today's conference was a really nice break from school. One of my favourite ladies and I took the boys in our reading club to a conference with other boys from all over Toronto.

Doesn't it look like we're having fun on the bouncy old bus?

We heard Barbara Reid talk about how she makes plasticine illustrations for her books (wow, wow, wow). The rapper "D.A" taught us how to freestyle (HA!), we had pizza for lunch, then watched this cool basketball trickster guy do tricks, and a sound effects guy make crazy noises. But the highlight was being *this close* to getting trampled on by screaming 8 year old boys in the mosh pit. Hilarious.

Tonight was also our spring concert and my kids did a fabulous job and thank goodness it's over because I'm sick of practicing the same songs a million times.

Time to curl up with a book and hit the hay! TGI(almost)F

A Food Revolution

Have you caught any of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on tv? I enjoyed the first couple of episodes and was quite shocked/saddened by a few things I saw. I decided to show my class two clips and do a bit of my own research.

#1. I was so surprised that the seven(ish) year old kids on the show did not know the difference between a potato and a tomato, yet could readily identify pizza and chicken nuggets.

We have a phys ed teacher at my school who discusses nutrition with the kids so I wasn't positive how much my class knew about names of foods. I played the clip where Jamie Oliver asks the kids the names of fruits and vegetables, but paused every time to see if my class knew the names. They could identify everything but the beet (thought it was a turnip). Success!

#2. How disgusting was it when the kids on the show wanted to eat those chicken nuggets, even after they saw how they were made (from bones and carcass and skin and other crud)???? Gross me right out.

Chicken nuggets, step 1

I showed the chicken nugget clip to my class and they were all revolted. I then asked how many still wanted to eat those chicken nuggets and (oh dear) three out of nineteen said yes. Granted, these are the three kids that would probably eat dirt for a snack, but still. Peer pressure is so funny, too. After they saw their classmates looking at them all crazy like, they told me, oh no no no, I meant, no I would never eat those nuggets in a million years.

I've been spending a lot of time going over Canada's Food Guide with the kids and today I had them plan meals/snacks for a whole day. I asked them to add the totals of each food group to see if they were close to the recommended amounts.

One group told me what they had planned to eat for breakfast: cereal, milk, half a bagel, two eggs, an apple, and a glass of OJ. And then we ran out of time. I see I still have some work ahead of me!

The Scariest Art Lesson Ever

School has been ridiculously busy lately. It seems like everyday there is a special event, assembly, presentation, etc. So much curriculum to get through and so little time. Wait, that's just what the good teachers say. I say screw it, let's have some fun.

Today in art class I taught the kids about Jackson Pollock, who is an artist famous for techniques such as paint pouring and dripping, like this:

picture source

I set up a load of newspapers and let the kids go crazy. To be honest, this was just plain scary. Fun, but scary. Paint was everywhere. I stayed far far away. I also made the kids wash the floor afterwards. I hope the parents aren't too mad at me for all the laundry they'll have to do tonight!

The artwork turned out surprisingly nice!

Here's another thing we like to do at my school- eat pancakes in the middle of the grocery store aisle! We're classy like that.

Do you like my photoshop skills?

Stinky Chicks

A lot of people have been asking me about the chicks I had in my classroom, so here's an update!

February 4th was the estimated hatch day, but by the time I had to leave school that day, only one chick had hatched. Read about it here. After a long, restless sleep (seriously, I couldn't stop thinking about the birth of my babies all night long) I got to school the next morning and saw this...

An incubator full of yellow! I was jumping for joy. 11 out of 12 chicks hatched.

Here they are in their new home, cuddling to stay warm.

Precious!

And then my classroom was like this...

and like this for a week straight. All chicks, all day long. Peep peep peep.

PEEP during quiet reading. PEEEP during math tests. PEEEPPPP PEEEPPP PEEEEEEEEP.

And then came the poop. And the stench. I loved the experience but man, chickens poop A LOT.

Good thing I've got 20 child labourer poop picker uppers to help!

Over one week the chicks grew a ton! And got less and less cute. And more "chickeny". I had to take them home over one weekend, that was real fun. But now, the chicks have been returned to the farm and my students still talk about them everyday.

And sorry to keep you in suspense.. did the 12th egg ever hatch? We will never know because some bad ass STOLE it! Oy.

Wecome to the World, Beast!

I had such an exciting day at school! Today was the expected hatch day for our chicks! When I got to school three of the twelve eggs had pipped, which means that the chicks broke little holes in the egg to begin their hatching! Eeeee! Like this:
My students and I seriously spent most of the day just sitting, watching the incubator. They were so intrigued. Ha! The eggs rocked quite a bit all day and we could hear lots of peeps. Slowly but surely, by the end of the day all of the eggs had pipping holes and cracks, but nothing BIG was happening.

All of the kids wanted me to help the chicks and break open the eggs and I wanted to as well, but I kept saying.. let nature take its course, let nature take its course! I don't think the kids understood that or cared, they just wanted the chicks out!

But then.... right when the bell rang, "Beast" started to make his/her appearance. It took about 5 minutes in total for him/her to get out of his/her shell fully and it was oh soo soooooo exciting!
Hello, Beast, welcome to the world! Sorry for the craptastic pictures. I was taking pics with my iPhone and it was in the heat of the moment and by this time I was surrounded by at least 30 screaming children. It was great!
Then I was angry because I had to leave as quick as I could because I had an appointment. I CANNOT WAIT TILL TOMORROW!

Now, here are some cuter pictures of the chicks from the other classroom that hatched earlier and are now fluffy and cute!

Action Shots

Today my school went skating so I got to practice my mad skillz. I was nervous because the kids assumed that I can skate and tried to hang all over me. They also wanted to chase me, which is pretty impossible because I can't exactly move too fast! So far I have not fallen, but it's only a matter of time! Especially when surrounded by kids falling around me and into me every five seconds! Here are the action shots of the day:

Pretty much the best work day ever!

I'm Going to be a Momma!

...To chickens, I'm so excited!

Today I went to Green Acres to pick up an egg hatching kit and incubator. In Grade 2 Science one of the units is Growth of Animals, so this is a great experience for the kids to have that follows the curriculum.
The incubator took quite a few hours to reach the proper temperature, so the fertilized eggs are sitting on my desk until tomorrow morning. I hope the caretaker doesn't put them in the fridge. In 21 days or so we should have chicks!Let me tell you, I am going to milk this for all it's worth:

"Silent work period - the chicks might not hatch if we're too loud."
"Sit down. You're giving me and the chicks a headache."
"Stop running around - how would you feel if you stepped on our class pet and killed it?"

Ohhhh, yes.. can't wait. This will be the best month of my teaching career :)

Pointillism Artwork

The teachers at my school kid that I'm some sort of art expert, which is absolutely hilarious because I am not a skillful artist, whatsoever. I am just good at finding lesson plans on the internet! Here's one of the lessons on pointillism I taught a few weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out, considering the kids are only 7 and 8 years old!

First I taught them how to draw a 3-D house. Next I showed them that instead of mixing two colours together, you can place them side by side to get the same effect. If you're far enough away, the two colours look like they are mixed.

It's neat when you walk down the hallway because the art just looks like paintings of houses until you get close up and see that it's made only from dots.

It's a good thing when art turns out better than I expected and I have something to decorate the bulletin boards with!

And... I'm Done!

Finally, my report cards are written. Ugh, having a split class makes writing reports twice as time consuming as a straight grade. I estimate that it took me 20 hours in total to finish. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. It's all just a part of the job! Last year our report card program went online, which means we can now work on them from anywhere that has an internet connection. So, tonight I worked from my comfy cozy bed. Sweet.

And, that's all for tonight. My brain needs a rest.

Stepping Back in Time

Yesterday I took my class on a field trip to Black Creek Pioneer Village, which is a "living history museum" in Toronto. Students in grade 3 learn about pioneers so it's a perfect place for them to experience how life was back in the mid 19th century. There are people dressed up around the village, acting as the blacksmith, tinsmith, broom maker, etc.

The weather was perfect, the kids loved it, and I was just happy to be out of the classroom for a day! In the morning a tour guide showed us around, but in the afternoon we split off into groups to tour around by ourselves. In my group I took five of the most hyper seven year old boys that ever existed - mainly because I didn't want parent volunteers to have to deal with them and I didn't want them to run off and get lost in the woods!

It was.. interesting! Boys are crazy! They literally ran everywhere, and after looking at one place for 5 seconds, they were off to somewhere else! I had one kinda chubby boy who kept trailing behind. The others were too fast for him. By the end of the afternoon they were all exhausted and begging me for a rest. I told them to sleep on the bus :)

PS - Don't forget to leave a comment on my giveaway. Laundry detergent could be yours. Ooooh!!

Marking The Night Away

Tonight I spent at least five hours marking. Ahhh, what a relief to have most of it done. Now I can start writing report cards, yippee! For the last two weeks I've had a bin of work sitting beside my desk to take home and I've forgotten it every day (on purpose some days I'm sure).

Here's what my floor looks like and it's almost midnight. I must get to bed!

Usually I do all my work at school because I like to have that division between work and home life. Sometimes it's just impossible though! Do you have the type of job where you have to take work home?

Just Another Manic Monday...

... and a manic Tuesday, and Wednesday, and every day since the school year has started!

I am swamped at work! My desk is a mess. My house is even more of a mess than usual. I haven't done laundry in three weeks. I've already caught a cold from the germy kids. I haven't read more than 10 pages of a book since September. Thank goodness I have no children of my own because I can't even imagine what you parents must go through! But guess what, I CAN SLEEP!!!

I have no energy for creativity, so I will leave you with another something I heard at school...

A bit of background info - my classroom is next door to a behaviour class (with 4 kids). The walls are thin and there is a set of doors that connect the two rooms. Every single day we hear crying and screaming and then bang, bang, which is the kids ramming themselves into the walls. You can imagine that it's quite disruptive. Anyway.. we're used to it now but my students are still curious as to why they hear kids yelling all day so I try to explain that some kids are different, blah blah blah, etc.

Okay, onto the funny-ish part. Two boys were playing with lego and I noticed that they had set up a wall with groups of people on each side. At first I thought they were playing war so I wanted to stop that. But when I asked, they said they were playing "Dark Side". Huh? They explained that the people on the "dark side" were kids from the behaviour class and our class was the good side. They even showed me the "dark side" kids running into the wall and everything! Isn't that sad, yet sorta amusing in a sick way??

And to end things on a different note, here's a pic of M and I from a wedding we attended on the weekend!

Really?

Is this really part of my job description? Really?

It took me half an hour to scrape the stickers off of two desks (while the caretakers watched tv). At this rate, I only have 6 more hours left before I finish. Grrr.

We have to move all of our own boxes to new classrooms, wash the boards, dust the computers and shelves, clean the desks and sinks, rearrange the room, etc., etc., etc. Pretty soon I'm going to have to vacuum my own carpet, since that hasn't been done since the last day of school either.

The *only* thing the caretaker has done over the summer is wax the floors. It's ridiculous. I'm angry.