CURRENTLY July

We’re nearing the end of July and I just realized I didn’t read this month’s Currently from Oh BoyFourth Grade. Not surprising…I rarely do these things on time. But like I’ve said, they’re silly and fun, and it gets me blogging (which is good because I’ve been a total slacker this past year).

Here we go:

Listening: Gilmore Girls is one of those series I have seen a hundred times, so when I’m doing stuff around the house or working on the computer and need some background noise, it’s one of the shows I put on. I don’t need to watch closely because I have memorized what’s going on, but I’m still tuned in enough to enjoy the many witty jokes. Some other shows I watch over and over again are Friends and the Mindy Project. They’re all amazing and never fail to get you laughing.

Loving: I am loving summer break so far. A few days after school ended, Rob and I packed our suitcases (I definitely over packed; you’d think I was moving) and headed on a road trip out East. Now, Rob is the second oldest of four boys and these brothers of his are scattered across the country. Our first stop was in Ottawa to visit one of his brothers. We spent a few days there and celebrated Canada Day down at Parliament. And I had my first ever Beavertail! If you’re not Canadian, you probably think that’s so dorky and stereotypical, but it was delicious. Then we readied ourselves for the big 12 hour drive to New Brunswick. This, my friends, is what I call a relationship tester. Stuck in a small car with another person can go one of two ways:

a)    you sing along to the radio, play cheesy road trip games, have entertaining conversations, and occasionally have a debate over whose playlist you’re going to listen to

b)   argue over whose turn it is to drive, bring up dreaded conversations because there’s nowhere the other person can escape, fight over the radio, and just wish the other person in the car would take a nap or something

Luckily, we enjoyed scenario A. Relationship test score: PASS

So once we FINALLY made it to New Brunswick, we stayed with Rob’s oldest brother who has a wife and two kids. We spent our days babysitting, playing at parks, going for ice cream, and playing games. We ventured around Saint John and went to the St. Martin Sea Caves where you can walk on the ocean floor while the tide is out. It was really cool.

After a few days, we drove for four and a half hours to visit Rob’s youngest brother in Nova Scotia. We spent our days doing lots of touristy things like hiking, visiting Peggy’s Cove (my favourite part of our trip), Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. We also spent our nights taste testing different chocolates to determine which one is the best for making s’mores. Lindore was the best but Dairy Milk was a close second. In case you were wondering.

To get home, we drove the reverse, going back to New Brunswick for one night, trekking 12 hours to Ottawa for one night, and then finally spent the last day driving home. There’s nothing like sleeping in your own bed when you’ve been gone for close to three weeks, but I’m so glad we took the time to go on a trip like that. We had a wonderful time.

Thinking: Well, ever since our time in Nova Scotia, I’ve been wanting to make s’mores here at home. We have the crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate all here but we haven’t made them yet. Maybe tomorrow…

Wanting: The other day I ordered a book called 80 Morning Meeting Ideas For Grades 3-6 by Carol Davis. It’s something I’d like to implement in my classroom next year but I’d like to read up on it to get some better ideas. This will be my professional reading for the summer but it seems like it’s taking FOREVER to get here. I’m so impatient.

Needing: I need a new Netflix series to watch. I whizzed through Orange is the New Black, and as you know, I’ve been re-watching the same three series because I don’t know what I want to get glued to next.

All Star: This is for something I’m really good at, and if you know me, you'll know I’m good at shopping. Maybe a little too good at shopping. See, I wish I could tell you that my professional read was the only thing I’m expecting in the mail, but that would be a lie. I also enjoy ordering from The Book Depository, ModCloth, and Old Navy. Clearly not all for professional reasons.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading my lengthy edition of July’s Currently. I’ve had a busy month so far. I hope everyone else has been enjoying their summer breaks and has found something memorable to do before we all head back to school!

The One Room School House

Our class has finally wrapped up our Grade 3 Social Studies unit on Communities in Canada where we learned all about First Nations and Early Settlers. Because there was so much to cover in this unit, it took about two months to do it right.

The kids had learned so much about First Nations and how they lived in North America, making use of their environments and overcoming various challenges, such as facing the arrival of the Early Settlers.

Eventually, we moved exclusively into the life of a pioneer, specifically a child. A few weeks ago, the kids arrived to find that I had transformed our classroom into a one room schoolhouse (well, as best as one can do in a 21^st Century classroom; we had to ignore our new wall-mounted Smart Board at the front of the room).

I took the desks out of groups and arranged them in rows and pretended that there was a big wood stove in the middle of the room.

Furthermore, when they finally found their desks, they saw that I had set them up to resemble the desk of a pioneer student’s.

Since we don’t actually have slates, we pretended by using white boards and markers; and since I bought brand new markers for this little project, the kids were just that much more excited.

So what’s that up in the top right corner? That’s a slapper tracker. No, pioneer school houses didn’t have such a thing because the teacher would just whack the children for misbehaviour and other misdemeanours. Obviously, I would never hit a student, but they were so interested in what would warrant a slap, that I used this tracker to let them see how it worked.

First off, my two poor kiddos that are left-handed immediately got a slap, because that was forbidden at the time. I had them fill in one of the circles-with their right hands!

In order to understand all other punishments, we looked at the rules for a one room school house:

Student Rules

-Boys and girls shall file into classroom in separate lines and be seated quietly on opposite sides of the room

-Children must be clean and tidy in clothing

-There will be a daily inspection of neck, ears, and fingernails prior to class to ensure cleanliness of person

-Young ladies must never show a bare ankle; girls’ and boys’ clothing should cover arms and legs completely

-Move their caps when entering

-Children must sit up straight at all times

-Children must not squirm, fidget, or whine

Punishments

-Five minutes tardy = 1 hour after school

-Double assignment id homework is not done

-Nothing shall be dipped into ink wells except pens

-Children who are caught writing with their left hand = 1 ruler rap on the knuckles

-Do not speak unless spoken to by the teacher. Talking in class = 1 whack with a rod

-Nothing shall be thrown in class. Such behaviour = 5 whacks with a rod

-Chewing of tobacco or spitting = 7 whacks with a rod

-Speaking immoral language = suspension

-Carving on desks or defacing school property = expulsion

-Fighting, lying, or cheating = expulsion

ONLY WELL MANNERED CHILDREN MAY ATTEND SCHOOL.

REMEMBER: EDUCATION IS A PRIVILEDGE

*I’m sorry, I cannot remember where I accessed this list, but it appeared on many websites after a Google search

They had a blast as I looked in their ears and doled out “slaps” for bare ankles showing. Even the poor little guy that came in late from a dentist appointment asked (no, begged) if he could actually stay one hour after school for being late…haha!

Catching Up

It’s been a while since I last blogged about what we’ve been doing in our classroom, so here are a few snippets showing what we have been up to.

Two of the expectations in the Grade Four curriculum are:

Identify the characteristics of healthy relationships; and

Identify the challenges and responsibilities in their relationships with family and friends

I wanted a good read aloud and stumbled upon Because of Mr. Terupt.

My class LOVED this book. Every day they would ask me if we were going to read the book, and when I finished reading for the day, they would beg for just a few more pages.

The story is about a class of fifth graders who have an amazing and inspiring teacher named Mr. Terupt. The kids in the class are very archetypal; there’s the mean girl, the brainiac, the class clown, the kid that hates school, the overweight girl that gets picked on, the bookworm, and so on. The kids in the story were so easy for my students to relate to and we had some great conversations about how to handle various conflicts with family and friends.

A word of caution: this book may not be suitable for all classroom communities. For example, there is one character who comes from a very religious family. She often prays when she is upset or in need of some guidance. My class had a good talk about how some people have different beliefs and it’s important to respect that.

Also, there is a girl in the story whose mother was ostracized because she was a teen mom. Again, we had a good talk about what matters most when it comes to family. As one girl so perfectly put it, “It doesn’t matter how old Anna’s mom is, it matters how much she loves Anna!”

One of the characters mentions having a worry doll to help her deal with anxiety. Social-emotional health is a big area of focus in our school community, so we had a whole class conversation on the things that make us anxious; fighting with friends, math tests, etc. Then, using little foam doll kits I got from Dollarama, we made our own worry dolls. Some of them were very creative!

 One of my gymnastics girls made this headstand worry doll

I’m really not sure what’s happening here but hey, it’s definitely one of a kind!

Because of Mr. Terupt is emotional but authentic and like I said, it was a real hit with my class.

Here are some other fun things we’ve been up to…

Mexican Tin Art

One afternoon, I was looking through an OWL magazine that was delivered to the classroom and I saw this craft idea. We haven’t really painted all year so I thought the kids would enjoy it…and they did! 

You'll need:

-small cardboard squares (we used cereal boxes)

-tinfoil

-paint

Math

We finished our unit on fractions and we started a mini unit on time and temperature. To make it more interesting, we are pretending we are going on a vacation to Disney World (and now I really just want to hop on a plane and go to Florida).

 This is an actual picture from my trip to Disney in 2012

Grade Threes have to be able to read and record time to the nearest five minutes, and Grade Fours need to do the same to the minute. To help them out, I made this beautiful (?) flower clock.  Click HERE for the link on Teachers Pay Teachers.

The petals are actually supposed to be applied to your classroom clock but my clock was too large

Each day we estimate the current temperature, record the actual temperature on our thermometer, and record the time we looked up this data.

The Dress

One more thing…was anyone else shamefully obsessed with “The Dress”? I discovered this trending topic one Friday afternoon and was baffled by it all weekend. So when we got back to school on the Monday morning, I used it for a morning math question. I put up the picture and we graphed how many kids saw either white and gold or black and blue. Some kids had seen it themselves over the weekend and some were just blown away. I think I’m over my obsession now.

That’s it for now! I hope everyone is enjoying their March Breaks!

Smarties and Fear Factor

We started some new math units on multiplication and fractions. To make it fun, we are pretending we are on Fear Factor (thanks to my grade partner for the great idea).

As a hook, I showed the kids this video (click to play):

The reaction included a lot of shrieking. Some of the kids shrieked too.

Our math problems have been similar to:

“[Student A] had to eat 7 plates of 4 African Cave Spiders and [Student B] had to eat 3 plates of 9 African Cave Spiders. Who ate more? How many more?”

It’s a multi-step problem that requires them to not only multiply, but to also add or subtract to find a difference. They’re so good at it, I had to teach them how to stack multiply to work with multiplying 2 digit by 1 digit problems to add to the challenge.

Some of the games and puzzles I’ve introduced for this unit have been Around the World and Square Numbers.

Around the World involves two students facing off and whoever answers my multiplication problem correctly first, moves onto the next opponent. Whoever is the last person to win the last face off wins.

Square numbers looks something like this:

They have to figure out which numbers fit so that they multiply horizontally and vertically to produce the numbers at the ends.

We also started our unit on fractions, which can be a really hard concept for kids to grasp. The first day was a fun fractions day where I gave them each a bag of 10 Smarties and had them represent their Smarties colours as fractions.

Today, we learned about equivalent fractions. We started off by colouring in fraction strips to help us visualize fractions that are equivalent to 1/2.

Equivalent fractions is an expectation for the Grade Fours, so we worked in a small group on understanding this concept. 

Meanwhile, the Grade Threes have to be able to divide a whole group into equal parts and define it as a fraction, so they worked on a problem where they had fake Smarties (black dots) and had to divide them evenly into different groups. Then they had to define (using fraction language) each group.

And because the Ontario curriculum requires the students to use tools and manipulatives to help them work with fractions, we have these up on our front white board as a tool in addition to our own fraction strips.

Now onto Literacy…

I wanted our new unit to involve a read aloud so I chose Book One from the And Then It Happened series.

Each chapter is an isolated story involving the same three mischievous boys. The stories are silly and hilarious and the kids love them. Today, we read a chapter from Book Two, actually called “The Fart Chart”.

Basically, the three boys keep track of the students in their class who breaks wind and allot them points when it happens. Whoever gets 100 points first is crowned the Farting Champion. Their poor teacher doesn’t address the issue but endures daily headaches and feels so nauseous that she has to take her sick days.

My class thought this story was hilarious.

Backtrack for a moment: yesterday, my friend and teaching partner combined our classes to talk about a strategy called I Statements. They are used to help students calmly talk through challenging situations.

After we read “The Fart Chart”, I had the students write a letter to the class from the point of view from the teacher (point of view is one of our learning goals) using I Statements. Some of their letters were hilarious. Here’s a great example:

Before we ended our language block, the kids promised me that they would create no such contest while in our classroom hahaha.

Sometimes you just have to have some crazy, silly fun. 

We ended the week with a fun Valentine’s Day celebration. Of course, I baked them all cupcakes and loaded them up on sugar and other sorts of junk food before sending them home. We also watched Honey I Shrunk the Kids…they thought it was a very retro choice.

And they spoiled me right back.

And now it’s a long weekend. Enjoy your Family Day!

Currently February

Can you believe I’m actually doing this on the first of the month for once? Shocker, I know.

Listening: It’s Sunday, so the laundry is going. I also took a break from marking and report cards and just finished watching The Best of Me (because I read the book). Now I’m watching Frozen in hopes that this familiar movie will just be enjoyable background noise as I get back down to work. We’ll see how that goes.

Loving: Tomorrow is a PA Day where the afternoon is all for us, off or onsite. This means that if I want to, I can go home at 11:20; but since I’m a keener, I always end up staying to get work done in my classroom. A student-free day=lots of productivity! The plan is to clean up my desk, do some more report card work, and begin planning my upcoming units.

Thinking: I really want to make cream of broccoli soup, but that would involve going to the grocery store. And it’s cold…and I have a ton of work to do...and that laundry won’t fold itself. Maybe tomorrow.

Wanting: I want spring! I detest the winter and all the indoor recesses it brings because of the super cold and icy conditions. Also, I’m more inclined to leave my house for soup ingredients when the weather is nice.

Needing: Motivation! Laundry, movie watching, blogging…all things I’ve been doing instead of work. Sure, it’s Sunday, but I like to get a head start on the week. Everything piles up very quickly so I need to focus and get some work done! Just as soon as “Let It Go” is over.  

Pageant Title: I really have no clue. Oh Boy Fourth Grade calls herself the Queen of Snarkasm because she’s snarky and sarcastic. Me? I’m tired, hungry, clumsy, and a worrier. I just can’t see those combining to create a positive pageant name.