Free for all Friday

This is the last Blog hoppin' post for the week. The subject for today was to post a printable freebie. This was a little difficult as last year I only taught French so all of my printables were French. And as this website is English I don't know how useful my French stuff would be. So I have one printable that could be used in any language.

I used this puzzle piece black-line to do a project on pass-times with my students. They wrote what their favourite thing to do was in a full sentence and then drew it. I told them they had to colour every inch of their puzzle piece.

The end result looked something like this: 

But it looked better once the rest of the students finished. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the final product for some reason, probably because it was the end of the year. Anyway, you could use the pieces for just about anything. They could be used for a great first of the year art piece where they draw about themselves and then show how they all fit together to make up their class.

It's been a great week! Thanks for all the ideas.

Three for Thursday

The topic for today was three favourites - three specific favourites.

Favourite Font:

It’s pretty boring but my favourite font is Comic Sans MS because it is easy for students to read. Capital ‘I’ looks like an I and lower case ‘a’ looks the way we teach students to print. When not using Comic Sans I tend to use whatever is default, Times New Roman or Arial generally.

Favourite Blog:

My favourite blog is http://ifbyyes.wordpress.com/ but my favourite teaching blog is probably http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/ because he is one of the reasons I decided to start having a class blog in the first place.

Favourite on-line resource:

Well I'm going to cheat a little with this one and say that TWITTER is my favourite resource. Any time I need something or just want some inspiration, I hop on there for about an hour.

Look for a post about my classroom preparations soon.

Where it All Goes Down Wednesday

This is my third post for the Teacher Week at Blog hoppin'.


Today's post is about showing off our classrooms. Mine isn't finished. At all. It's frightening how much I have left to do actually. I went in today again for another couple of hours and got three bulletin boards covered with the fabric I bought yesterday. I was excited to have more fabric covered walls. Our school is being closed either next year or the year after and then we're getting a lovely new school after that. But in the meantime, they aren't painting or upgrading our current building at all so I'm trying to make do with what I have. So this is what I came in to last week.

The janitor was dealing with my floors so I couldn't do much but measure for my fabric and come back another day. Today I went in again as I said and my floors are done so it looked more like this.

Better, but as you can see, I still have a lot of furniture to move around. I didn't get around to that today. Instead I focused on putting up fabric. This was the first one I tackled. The wall is cork board that's been painted over a few times and is so full of holes it's hard to have anything stay up there. This is where I keep my calendar and calendar related words which I'll put up tomorrow. Next to it I have my one chalk board in my room. Last year I covered it with a red plastic sheet, the kind you use as table clothes. It worked well. It was thin enough that it was easy to use as a magnetic board for my schedule and responsibilities board. But the plastic got picked at and marked up easily so I took it down at the end of the year. I don't like the look of the chalk board, so I covered it with some more fabric I found - 75% off sale at Fabricville = win!

I think this is a very nice colour. I'm planning on covering behind the world map and bookcase in the same green as behind the calendar.

This is one of my bulletin boards outside my classroom. This fabric is so lovely. The colour doesn't show up well here. In real life it's darker but has a nice shine. It was a little stretchy too so it was very easy to use.

Here are some other shots of my classroom. That's my teacher corner though my desk isn't back over there yet. I also have a filing cabinet that goes over there. I love my SMART board. I also have numbers around my clock to help the students tell time using an analog clock. Over on the left you can see my birthday chart.

This is the other front corner of my classroom. So much stuff that I have to sort through and store. I'm also going to cover that wall, possibly in blue, I haven't decided yet, because that wall is like the one under the calendar. It looks pretty terrible.

So that's my room so far. It's not finished at all, but it's mine and I love it :)

Teacher Talk Tuesday

Here's my second blog hoppin'  post for the week. Today's topic is giving advice to new teachers. I will qualify that as giving advice to teachers who are in their first year of teaching because I am still a new teacher. So here's my little bits of advice.

1. Don't take on too much at once. It's very tempting when you first start teaching to join all the committees, to start all the extra-curricular activities, and to implement every good idea you've ever heard. It's not possible. You still have to teach full time and have a life outside of the classroom. Focus on a few key things that are very important to you and don't be afraid to cut things out if you feel you're getting overwhelmed.

2. Ask for advice and help from other teachers but reserve the right to ignore it if what they say doesn't fit with how you want to teach. Listen respectfully to what they have to say, use it if it's a good idea, store it away for later if you don't want to do it.

3. Have fun! Teaching can be a very joyful career. We are so lucky to be surrounded be children who look up to us and we can get in there and play from time to time. If you enjoy what you do, share that joy. Your students will pick up on that enthusiasm.

4. Try not to get bogged down by the negative things other people say. Whether it's about a student or a new program or the weather, some teachers (and people in general) just vent all that negativity to whoever will listen. As teachers we sometimes have more than enough emotional strain in our lives and don't need any extra. Let it be like water off a ducks back rather than taking on that negativity.

5. Be your own advocate. This goes even more so for substitute teachers who are trying to get full time teaching jobs. Don't be afraid to let administrators know how wonderful you are and what you are willing to do, what extra special things you bring to education. You are special and you are caring and you are amazing at many things. I know this because you are a teacher and only special, caring and amazing people are called to be teachers.

Have a wonderful first year!