Hello Friends,

July was such a peaceful, beautiful, hot, relaxing month.  August --- not so much!!!!  We moved.  If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that we were moving to Abu Dhabi.  Due to my daughter's health condition, we are staying put for at least two years.  My house did sell, so I had to find another place.  After looking at approximately 50 homes, bidding on a few, home inspections coming back scary, I chose one.  I knew it would need a few minor repairs, but,,, I was not prepared for the extent of the filth!  Good thing we had two weeks before we had to move in.  And another fun surprise - we had to replace the septic!!!  Great.  I had intended on treating us all to an inground pool.  There went half of that money.  Another above ground it will be.  :)  That's ok, we were happy with our above ground.  Anyway, I am still in the depths of unpacking and trying to find a place for everything - we downsized.  I never want to move again!  

I did have some time to work on some new assessment/tracking sheets.  These are specifically for the Grade 1 Ontario Curriculum.  I keep a Data Binder for each student.  I will have these sheets in the binder, using tabs to separate subject areas.  The tracking sheets will be followed by work samples.  These are super for parent interviews and report card writing.  I have posted a one page sneak preview on TPT [my first tpt listing!!:)].  This is a little freebie to see if people are interested in it. 

 I am just putting the finishing touches on the rest.  I will be posting checklists for the WHOLE Grade 1 Ontario Curriculum -- all subject areas, all Overall and Specific Expectations.  Please have a look, download, and tell me if you would like more.

Time to get ready to visit a Doggie Daycare.  They are having an open house.  :)

Enjoy your Saturday!

Good Sunday Morning!

The sun is shining bright after the thunderstorms of yesterday.

I’m already online and exploring my favourite teacher blogs.  Also looking for some new faves – specifically grade one!

I thought I would share with you the grades I have taught in my 13 years of teaching:

You can see I have moved around quite a bit.  I love it though.  I fall in love with whatever grade I teach.  I think it keeps you fresh and up-to-date when you mix it up.  Over the past few years, I have really tried to not save so much STUFF.  I rarely repeat the same thing the next year; yet I have boxes and boxes in the garage and basement!!!  This week I am going to be going through them and trying my hardest to get rid of a lot of it --- it is very hard to do when you have spent so much time researching, planning, creating...  But some of those boxes haven't been opened in years!

I would really like to have penpals this year from another country.  If you teach grade 1 and would like to be penpals, please email me or leave a comment.  I would like to start out with hand-written letters (it's always exciting to get something tangible) and then move on to email and possibly skype.

Well I am heading outdoors now to do some weed-whacking!

Enjoy the day!

Happy Summer!

It’s been four months since I have blogged.  Many reasons.

On March 4, my youngest daughter, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma.  Anyone who has gone through something like this would understand the devastation we felt.  For 19 days, we went through many tests to determine the extent of the cancer.  The first CT and x-ray showed a spot in her lung.  That was the worst news and the worst case scenario for us.  The tumour ate through her humerus until it was so thin, it broke.

From the onset, I knew prayer was the only answer.  I held a prayer service at my house, had one at church, and had many, many, many people praying for her all over the world.  Prayers for Ella  God listened to these prayers, and on March 23, we were told that she did not have cancer.  She did have an aneurysmal bone cyst.  She had to have ~4 inches of her humerus taken out and a donor bone put in.  They put a steel plate in her arm, secured with screws, to support the bone.  She had the surgery mid-April and has been doing well since.  It will take about 2 years for the arm to fully heal.  She was very fortunate that there was no nerve damage during surgery.  She now has full motion of her arm, but cannot do any weight bearing/lifting.  The x-rays show new ‘fluffy’ bone growth.  God is good!

Ella has always wanted a small dog.  Because of this traumatic event (she wasn't able to go to school anymore and would be home all the time), I bought her a puppy.  Bennett is a Schnauz-tzu.  He is keeping us very busy in a positive way.  This is our first dog.  We have always been cat people.  :)  

So the remainder of my school year was quite hectic between Ella's ordeal, training a pup and working. 

Yesterday, I got a call that I have a position at a new school.  I am very excited about it.  I will have a straight grade 1 class of 20!  I am very sad to be leaving my current school.  Good friendships were made there and after my experience this year, they are like family to me.  The support I felt from them was immense!  It is a small school which helps to create that feel of community with the staff, students, and families.  My new school is more than double the size, but it is closer to home.  I am looking forward to the new adventure and planning on blogging more regularly.  Please follow to keep up-to-date, help me get points for my WBT certification, and to share your own thoughts.

Now, to start planning for my new school/class/year!!!  J

Hello followers!  Hahaha, JK, I only have 1 follower.  That is the reason I do not write often.  It would be much more motivating to see followers.  Then I would get excited about writing and want to share so much!  I see I have viewers – from all around the globe.  That is exciting.  Please, please, please, follow me!!!  I do wonder how long it took some of my favourite bloggers to get a following...

Well, lots going on in this constant -22C weather.  Like lots of indoor recesses!!!  The kids are actually handling it pretty well.  Teachers....

well, maybe not so well...

Abu Dhabi update --- got my papers back from the lawyer all authenticated.  Very happy to say that it only cost me a bottle of wine.  J  My regular lawyer gave me a quote of $200.  Pays to ask around.  Ella and I will be going to the Canadian Embassy for the next authentication step.  I have decided to go in person rather than mailing them.  Feels safer, so why not?  I have also started to sell stuff.  I have a lot to get rid of.  Once the snow leaves, I think I will have a giant yard sale in the barn.  I thought it would be much harder to part with things, but after having the house robbed repeatedly a few years ago, I have learned to let go.  It is very liberating.  So here’s an odd thank you to that evil person that continually broke in our house, slashed our tires, bent our wipers, and stalked us for so long.  You helped me realize what is truly important in this life.

On another topic...  since I have gotten American Netflix, I have become temporarily addicted to some new shows:  Scandal, Revenge, and The B in Apartment 23 (so funny – reminds me of my younger years...).

The other day we were talking about our top 5 favourite foods.  If I didn’t have to worry about weight gain/healthy eating, here are mine:

Quarter Cheese Meal from McDonald’s

Medium Rare Prime Rib dinner

Fully Loaded Nachos

Burrito

Butter Chicken Pasta from Boston Pizza

What are your top 5?

Now, onto the classroom...  This term I have been blessed with an awesome EA student 2 days a week.  She is terrific with the kids and should be a teacher.  Tomorrow I have a teacher candidate starting in my room.  This is her last placement, so it will be great having a co-teacher in my very busy classroom for the next 6 weeks!

Book Challenge, Digraphs, Genius Ladder, & Abu Dhabi

We have been doing lots of fun things at school. 

I am using the 100 Book Challenge from The Teacher Wife.  Some of my kids have totally bought in to it and are reading 10 books a night; others are not feeling it at all.  I explained to them that they have 6 months to read 100 books – that’s not very many books.  But some still feel overwhelmed.  Any ideas for how to get parents on board with this?

Here are some of the keeners in my class.  They have brought in their chains to show each time they have needed a new sheet of chains.

We are doing a mini-unit on Penguins.  This is mainly a language unit, but can also be overlapped in to science.  I was happy to see, when scrolling through the Genius Ladder slides, there was one for penguins.  We will be doing this one on Monday.  If you are not familiar with Genius Ladder, it is another motivating activity from Whole BrainTeaching.  You start with a ‘blah’ sentence, then move to ‘spicey’, ‘extender’, ‘genius sentences’, and lastly ‘genius paragraph’.  With younger students, you start with oral writing and then move to paper.  My kiddos are buying into it and their writing is greatly improving!

The children are enjoying the Power Pix from WBT.  The other day, the resource teacher came in to talk to me, and I heard all this noise behind me [you know, the typical, when you are distracted, the kids go wile].  Well, when I turned around to tell them to follow Rule 2, I was pleasantly surprised to see one student had gotten a pointer and was pointing to the Power Pix, and the rest of the class was reciting the definitions and doing the gestures!  Teacher Heaven as Chris Biffle likes to say.  J 

I greatly appreciate JessicaTravis’, over at 'Wild About Firsties', freebie of interactive digraphs.  It is fantastic and gets the kids engaged.  I introduced one digraph a day, starting with ‘sh’.  Before using the handouts, we sat at the carpet and came up with a huge list of words that started and ended with ‘sh’.  When we moved on to ‘ch’, the third day, I noticed many students were confusing this sound with ‘tr’.  They were suggesting words like ‘train’.  This greatly helped me in understanding some regular spelling errors.  Each day we have practised where to put our tongue and teeth with each of the different sounds.

Update on Abu Dhabi travels:  my teaching diploma arrived, so I have all my paper work together that I have to get authenticated.  Now, just waiting to get an appointment with the lawyer.  I am following lots of blogs of teachers that are in Abu Dhabi now.  I am selling off things and the house is up for sale!  I am looking so forward to this great adventure!!!