Five Things I’ll Miss About Teaching

With June 27, 2019 being my last teaching day after 30 some years, I've been reflecting on what I will miss. 

1.  I'll miss the joy of discovering and learning something new!  This video was taken the day I brought my  Alexa to the classroom.  As I was watching the kids rattle off questions and wait for her reply, I sincerely hoped I was not witnessing the future of education being relegated to Google and devices! 

2.  I'll miss the way it never ceased to amaze me how each child was a unique being. I taught siblings, identical twins and even children of former students but no two were alike. Given a quick lesson on panorama pictures, yellow paper and paint, each one put their own personality and twist on these pictures that will brighten the classroom for Ms. Henuset, the new Grade Two teacher!

3.  I will certainly miss reading a chapter book to my class from my chair with the students at my feet on the carpet.  You could always feel the tension in the air when I ended for the day at a cliff hanger.  One more chapter, PLEASE! I can hear the complete silence when the book is closed when we all want it to keep going.  Students have told me they wonder what the characters are doing now and I would admit to them I have the same feeling.  But wait - it's just a book!

4.  I will miss all the little things- a child losing a tooth right in the middle of a great lesson, being called Mom or Grandma, the first day of cursive handwriting, being there when they "get" adding with regrouping for the first time, hearing about their pets, sports teams, trips and so much more. Childhood is such a magical time and especially Grade Two.  Learning to read is such hard work and the payoff starts when you can read about things that interest you all by yourself!

5.  I will miss being a part of a great team of teachers who always were there to support each other through thick and thin. The good news is now our visits will end when we choose, not when the end of recess bell rings calling us back to class. 

As I close the door to Room 21 for the last time, I want to remember to thank my blog readers (especially my Mom and Dad!).  Your page views kept me motivated to keep recording our day to day adventures. Now all I have to do is open up the blog to step back into my classroom any time I want.  I might take the summer off first though! 

Signing off,

Ms. Simms

Science Design Process

The last Science unit of the 2018-19 school year included an element of design.  Students were tasked to create a Wind Detection Device from materials that met three criteria.

 

#1 - The device needed to make noise from 3 meters away. We had to wait for a day when there was enough wind and today we noted the wind speed was 22 kilometers an hour. That would be perfect to set off our detectors but not destroy them!  

#2 - A minimum of 3 materials needed to be used to build the device. 

#3 - The device needed to hold together during testing while hanging from a hook in our gazebo.

The design process works best when students have a chance to re-work their first idea and time was given for those who needed it.

It was another successful Science design process in Grade Two!

Surprise Celebration!

When the class arrived on this morning of May 31, 2019, they were greeted with this message on a mysterious box. There were many guesses as to what might be inside - a class pet? a new book to read? a book order from Scholastic?

After gym class, the helper of the day opened the box and found this note along with cupcakes! 

A Go Noodle dance party was a great way to celebrate together,  After that, the class wrote their T.W.A.S. Journal entry (This Week At School).  Many students wrote their longest and best entry so far this year.  Was it the cupcakes?  the dancing? the excitement?  We may never know....

Eric Carle Style Art

Our latest Author Spotlight has been the work of Eric Carle. He is a famous author and illustrator that uses some very interesting art techniques.

Mrs. Gillander was back last week as our substitute to help the Grade 2's create these seahorses based on his book Mister Seahorse.

Outdoor Classroom Continued

April 11, 2019 - The class took a look around the playground to see the differences from our last Outdoor Classroom session. The only snow left was on the north side of the row of trees and there was lots of water on the east side of the playground. 

We noticed some garbage that had been hidden under the snow so we picked up what we could today. 

April 24, 2019 - What a difference 13 days later!  We didn't need coats or mitts today!  The snow and water were gone.  We had a chance to get to the rest of the garbage that was in the wet spots and put it where it belongs.

We also took our Outdoor Classroom Journals with us to record things we notice with 4 senses: seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling.  No tasting outside today!

Epson Short Throw Projector - new technology!

At the end of January this year, our Smartboard abruptly stopped working! You can read the blog post here from when it was new, four and a half years ago.  We tried all the usual technology tricks to get it going again - restart everything, unplug it and plug it back in and new cords but nothing worked.  It actually still worked great to project the picture and sound from the teacher laptop but the pen and interactive functions had stopped working.   

This week, the Maintenance Crew from Fort La Bosse came to change it to an Epson Brightlink 695wi Short Throw Interactive projector and a new whiteboard to display it.   

The main difference we noticed right away is that the pen needs to be used to drag, write and erase when we used our fingers before. (Unless it has a way to do that which we haven't discovered yet!) 

Happy Easter

Some of the Grade Two Art and views this week:

Learning About a Volcano

                                                                                                             When I first met with this group on the last day of school in June of 2018, I asked them for a list of things they thought they might like to learn about in Grade Two.  This list has remained posted in the classroom and we check them off as we learn about them.    Next to tackle once we came back from Spring Break was volcanoes!

With books and a DVD from our school library, we were ready to begin.  Scholastic Book Orders had a Volcano kit that we worked together to assemble.

Finally it was time to follow the steps to make it erupt!  The anticipation was incredible.  Some students stood back from the table to avoid being hit by lava but...

Besides a little foaming, not much of what we were expecting happened.  We even tried adding some dish soap, like the paper towel commercial on TV shows.  Still nothing.  

Since the paint that came with the kit was completely dried out, we wondered if a new box of baking soda would do the trick. 

With a generous amount of fresh baking soda, we tried again.  There certainly was a little foaming but not the dramatic eruption pictured on the box.  That led to a discussion about advertising and exaggeration - all important lessons! 

April Fools in Grade Two

The students were quite curious about a covered pan on my desk in the morning of April 1st. After they got back from gym class, I invited the helper of the day to pass out a brownie that I had made for each one of them. 

He did his best to keep a straight face while he handed out brown e's to his classmates.  

Just then I pulled another pan out from behind my desk - real brownies! Happy April Fools Day!