Rain, Rain Go Away

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….it poured down all day and just before our Hallowe’en parade was to start it stopped

The only thing worse than indoor recess all day is indoor recess on Hallowe’en. The kids are already excited and when they can’t run off that excitement during recess it’s hard to keep them focused on their work. On top of that the book fair is still going but I have to admit that business was considerably slower today.

Someone was looking out for us today because just before our parade was scheduled to start the rain stopped. Hooray! We didn’t have to parade up and down the halls but we actually got to go outside and show off our costumes for the parents and the community.

Some of the costumes this year were very creative. The homemade ones are always the best. Here are a few that I can share with you.

: Homemade Candy Machine

: Homemade with a metal bowl and a garbage can

The teachers at our school also get into the spirit of Hallowe’en.

: Our music teacher dressed as the gym teacher

: Our gym teacher as Wolverine man

: Football player

: Mother Nature

: Paper Bag Princess

: The Library Witch

Unfortunately when I got home tonight it started to rain again. I managed to carve the pumpkin but only 16 children came to the door. They actually didn’t even come to the door. My husband and I stood out in the rain and took the candy to the few children that walked past our house. A very sad Hallowe’en night indeed.

Happy Hallowe’en

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….the scary librarian is on her way to school

Pretty Lame!

Hope the rain stops. Doesn’t look like a great night for ‘trick or treating’.

No Time to Breathe

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….to say I’m busy is an understatement

I don’t remember last year’s book fair being so busy. In fact I don’t remember having to fit in report cards during the book fair. I booked the fair for the same week as last year. Maybe report cards are due one week earlier. That would make a difference.

On Tuesday I went to an all day workshop on restorative circles and I left the book fair to my good friend, B, who did a great job. Whenever L or I have to be away from school we always ask for B first to be our supply teacher.

B didn’t have to do the book fair but she accepted the challenge. The first thing she did was rearrange my yard duty so that she could be in the library and invite students to browse. Secondly she got on the intercom and made an announcement to the entire school informing the students that despite my absence the book fair would be open. She worked all the recesses and part of her lunch hour and stayed an extra half an hour after school.

At the end of the day B counted the money, put some of it in the school safe and she wrote me a lengthy note explaining exactly what she did throughout the day. Thanks B, I can always count on you to do the best job.

Tomorrow is our Hallowe’en parade. I’m not 100% sure what my costume will be but I’m leaning towards being a school librarian. I know it’s not very original but it’s all I can think of for the time being. I have my granny glasses, jacket, pearl necklace, skirt and tights ready to go. In the morning I’ll pile my hair into a bun and collect a pile of books to carry around. The look should be everything I’m NOT.

On Friday the book fair ends. There will a draw near the end of the day where one student and their teacher can win up to $25.00 each in books. Then the hard work begins. The money has to be added up and all the books have to be packed away and the cases closed to be ready for pick up on Monday morning. Once the cases are gone then I have rearrange the library and put things back the way they were.

I’ve started putting aside some of the books that I want for the library. When I figure out our total sales I can calculate what 60% of the sales will be. Every year I go over the teachers’ wish lists and pick out some of the books and then donate them to the classrooms. I also prepare little thank you bags for my library helpers with pencils, erasers and sharpeners from the book fair, along with some sweet treats.

I’d better get to bed. Tomorrow is another long and busy day. By the way, Lucy is doing well. Only one little accident today. Given her condition I think we’ll forgive her and let it slide. Good night!

Who works harder than Olympic athletes? Men at Work at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Enjoy!

Book Fair Mania!

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….it’s that time of year again

You would have thought it was Christmas at our school today.

Just before lunch today the book company delivered 7 large cases of books and numerous boxes of more books and accessories. As the children passed the library they let out shouts of joy. Many wanted to come in and start spending money they didn’t have.

I have numerous student volunteers for the library this year. Many join just so they can help out with the book fair. The steel book cases, however, are so large and awkward that I move them and position them on my own or with the help of another adult. I let the students open the smaller boxes but they get so excited that they want to open everything, even though many of the items are duplicated and don’t need to come out right away.

Sometimes I think it’s more work for me to delegate jobs for my eager workers but they love it and in the end they do get the job done. I think I’m going to have to make a schedule and assign specific days and times for my volunteers, otherwise I will have 20 bodies at my door every day asking if they can help and there won’t be any room for our paying customers.

For the next 7 school days our somewhat quiet library will become a bustling hive of activity with children and parents looking to purchase one or two special books, posters and accessories from the boutique case. The benefit of doing a book fair, of course, is that a sizeable percentage of the sales comes back into the library in the form of new books and classrooms also receive books and teaching aids. It’s a great community activity that brings people together and promotes reading.

Grade Three’s X-ray Paintings

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. using Norval Morrisseau’s painting style

Norval Morrisseau was a First Nations artist from Canada. He is often referred to as the Picasso of the North and his style is characterized by thick black outlines and bright colours. He developed his own techniques and artistic vocabulary which captured ancient legends and images that came to him in visions or dreams. The lines in his paintings represent energy and often connect one symbol or body part to another. The x-ray technique allows the observer to see the energy within the person or animal.

After discussing Morrisseau’s style the boys and girls were directed to draw something that was important to them. The beauty of this activity is that drawings should be simple, and don’t even need to look like the animals that they represent. The students learned how to apply bright watercolours to their paper after they outlined their line drawing with black markers. Once they finished painting they went over the black lines again.

I love each and every one of them. Here are the first 8 pictures that were completed today:

Hooray for the Weekend

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….my week at a glance

I can’t believe that 5 weeks of school have already passed. I’ve already been on a three day trip to the outdoor education centre with the grade 5s. We’ve had a community BBQ, curriculum night, our first school council meeting, and Terry Fox Run. Our cross country team has been out running for the last five weeks and on Monday 120 students are going to the first of three meets. The girls’ and boys’ slo pitch teams and flag football teams have been practising for at least three weeks and the primary and junior choirs have been singing up a storm getting ready for the Remembrance Day concert in November.

On Monday of this week I went with the grade 4 and 5 students to the McMichael Art Gallery where we toured the gallery for half the day and saw work from the Group of Seven, Norval Morrisseau, Inuit artists and Edward Burtinsky. In the second half of the day the students were engaged in a hands on watercolour painting session. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera but one of the mom’s took lots of pictures. Hopefully I can share a few in a future post.

On Tuesday we had our first Future Ace assembly where we honour students who have demonstrated outstanding character traits, such as kindness, respect or sportsmanship. It was also the launch of the school magazine drive which raises money through the sale of magazine subscriptions. After school I made a trip to Arts Junction but left with very little in the way of art supplies but I did buy my husband his birthday present on my way home.

On Wednesday I taught two double periods of art to two of my grade 3 classes. I’m starting to feel better about their Norval Morrisseau style paintings. Last week I lamented how some of them weren’t getting the concept. I made a sample for the children to model from and I’m pleased to announce that they’re starting to understand the concept of ‘x-ray paintings’. This lesson from Kinder Art helped put the lesson into a perspective that the students could understand.

Here are a few of the paintings that are starting to show some promise:

After school on Wednesday my husband and I celebrated his birthday. Thursday was uneventful and today we started the day with a special breakfast to celebrate World Teachers’ Day. The shirts for the cross country meet arrived today and B and I opened up the report card program on the computer for the teachers so that they could start preparing for the progress reports which are due in three weeks.

This weekend I hope to get the farmers’ market again. We’ve been invited to a surprise birthday party on Saturday and on Sunday the family is getting together to celebrate K’s birthday. Hooray for weekends!

Different Points of View

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….maybe I won’t go there

I try not to be too political on this blog. As my readership grows I am very aware of my audience. Many are friends, neighbours and colleagues but most of them are complete strangers to me. It is not the latter group that I’m afraid of offending. Even though I don’t use names on this blog the people I talk about know who they are.

Change is always challenging. We’ve seen a lot of change at our school this year. With full day kindergarten we have 6 new staff members in that area alone. We have 2 teachers in the primary hall on maternity leave and another on a medical leave so we have 3 long term occasional teachers. Just recently we learned that another teacher is pregnant and will be leaving in March and another teacher is going on an extended leave in November. More changes coming.

Those of us who are considered prep teachers are finding it challenging this year because we’re giving a lot of our prep coverage to the kindergarten teachers. Two of us started our careers in high school and middle school and all three of us were considered junior teachers for most of our years at our present school.

Today in the one kindergarten class where I was giving prep to the teacher I agreed to let the ECE teacher leave for a few minutes so that she could get a cup of tea. She no sooner left when I had an incident with a couple of the boys. Apparently the one boy wouldn’t let the other one use the toilet and consequently he wet himself. I had to call the office for assistance. Luckily we found him some dry clothes.

Tomorrow I’m going on a field trip with the grade 4s and 5s to the McMichael Art Gallery. For the last two weeks I’ve been preparing my classes for the trip with lessons about the Group of Seven and First Nations’ artists. In order to go on the trip I had to make sure that my classes are covered by the prep teachers whose classes are on this trip. Luckily I was able to arrange coverage for all the classes. I was having trouble filling one time slot and one of my colleagues kindly gave up his prep time so that I could go on this trip. I’ll have to come up with something special for him.

I never did talk about those different points of view. Some things are just better left alone.

Just One of Those Days

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….no energy and children who don’t listen

We had our Terry Fox Run today. All the children were assembled in the gym and our principal read a short story about Terry Fox (first year she didn’t cry). We went outside and raised the special flag and then 400 children, all their teachers and some of the parents started walking/running around the school.

The walk/run lasted for about 30 minutes. It was a beautiful sunny day and the temperature had risen considerably since the morning. I was overdressed and walked most of the way. The children returned to class just before lunch. and we (the teachers) had our monthly staff meeting.

After lunch I taught my first art class of the the day. It was a grade 3. I explained the lesson in detail and sent the boys and girls off to create. When they returned to show me their rough copies I wanted to bang my head on the table. Many of them completely ignored the guidelines. My day ended with 29 kindergarten children. They were tired and I was tired.

I was glad when the day was over. My friend L suggested that we go to the nail spa and have our toes done. Just what the doctor ordered. A pedicure is such a treat. Is there anything better than purple toes?

What if No One Shows Up?

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..these were LH’s words early this morning

Today the parent council from our school hosted a community BBQ. After arranging for the delivery of the BBQ, and organizing the food and drinks, LH couldn’t help but worry about the attendance. It didn’t help that people were surprised when she reminded them that the BBQ was tonight. I have to admit that it slipped my mind and I had to call home to let my husband know that I wouldn’t be home for dinner.

The weather was perfect and when I went outside to lend support for the event the line-ups for food were huge. Luckily people were patient and everyone seemed to enjoy the party. The meat was donated by Maple Leaf Food and LH’s husband did all the cooking. A group of moms and dads assisted with delivering and serving of the food. Clearly my help in this department wasn’t needed so I was asked to be the official photographer.

So with my camera and LH’s camera in hand I walked about and took a lot of photos. Here are a few of them.

So it turned out to be a very successful event. Just goes to show you that if you organize a complimentary event “they will come”. Thanks parents!

Kandinsky Rocks!

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…the boys and girls loved this lesson and boasted to their parents how they learned about Wassily Kandinsky

I’ve used Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles in art lessons in the past but I loved the twist that I used on this one. I actually got the idea from one of the blogs I follow but I’ve spent hours trying to find it so that I can give credit where credit is due. I changed it slightly so that the students could experience a different medium other than pencil crayon.

I talked about how Kandinsky was one of the first creators of abstract art and how an experiment in colour theory ended up being one of his most famous pieces. I set up stations with Sharpies and squares of drawing paper, watercolour paints, crayons and watercolour paper squares, oil pastels and squares of brown paper and the last station had squares of bristol board, glue, scissors and a box of assorted papers and calendars.

At each station the students were instructed to create 3 squares with the medium at the table. They had to draw concentric circles but they could be as creative with them as they wanted. When all 12 squares were done the students were given a piece of black construction paper and then asked them to arrange the squares in a pleasing combination. I helped them glue on the first square and then they were left on their own to line up and glue the remaining squares.

I think the finished product is beautiful and no two are the same.