The iPad or my Laptop?

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…… which do I take with me on my trip?

Some of you may have noticed that there were a few days where I didn’t post anything. One reason for this was that I misplaced my power cord for the laptop. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to practise on the iPad. Unfortunately I experienced a few glitches.

One of the difficulties that I had occurred when I tried to tried to put photos into my post. I had a lot of photos to choose from but for some reason many of the photos had changed when they went through the ‘cloud’. Multitudes of them only showed an enlarged area of concrete or the corner of a building. I really didn’t know what I was looking at.

The other problem that occurred was that the photos that appeared to be okay just wouldn’t let me place them where I wanted them or they changed sizes on me. Sometimes the text feature would freeze and I couldn’t type anything. Are these problems related to WordPress. Heaven forbid!

I’m not sure that I want to use the iPad as my main photographic device but I don’t know how to get my photos from my camera onto the iPad without putting them into my laptop first. I really don’t want to take both my laptop and the iPad. I think I may be able to use the camera’s cable to upload photos but I haven’t tried that yet.

Does anyone have experience with an iPad? Have you ever had any of these problems? I would really appreciate some input from my followers. I’ll keep playing with it. It would certainly weigh less than my laptop and be much easier to carry on the plane. If all else fails I can try making an appointment at the Genius Bar at Apple.

So that’s why I hadn’t written in a few days. I tried but to no avail. The last few days have been hectic and when I’d get home in the evenings, I was exhausted. I actually started this post last night but fell asleep near the beginning of it. I can finally say “SCHOOL’S OUT“.

In Honour of Pride Week

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..a great video that Dorothy from Scotland shared with me this week

Dorothy from Jings and Things sent me an email this week with the link to this video. It looks like Scotland, in the very near future, will be joining the ever growing number of countries in the world that recognizes same sex marriages. Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that legally married same-sex couples should get the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples and cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California. We can only hope that the remaining 37 states will give same sex couples the same rights.

A few months ago I shared with you the video of New Zealand’s parliament passing the bill that recognizes same sex marriages and how the visitor’s gallery erupted spontaneously into song.

The Month of June in Photos

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Mama Cormier

Saturday, June 1st – Fun Fair

: Our principal taunting the boys and girls

: Professional griller

: Inflatable slide

: What a good sport!

Saturday, June 8th – High School Reunion

Sunday, June 9th – Girls on the Run 5k

Wed, June 12th – West Conference Girls’ Soccer Finals

Thursday, June 13th – Forest of Reading Celebration

: Finished accordion journals

: …. Luke’s journal

: Drama workshop

: Lunch…..pizza

: Thanks for being expert readers

Saturday, June 15th – Opening the Cottage

: View of the island from the dock

: Enjoying first breakfast at the cottage

: Taking a break after opening the cottage

: View of the cottage from the lane

Wednesday, June 19th – Spring Concert

: Folk Dancing

: Line Dancing

: Shaking those hips

: Modern Dance based on a story that students chose to tell through movement

: Grade 1/2 choir

: ‘Modern Ruins’ dance

: The Junior Choir

The report cards were printed, proofread, reprinted, copied, signed and sent home today. The grade 5s had their farewell ceremony yesterday and today were away for their fun activity day. Today the rest of the school had their Fun Day and a colleague and I spent the morning clearing out the computer lab so that construction crews can come during the summer to remove the wall and enlarge the library.

I’ve returned 90% of all the artwork that students produced in my art classes and students have returned most of the books that they took out of the library. I’ve started removing the books from the shelves that will be moved during construction. Only one more day with the children and then the staff party, followed by one more day of meetings and closing down our classrooms for the summer.

…….busy,busy and only a few things left on my to do list. Phew it’s almost over and then I can start planning for our trip to Ireland.

The Next Picasso?

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….my grade 2s,3s and 4s loved this project

Even though we only have less than one week of school left, my students really wanted to finish their Picasso portraits. I love all of them. They are all so different and so very colourful. The ones that were started two weeks ago were painted with acrylic paint and the ones that were started only a few day s ago were completed with coloured sharpies.

A Word a Week Challenge: Vibrant

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Mama Cormier

I’ve always loved vibrant colours and when I see them on my walks I eagerly pull out my little camera and shoot away. I was delighted when I found out that Sue’s word of the week is ‘vibrant’.

To check out more vibrant photography go to http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/a-word-a-week-challenge-vibrant/

Making Headlines…..

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. even if they are self generated

Discovered a great site today where you can create your own newspaper story. Thanks to Kate’s Creative Space for introducing this fun site. This could be an interesting activity to do with the kids at school.

My story headline is: ‘Teacher Blogs her Way into Retirement’.

To write your own story check out this link.

One More Pottery Class

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. where does the time go?

It just seemed like yesterday when I started my classes almost 10 weeks ago. Tonight was our second last class and all my pieces have been fired. One piece needs to be glazed and I started a new piece which should also be ready to glaze on Thursday.

I was really excited to see the glazed pieces tonight. My first piece was a bit disappointing. It was much darker than I anticipated and it had a very flat finish. I’m going to paint another colour over it on Thursday to lighten it up.

The plate and the bowl that I made I glazed with an apple green and than added a sapphire blue on top. I really liked how these two pieces turned out.

The last glazed pieces are my berry bowl and under plate. They were both made from a white clay and I applied a clear glaze to both pieces. This way the fruit that I add to the bowl will contrast nicely with the white.

My teacher, D, suggested that we make a new piece tonight and save our glazing for our last class on Thursday. I really wanted to try a new technique that involved rolling a ball of clay into a slab and then pressing a design into it. After that you cut out a base shape and build your walls with shapes that you cut in any pattern that you want. I cut out a bean shaped base and then started to layer my sides around the base. It was a lot of fun and allowed me to be a bit creative.

I hope it survives the firing. Now I need to figure out what colour to glaze it.

Why was it so Quiet at the Cottage?

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..could this sign posted at the dock have had anything to do with it?

I’ve been going to my cottage for almost 30 years and we’ve never seen a bear, never mind two bears. One of the reasons is because the cottage is on an island and it takes 20 minutes by ferry boat to get from the mainland over to the island.

You can get a pretty good idea how far away the island is from this photo. The bear must have swum over in the fall. I can’t imagine her doing it in the spring with a young cub in tow. There was some speculation that she might have walked over on the ice but I always thought that bears hibernated in the winter.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day and even though it’s still early in the season there were very few people on our beach. I did hear that some of the cottagers with dogs purposely stayed away until the bear problem is resolved. I feel, however, that unless they become a nuisance, nothing will be done about their presence. It certainly made me think twice about going for a walk in the woods this weekend.

The view looking east and west down the beach, yesterday.

An Almost Perfect Day

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..until our guest speaker didn’t show up

Today was the day I was most stressed about. Since January I’ve been running a school wide book club, featuring children’s books written by Canadian authors. The club was open to all students in grades three to five. Initially over 80 students joined the club.

The program is called the Forest of Reading and there are books for all age groups from Kindergarten to high school and beyond. Each age category is named after a tree commonly found in Canada. The primary books are classified as Blue Spruce books, grade 3 to 6 are Silver Birch and the French books are named Tamarack and Poplar.

Every year new authors and books are featured and at the end of April students from all over Ontario vote for their favourite book in one category. There’s a big culminating event in Toronto that students are encouraged to attend to meet the authors and find out who the winners are. It’s like the Oscars of children’s books. A couple of years ago the entire school went downtown to attend this event. It was outside and it was a very cool day and because it took place right next to the lake it was even colder. There were thousands of children there and there were line-ups for everything.

Last year we decided as a staff to host our own special event with the students at our school. It was such a successful day that we wanted to do it again. Unfortunately with the political climate in all our schools this year it almost didn’t happen at all. Earlier in the school year the parents purchased the books for us and I really wanted to proceed with the program. Luckily enough teachers were willing to help out and be expert readers so the program started in earnest in January.

In order to participate in the year end celebration for the Forest of Reading the students had to read enough books to reach a goal of 10 credits. I’m happy to say that 34 boys and girls reached and surpassed the goal. One of my students read 38 books.

Today the successful participants were pulled from class and enjoyed two specially designed workshops. In one session the children worked with a professional actor and did drama activities around one of the books that was featured this year. In the second workshop they learned how to make an accordion book which they could personalize and take away with them. For lunch, we treated them to pizza, juice and popsicles.

After lunch I had arranged for one of the Forest of Reading authors to come to the school and speak to the boys and girls. We were all very excited about this special visit. Unfortunately this was the one feature of the day that did not take place. Our guest of honour had mixed up his dates and thought he was coming to the school tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m not at school so we arranged to do the presentation on Monday morning, so not all was lost.

At the end of the day my colleague and pottery teacher was excited to show me how her Father’s Day gift activity turned out. These wonderful clay trophies mounted on bits of scrap marble were created by D’s grade 1/2 class. I think they’re amazing. What Dad wouldn’t love these works of art?