Halloween Eve

What does a teacher do the day before Halloween, dread what she knows is coming!

Teaching:

My students came in the door this morning announcing that it was Halloween tomorrow. I have given up on actually getting too much content into them until Monday.

This morning we had calendar and music. After recess we had just started the math game when the other class showed up so we looked at the Bumblebee bat and read about it- it’s the smallest mammal in earth, is in danger of extinction, lives mainly in Thailand in limestone caves along rivers and has only one baby a year. We then brainstormed what the kids knew about bats. Turns out they knew a lot and we should have picked spiders or owls🤪

We then spent the rest of our day finishing the art project we started yesterday. Yet again, they were super good and we’re happy with how the art turned out.

My problem girl had a second good day. The smiley face in the planner seems to be good incentive, but I worry about how she’ll do in later grades if she needs extrinsic motivation for her behavior to be good- she definitely won’t get that when she gets to grade three!

I had one boy J who threw sand at another boy L when e wrecked his sand creation. I was so proud of L for walking away, but unfortunately L hit J in the stomach in the coat room later in the day:( I’m going to be fully gray by the end of this year I think☹️

Knitting:

I am still working on this market bag. It feels like I make no progress even though I knit at recess, lunch and when I get home. I don’t love projects that don’t show progress well!😖

Exercise:

The run group went out tonight instead of tomorrow night for the obvious reason. It’s always so nice to have people to run with. I ran with Lisa and talked about her twin boys, then with Dennis and talked about gummie bears and then with another lady and talked about sushi. Talk about a great way to take your mind off running. I liked that we were a tiny bit quicker tonight. I got 4.8km in so I have fulfilled my 100km for the month:). We’ll see if I go out tomorrow night.

I’m going to put a few more rows into the market bag.

Have fun!

AJ

Trivia Tuesday #28

My day was fine even though I felt horrible. I had an allergy attack last night because of the oh so delicious caramel dip. I didn’t ask enough questions of my friend before digging in. I’m just thankful it wasn’t gluten!

Teaching:

We had no behavior incidents today🎉🎊. That was definitely the best part of my day!

We got through decorating brown paper bags for a homeless lunch program. We learned a new math game called Around the World which will help the children learn to skip count. We also started on our Halloween art project. This class definitely loves art. It really says something that 42 children were quieter during art than half that number are at any other time of day!

Exercise:

I really didn’t feel like exercising as my whole body feels battered, but I know that it usually helps me feel better. I headed out for a very slow jog and got 3.16km done in the sunshine:)

Knitting:

Still working on the third market bag. This one is definitely taking longer than the others did!

Trivia:

It was a theme night tonight on 70s and 80s music. We had a big group of 9!

Unfortunately they were tough questions tonight! It was divided up into 1970s music trivia then 25 1970s songs and their artist, then 1980s music trivia and finally 25 1980s songs and their artist. I didn’t know much:(

What soap opera was Rick Springfield on?

General Hospital

Who wrote UB40s Red Red Wine?

Neil Diamond

What are four things Rick Astley isn’t going to do?

Never gonna give you up, Say goodbye, never gonna lie, or hurt you

We actually won the final round of 1980s songs! My co teacher is amazing at 80s music so it wasn’t a surprise. We had actually thought we would do better all night, but he had very obscure 70s bands!

I probably really didn’t need that coffee crisp shooter I got for winning, but it was a fun night overall:)

Have fun!

AJ

Finally Did It

I’ve worked with the same people for ten years and haven’t had anyone over, but tonight that changed!

Teaching:

It was quite the day! This morning we did a journal, but a different type of journal. I gave every student one or two eye stickers and the students got ten minutes to create a monster and then wrote about their monster. The students had great fun and it was neat to see what they came up with.

At recess two boys decided to pull on a girl’s jacket hard enough to rip the jacket. So the students had a longer quiet time as I tried to sort this out:(

We did a quick final activity about even and odd numbers and then watched a YouTube video on the book, “Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler” by Margaret Cuyler. This book was super cute and gave me two good ideas as my students really seem to be struggling with being kind. We are going to keep track of our kind facts and post each one on a heart while using tally marks to keep track of how many we have done as a class. Also it has inspired me to make the theme of our sharing for November be “my random act of kindness”. Students have to do something kind and then either write or draw about it. I hope these two measures help!!

This afternoon we had silent reading, buddy reading and then did a class book on making choices that keep us healthy, happy and safe. Hopefully they will finish in the morning.

We then went outside to play because it’s truly beautiful weather here right now. My two little boys had to spend the time writing an apology note to the girl. We will see if missing two play times will help these boys remember to be kind.

Socializing:

After school a few of us ran over to get our flu shots and then four ladies came by my place for a charcuterie party (or even just an appetizer party). It was great fun to just sit back and relax. I may not eat for the rest of the week though!

Sorry for the poor lighting- my place is tough in the afternoon because it’s so bright!

Knitting:

I am working away on my third market bag. It’s very mindless because it’s just a repeat of one row over and over again.

Well, that’s it for me.

Have fun!

AJ

Grateful Sunday #1

I put number one because I’d really like this to become a regular thing! I have so much to be thankful for and yet it’s so easy to concentrate on the negative- but that’s not who I want to be, so I’ll make the effort!

Exercise:

It was just Dennis and I this morning because Brenda was delayed out of town. I left the choice of run up to him and boy did he pick a doozy! We ran from my place out to the marina where my parents used to have their boat and back. It turned out to be a great run and I definitely felt like I earned my tea!

This evening I decided I should try to work off a few nibbles so I did a combo workout. Started with a minute of cardio and then did 36 reps of a weight exercise, and kept repeating this using different cardio and different weight moves. I ended up doing:

Bicep curls, jog, deadlift, Skip, squats, high knees, plie squats, moguls, reverse lunges, toe taps, rows, jog, bridges, Skip, sit ups, high knees, shoulder press, moguls, lateral lunges, toe taps.

As I write this I realize I could have done jumping jacks and criss cross jacks. I should really have a list of weight moves and cardio so I can just choose as I go and don’t have to try and remember them!

Grateful for the fact that I have an awesome running buddy who believes in my abilities when I don’t and is incredibly encouraging!

Grateful to have a body that can run 10km with no prior notice!

House:

I was about to go pick up some dried fruits, but saw my helpless girl student going into the store with her dad, and so turned around and came home. I spent a good three hours cleaning my house. It’s as good as it’s going to get!

Grateful to have a nice, bright, warm and cosy place to live:)

Cooking:

I didn’t really cook, but got the nuts put out, the meat trays done and the roast beef wrapped pickled asparagus ready. Tomorrow I will just have to put out the crackers and the cheese. I am supposed to be doing charcuterie, but with my allergies I decided to do the different elements separately as it always drives me crazy when I go to a party and they ruin it for me by putting stuff together. Plus I only have one small board:(

Grateful for the fact that I have so many food options these days! While it would have been nice not to spend my childhood sick, it sure wouldn’t have been easy to deal with dairy and gluten allergies back then!

Grateful also to have friends who put up with my quirks and are fun to be around!

Knitting:

I finally texted my friends and said I was done with cleaning because I wanted to do some knitting today. I finally found a bag pattern in my book, sock Yarn One Skein Wonders. I am just about to start the bag body, so I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

I really need to get going on knitting cause I am only on project thirty and my goal for this year was forty!😳

Grateful to have a hobby that allows me to sit on the couch and still be productive.

Grateful to have had my mom and my grandmas who taught me all these needle arts!

Grateful to enjoy this beautiful view while I am knitting. I think I’m pretty lucky to not even have to leave the house to enjoy the Fall colours.

Eating:

It started out really well as I had a bag of running chews on my run, a slice of apple bread, leftover Cambodian curry, and two peppers with cream cheese. Unfortunately this afternoon while I was prepping food, I nibbled:( I’m noticing that I often fall down on my eating on Sundays. Maybe I need to have a definite plan and food made for Sunday, like I do during the week. This week is going to be interesting food wise as I bought food for my get together tomorrow rather than my usual weekly groceries, so I’ll be eating out of my cupboards and freezer. We’ll see how it goes.

Grateful that I love to cook and bake so I can have interesting, healthy food!

Grateful I have a mom who helps me to work towards my goals, even if she thinks they’re silly.

Well that’s my day in a nutshell.

Have fun!

AJ

Super Fall Saturday

I at last left the house so this post will hopefully be more interesting🤣

Shopping:

I met up with my co teacher this morning to attend a garage sale at a local private school. We like to see what the rich people are getting rid of. It didn’t seem as busy as it has in previous years, but boy did they have a lot of stuff!

I ended up getting a large deck of cards for showing the children card games, Nora Roberts books for my mom, a few books for my classroom, two Lululemon sports bras, two movies for the classroom, and an angel food cake pan. Not bad for $19:)

Knitting:

I spent the time between events finishing up my second market bag. This was the Easy Netz pattern, a free pattern on ravelry and it knitted up easily and quickly.

I definitely played yarn chicken with this one and just barely won!

I had started a hobo bag but wasn’t super happy with it, but I just thought of the fact that I have a knitting book on bags so maybe I will look there. I was super disappointed that there were no knitting books at the garage sale today:(

Fall Event:

I had asked Lyndsay about a month ago if she and her son Brady would be willing to go to a fall event with me. They go to the pumpkin patch every year so today I went along with them. It was about a forty minute drive away and we couldn’t believe how busy it was!!!

We checked out the animals area which had rabbits, hens, chickens, turkeys, etc. I’m not sure I like seeing my food like this!

We also did a quick circle in this little kid’s glow in the dark area. Brady was most interested in how his shirt glowed🤣

We watched them launch pumpkins through with an air pressure cannon. Was pretty neat to see them knock things over.

Brady did many circuits on a obstacle course they had.

We went through the corn maze which was super muddy! I liked how they had funny sayings throughout though, like what is a cow’s favourite activity? The mooo-vies.

We also did a race through the corn maze twice where you had to study pictures before you went in and then if you remembered the pictures to answer the questions you knew which way to go in the maze. Brady and Lyndsay won the first time and Brady and I won the second time.

After that we picked our pumpkins and headed out.

It was a gorgeous afternoon and I’m glad I can now say I’ve been to a pumpkin patch. The one downside to the afternoon was how rude and inconsiderate people were! It seemed to be all about them getting the perfect picture, even if it ruined yours. Very disappointing and sad:(

Eating:

Lyndsay has suggested stopping at Noodlebox so I tried to be ready for that. At first she was saying lunch which I didn’t really want as I had just had lunch two hours before, but it ended up being dinner, so it was okay.

I’ve had:

2 rice cakes with Pb & j

Chicken Caesar salad

Cambodian Jungle curry with chicken

I love Noodle box and so am always happy to grab food there. Today I made myself try something new and it tasted really good. The only downside is that it was soupy so I didn’t get the super cute takeout box they have!

We grabbed our dinner to go so we could check out Provincial Spirits which is a local place that’s like a brew pub but does mixed drinks instead.

One of the teachers at school raves about this place so we had to try it. It was okay tonight, but we think the difference might be in the circumstances. This other teacher bikes here with her husband in the summer and then sits out back for a drink and whatever food truck meal is available, whereas tonight it was super packed, we were sitting at a table in their storage area and people kept coming to look at us to see if we were leaving yet. Not quite the same. I’ll have to try it again in the summer!

Exercise:

After stopping at three different grocery stores, I finally made it home. I really didn’t want to exercise, but made myself do so before I sat down. I did a five minute warm up, then a four minute tabata of high knees and power jacks. Then I used a random number generator to pick twenty exercises from a list. I ended up doing a plank, Russian twists, crunches, lateral lunges, reverse lunges, jump lunges, squats, plie squats, jump squats, lateral step ups, plank shoulder taps, dips, and pushups. It wasn’t a run, but it was something.

Well that’s it for me.

Have fun!

AJ

ProD Day

It was a ProD day today, but it didn’t really seem any less busy!

Teaching:

I spent the day trying to figure out our new report cards which have to be done online. I finally figured out how to input the curriculum points, but I have no idea how you see what you have put in so far:( Plus, you have to do one subject and then the next which is not how I work! I usually decide what I need parents to know about their child and then write that one report card ensuring I mention those points, but I don’t get to do that now. There is also an auto-full function they suggest you use, but I’m afraid I’ll forget to go back and change the children’s I need to😳

I suppose it was somewhat helpful and productive, but it didn’t really feel like it.

Shopping:

After a lovely late lunch with Corianne and Lyndsay (I inhaled a Browns tuna poke bowl), I went to take my friend Kathryn shopping. She had texted me last night asking to go to the Helly Hanson store. I managed not to buy anything even with their big sale. I checked out Aldo too and managed not to buy anything there either! I did get some raisins and pumpkin seeds( supposedly high in iron) from Bulk Barn along with some packaged items for Monday. I was pretty impressed with myself.

House:

I was even more impressed when I came home and took a closer look at the oven door and managed to fix it myself!!!

Exercise:

I decided not to run today as I was caught up on my mileage, but felt like I had to do something so I did an L workout called Skip To It. It had a lot of skipping along with squats with shoulder press, burpees, reverse curls, bicep curls, reverse lunges, crunches, mountain climbers, twisting mountain climbers and Spider-Man mountain climbers. It ended up being 28 minutes long, so I was happy with myself:)

Eating:

I have had a pretty good eating day! I had oatmeal with Pb & j, slice of apple bread, tuna poke bowl and that’s it since I’m still full from the poke bowl!

Knitting:

I am literally 6 rows away from being done my second market bag, but figure I had better get some sleep as I have a busy day tomorrow.

Have fun!

AJ

Friday Eve

I really love thinking of Thursday that way!

Teaching:

It was another short day. We had Thunderous Thursday, calendar and learned a new Halloween poem.

We also brainstormed things that come in pairs as we are learning about even and odd numbers. I never would have thought of armpits🤣

This afternoon we really only had time for silent reading and buddy reading before the interviews began.

I met with six parents tonight as one didn’t show up. It was really interesting to meet my Little Miss Physical’s parents. They made me like her a lot better. I feel so sorry for them though as they’ve been battling this since she was really little and it sounds like they’ve been doing all the same things I would try. If anyone has any suggestions on how to stop a kid from putting her hands on other people – I’d love to hear them. She can tell us what she should do, but in the moment, she doesn’t follow through:(

I had sold an old Columbia jacket on Facebook and it turned out to be a mom at school who bought it. So her daughter made the swap today- felt kind of weird!

Knitting:

Working on my second market bag. I’m hoping to use up this colour as I’m already getting tired of this colour. I need a change!

Exercise:

There were 9 of us for the run tonight so it was great to get to move around and talk to so many different people. We did 4.53km which was enough for me. I think we had a decent pace, but they stop for walk breaks which I’m not used to. Oh well, it’s a run and even better it’s a run with company.

Eating:

I think I’ve had another good day, though I’ve thought that for the last little while and my body sure isn’t rewarding me for my good behavior!

I’ve had: oatmeal with peanut butter, banana, chicken Caesar salad, small slice of apple bread, cucumber and cheese.

House:

I’ve almost finished up cleaning my oven, but now I’ve run into the problem of my oven door not closing. I’ve walked away for tonight, but will give it another try in the morning before I call in my brother.

Ok I’m going to knit and listen to a podcast before bed.

Have fun!

AJ

Hump Day

My day was so long and with each hour it became clearer that I was getting sick:(

Teaching:

I started the day off with a parent meeting again. I can’t say that I love starting my day this way!

We had a very different day as we had an assembly first thing this morning and then music (where I tried to compile my notes on students). We then coloured the odd and even numbers on the 100 chart and it was interesting to see who got the quick way and who didn’t. This afternoon we just had silent reading and buddy reading because we had an early dismissal.

I then proceeded to talk to talk to 9 different sets of parents. I felt like I was completely incoherent by the end, but nobody was out for my blood, so I guess we’ll say they went well.

Knitting:

I got home and wipes off my stove and sprayed my oven. Hopefully I keep my skin as the oven spray leaked onto my hand:(. I then happily sat down to knit. this is my first market bag. The yarn is Berrocco Linsey and the pattern is Fantasy Naturale Market Bag. It knit up really quickly and easily, but I’m a little worried that the handles won’t be long enough to be comfortable.

I have started my next one, which I am using the pattern Easy Netz for. We’ll see how it goes.

Eating:

Not a horrible day! I need to be good every day until the end of the month to make 80%!

I’ve had:

2 rice cakes with Pb & j

Banana

Egg roll in a bowl salad

Gingersnaps

Chicken Caesar salad

The gingersnaps were planned as a treat before I faced all the parents.

Exercise:

Just 11 minutes of some basic aerobics. I’m just too exhausted tonight!

Have fun!

AJ

Trivia Tuesday # 27

It was a slightly better day though I get tired of talking to the same people all the time!

Teaching:

We didn’t seem to get much done today, but had a lesson on short and long I. The video was done by a teacher and super cute!

I think that may have been the only work we did today as we had gym, got to preview the book fair and then went outside to play as it was our first nice day in weeks.

Well we did discuss our predictions and prior knowledge on the book The Pumpkin Blanket.

Exercise:

After decorating for Halloween in my classroom. I left early and got out for a run. I didn’t go as far as I had planned, but I got tired of dodging people. Obviously 4pm is the time to walk your dog! I got 3.32 km in at a decent pace so I’m happy:)

Knitting:

I finished my first market bag, but it was too dark for a picture so here’s a picture of my latest scarf.

Trivia:

What was the last name of the Cosby show family?

Huxtable

Who played Tinkerbell in Peter Pan?

Julia Roberts

What is the state closest to Cuba?

Florida

In which Italian City is the statue of David?

Florence

Which Harry Potter book was made into two movies?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Who has played the most NFL playoff games?

Tom Brady

What does GRC on the side of RCMP cars mean?

Gendarme Royals du Canada

What animal does eiderdown come from?

Duck

Put these seas in order North to South:

Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Red Sea

What body system is pulmonary?

Lungs

If sheep go to heaven, which animal goes to hell?

Goats

Well I’m off to bed!

Have fun!

AJ

On the Run

Not literally, but it felt like it as I thought my alarm was set and it wasn’t and so I woke up a half hour later than I should have:(

Teaching:

We got through a journal entry, building a 100 chart and drawing our tree in Fall today. There was nothing really outstanding, but we all survived:)

Exercise:

WOW our workout was tough today as L added a minute of cardio after each tabata. We did:

Pushups/ squats with a front raise

Single leg deadlifts

Forward/backward banded steps/ frogged adductors with the band

Hip bridges with tricep extensions

Front planks with hip dips

Reverse lunges with knee raises

Plank shoulder tap/ reverse flies

Straight leg reverse raises

Lateral banded steps/ power jacks

Cardio: high knees, froggers, skipping, burpees, jumping jacks, squat jumps, fast feet, mountain climbers

I think my butt is going to be sore again tomorrow!

Knitting:

After getting all recycling and garbage taken out and taking a bath, I have been knitting on my first market bag. It is quite a bit larger than I was expecting, but maybe that will turn out to be a good thing. We shall see.

Eating:

Not a bad day. I’ve had:

2 rice cakes with Pb &j

Banana

Egg roll in a bowl

Chicken Caesar salad

That’s it for me.

Have fun!

AJ