Bookends

It actually turned out to not be a bad day, outside of school 🤣

Exercise:

I did a lot of exercise today! I started the day with 3.18km run to the park and back. I was going to go to the bridge, but decided not to in car I ended up running again.

I actually did end up doing another 6.25km this evening with Dennis and Kathryn. I got an email late this afternoon and decided to leave work early to make sure that I got out with them. I was worried that I would be significantly slower, but it turned out okay.

Teaching:

Today was interesting! The honeymoon period is definitely starting to wear off. Today we had a cutting lesson and cut out our stars- they did pretty good. We also made an art project this afternoon where all of the students decorated a hand and it was used to make a flower. I wish I had taken a picture to show you as t turned out cute:)

I had one little guy who started fighting on the playground over Pokémon cards and right after he got talked to about that, he started making farting noises on my carpet😖😖😖. I had another little guy who had to talk to the principal but couldn’t remember what it was about🤔. I had two little girls who disobeyed the EA and went to the washroom together. Thankfully these things are mostly happening when they aren’t with me!

We got everything planned and prepped for next week so hopefully the week to come will be slightly calmer!

Blog Hop:

Thanks to Teacher Turned Mommy for hosting a back to school blog hop. I am a few days behind, but hopefully I’ll get caught up!

Apples- some of my best teaching moments when I started teaching were around apples. I went crazy and bought apples and the children had a taste test, we also made apple sauce and did apple prints. It was so much fun and it had great hands on moments of teaching.

In real life, I love apples! I like to eat Gala apples raw and with peanut butter or cheese. I also will make apple rounds and put peanut butter, raisins and coconut on top.

I will often also cut up an apple and throw it into a ziplock bag with a tiny bit of water and some cinnamon. It makes a great sweet snack without being unhealthy:)

I also love baking with apples, though I try to always use a mixture of apples. There is nothing like apple crisp at this time of the year.

Make sure you check out Teacher Turned Mommy- her posts are always interesting!

Knitting:

It was great to get ten rows knitted on my Not a Boring Sweater:)

Ok I have to hit bed as I have an early workout in the morning:)

Have fun!

AJ

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A Little further

Each day I’m just trying to get a little further ahead in my preparations for the year.

Exercise:

A 3.14km run the opposite way this morning. Have to remember that when I go this way I have to go to the bridge either coming or going to make up the distance.

The best part of the run was when the golden retriever cane running at me and then proceeded to lean against me🤣

This evening I got a weights workout done. It included three sets of 12 of the following:

Bicep curls, shoulder press, tricep kickbacks, upright rows, squats, plie squats, calf raises, deadlifts, crunches, and reverse crunches.

Teaching:

Another very long day, but hopefully I’m making progress. I had forgotten that I had a prep today so my morning consisted only of calendar and then getting as much done as possible .

After recess we had quiet time, and then tackled our safety tips. I love reading the book Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman because the pictures tell a whole different story so not only do I cover school safety, but I also start on the reading idea of looking at the picture as a reading strategy. We had a great giggle and then wrote our own safety tips on paper stars. Tomorrow we will have a lesson on cutting and the children will cut them out.

Finally this afternoon we got our planners and wrote a message in them ( it took forever!), we also tried out silent reading for the first time and managed five minutes. Finally we read the book The Best Part of Me and wrote a class book having each student name the best part of themselves. It was a lesson to me to put better pictures on the board. I had drawn a quick sketch beside each body part they named so they could find the word again, but I found they just copied my pictures on their page. It makes for a very interesting book🤣

Finally we cleaned up and went outside.

After school I got the journal books labeled, the hands and background cut out for art tomorrow afternoon, he job chart names made and I started on my timetable. My list never seems to go down.

Knitting:

I made a quick run to Michael’s to grab a gift card for my volunteer and am now going to sit down for twenty minutes and knit a few rows.

Have fun!

AJ

Trivia Tuesday #21

I really can’t believe I have been to trivia 21 times!

Exercise:

Once again I got my butt out the door for an early morning run. I always figure it’s a success as soon as I’ve made it out the door. I got another 3.44km done and only saw two people! I can’t believe everyone has given up mornings already! I’m just glad it’s still light out enough for me to do the trail in the morning. I know soon it won’t be and I’ll be stuck with the sidewalk.

I did notice that my left hip was hurting throughout the entire run, thankfully I had a massage this afternoon and he worked on it!

Teaching:

LOL I completely rearranged he day by mistake, but it turned out okay. We started with hallway writing about what they thought grade one would be like and what they wanted to learn. I was really impressed when one little guy came up with the word challenging:). They sure did have a lot of different things they want to learn about.

Hallway writing is writing we do on fancy paper after each major event of the year. I love this as I don’t help too much with it once we get past this first one so you really get to see how the children’s writing is improving. I then make it into a book for each child at the end of the year.

I had to find a new game for between recess and lunch and found an easy one on Pinterest. We took turns in the circle rolling a die and if you rolled a one you had to say your favourite tv show or movie, two was your favourite food, three was your hobby, four was a game, five was an animal and six was your favourite place. The kids did great and it was super interesting to hear! Unfortunately Miss M, the EA and I both got favourite tv show or movie which we then had to quickly think up a kid one to say🤣

Finally this afternoon we did a rule sort, learned how to put things into a duo-tang and then headed outside to play. I had one little guy who tried to leave the playground with his friend without telling me and another who threw sand just because his friend did🙄. Bring on the thinking before acting lessons!

Trivia:

After a massage, a cup of tea and a few rows of my knitting, it was off to trivia.

What I knew tonight:

who was the actor who drove Miss Daisy?

Morgan Freeman

What was Mark Twain’s real name?

Samuel L. Clements

What do women hunt?

Shoes

We did horrible on the music round.

What was Kesha’s real name?

Kesha

What is helium?

A Noble gas

Who won a football game on Sunday?

Minnesota Vikings

What was explorer Cook’s first name?

James

Who played Peter Pan I’m Hook?

Robin Williams

What were the two characters in the Odd Couple?

Oscar and Felix

What is the aurora Borealis?

Northern lights

What is the first season in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons?

Spring

In which state did Woodstock take place?

New York

Name the first seven words of Jack and Diane?

A little ditty bout Jack and Diane

Eating:

Not horrible, but I did have a treat.

Hard boiled egg on rice cake, yogurt, plum, salad with chorizo sausage, some “Good Food” crackers/chips, hard boiled egg, salmon and veggies

Well I’m off to bed!

Have fun!

AJ

1 Down, 39 to Go

Lol not that I’m wishing life away, but this week was tough!

Exercise:

This morning was a workout with L and it felt great to get back at it. We did a half hour of hills on the treadmill and I finally thought of adding that to my running mileage. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to do that before!!! We then did squats, squat walks, crunches, plank toe taps, goblet squats with two minutes of cardio between each routine.

On the walk home I decided that I think I’m going to use my Saturday runs to catch up on any mileage I’ve missed during the week. This way I don’t need to worry about it during the week and yet I can get caught up each week. Again, why didn’t I think of this before?

Teaching:

We got our class lists today. Everyone looks at me and just shakes their heads, though all but one of the classes is like this is in my school. I really dislike when I get punished for being able to do my job!

This year I would like to keep track of what I do in my classroom that works well, in case any teachers follow me and are interested. These are the activities that the kids were really engaged in:

We had last year’s class so had to find engaging activities that their new teachers wouldn’t want to do. We did a nature hunt where they had to record one item that started with each letter of the alphabet. For example a leaf for L.

We had a September survey where they had to go around and ask their classmates questions to find one person who had done each item in the boxes on the page. Hey could only ask one question of each person and then had to go away and ask someone else. They spent almost an hour doing this and were upset when recess interrupted it.

We read the story Carumba which was great about how everyone is good at something.

We also wrote a top five list of what we’re excited about this year.

As far as my goals go- I got two files organized this week, and finished the work week 0.2lbs lighter- not bad for a stressful week. I’m not sure if I talked less and listened more, but I did refrain from signing up for a ton of extra curricular activities.🤷🏼‍♀️

Blog Hop:

My grade 4,6 and 7 teacher made a definite difference in my life. In grade two I hanged schools and it wasn’t a particularly welcoming group of children I came into, in fact they were pretty horrible. My teacher made a quick appearance as a TOC this year and then came back as my teacher for three other years. It was great as he showed interest in who I was and made me feel like someone cared and thought it was okay that I was who I was. He definitely encouraged me in all of my pursuits and crazy ideas. He is also definitely the reason I became a teacher!

Thanks to Teacher Turned Mommy for hosting this blog hop and be sure to check out hers and others posts on Back to School.

Socializing:

After watching several parents freak out about their child’s class placement a few of us teachers escaped to the local pub for some snacks and a glass of sangria. It was lovely to get away! I am lucky to have a great set of friends I work with who keep me sane!

Knitting:

I divided for my sleeves on the Not a Boring Sweater and had to send a picture in as it is a test knit. I am really liking it so far!

Eating:

Well I have to say I’ve been happy with myself for resisting all the treats at work this week. Today I had a rice cake with Pb & j. A Pb & j granola bar, yogurt, the rest of my steelhead romesco, my share of some appetizers, and a scoop of ice cream ( I walked over to Vashti Rose with Brady and Lyndsay).

Well I’m going back to my knitting.

Have fun!

AJ

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

It’s been quite the week, but we saw progress today:)

Exercise:

I got out again this morning for a run, but just did 2.9km because I had a run planned for tonight. Unfortunately I was too late getting home from work so even though I had extra mileage planned, I ended up short. I should just know to do the whole thing in the morning, just in case!

Teaching:

So it has been a very stressful week due to a lack of communication. We had been told that our school organization may be changing but then nothing further was said. My teaching partner was then told she’d have six major issues in her class, which of course caused her a lot of worry! We have heard nothing for about two days and then finally at the end of the day we were given our proposed class lists. Unfortunately I am still not teaching the same as my colleague ☹️ but we have decided to continue to collaborate anyways. At this time it appears that I e gotten the short end of the stick☹️. 21 students- 13 boys, 8 girls and seven major problems. It’s going to be quite the year! What drives me nuts is that three people who don’t work with any of the children have spent two days creating this organization when it could have been better done and more quickly done if the teachers (the experts on these children) had been asked!!!!😖😖😖😖😖😖😖 I will stop now as I could keep going with all my grievances for several more pages, but I’ll just say that it’s been painful and exhausting this week and it doesn’t appear it’s going to improve!

Blog Hop:

I missed yesterday, but loved meeting new people through the Teacher Turned Mommy blog hop so I’ll do another tonight:)

My favourite school supply. Oh this is a tough one for me as I really do love all things stationary! As a kid I really wanted smelly markers, but knew there wasn’t the money for them, so when I started at the school I’m at now, I bought myself a set. I use them to make all of my chart papers and they make me smile daily:)

I also love sharpies! I like how they come in so many cool colours and how nicely they print!

Sticky notes would probably be the third item I would choose as I love how they come in bright colours, and a zillion different sizes so I can colour code everything:)

I’m sure I could go on and on, but I’ll stop with those three cool supplies. Make sure you check out Teacher Turned Mommy and Ally Bean!

Cooking:

After a very late evening of planning I came home to make dinner (after my mom told me not to run again). I had ordered a meal through Fresh Prep as I have a friend who orders each week. I thought this would be a good week to try it and ordered Steelhead Romanesco. It was definitely something new for me to make.

All the ingredients come in pre-portioned containers. It did seem like a lot of plastic waste:(. It took me exactly 23 minutes to make the dish which was just under the 25 the recipe called for. The recipe was easy to follow and only had seven steps.

The dinner turned out delicious! I was hoping to get four meals out of it, but only got two and some extra rice. At least I will have lunch tomorrow.

I can see myself doing this again as I enjoyed cooking and it was quick enough for a week night since they do the grocery shopping and some of the prep. There wasn’t a whole lot of thought required.

Knitting:

With not running, I got some time to knit and managed the last five rows of the yoke that are just plain knitting. I sure hope I get a chance to separate for sleeves tomorrow!

Well I need sleep as I’m getting up early for a workout.

Have fun!

AJ

The First Day/ Trivia Tuesday # 20

It was back to work for me today!

Exercise:

Amazingly I managed to get up at 6:15 to get out for a run. It didn’t go completely according to plan because I didn’t get out until 6:38. I think tomorrow I have to try it again but not allow myself to look at WordPress until I am stretching!  The late start did mean that I didn’t get to go as far, so only 3.18km this morning, but that does mean I am only 2.7km behind. I’m supposed to run with Dennis on Thursday night so that should be taken care of then:)  It was busy this morning as I saw 8 people out on the path at that time.

Teaching:

I was at work with plenty of time to spare, though I had already spilled my tea all over my hand and foot:(  We had a meeting, then the children for half an hour (it was awesome to see them), then another meeting for two hours and had two hours as prep for the week.  It seemed to be a busy day, but not too bad.  I like that it was agreed that we will have last year’s class for this week, which really simplifies matters.  Unfortunately, at this point, it doesn’t look like I am going to get to teach the same as Liane this year:(  I will continue to keep my fingers crossed something changes though!

Blog Hop

I am joining Teacher Turned Mommy for her September blog hop:)  So the first day of school…

This truly is the start of a new year for me, much more so than January.  Every year I have high hopes of all the things I am going to accomplish, but I also have anxiety about what my class will be like, whether I will be able to teach them all to read, what problems or drama will occur this year, etc?

However, with it being the first day of my school year I want to think about my goals for this year. I want to go through at least forty file folders (that’s one per week and I did get one done today😀), I want to avoid work weight gain (my weight today better be the highest of the year!) and I want to talk less and listen more. I am sure I will come up with many more things I want to do this year, but this will have to do for now.

Thanks Lori for putting this together.

Reading:

After a quick stop at the library, I have started my Bookclub book of How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Let’s hope I can get it done by Sunday!

Trivia:

It was again just the three of us tonight, but here’s what I knew…

The Sandra Bullock film about space?

Gravity

What pet did Hermione get in The Prisoner of Azkhaban?

Cat

What is a word that goes with prime?

Time

Put three grades of oil in order of thickness?

5w20, 10w,30, 10w,40

What is the name of the bridge from PEI to the mainland?

Confederation

Which African country has no coastline?

Chad

What band is Gwen Stefani in?

No Doubt

I got the fraction question.

Who sang We Are The World?

USA for Africa

Which actress was in When Harry Met Sally?

Meg Ryan

Rainman has to go home to watch which show at 3pm?

People’s Court

Who founded MCDonalds?

Ray Kroc

What is bad breath known as?

Halitosis

Who painted the Sistine Chapel?

MichaelAngelo

well I’m late to bed, so that’s it for me!

Have fun!

AJ

I Made It

Well I survived the admin day and am free (except I still have to go help my friend next week).

Exercise:

I really didn’t feel like it, but managed to get my 3.5km in this morning and once again, they dynamic stretching seems to have helped:). It was way busier out this morning, but I guess I was a little later too.

This afternoon I had a short workout with L as it got interrupted when she had to go pick up her son. We did a giant hill from 2-15% on the treadmill and back down again. I have to admit that starting at 11% I did a combo of running and walking. We then did chest press, hammer curls and bicycle crunches along with a minute of skipping between sets. It’s okay that it was short because I sure was sweating a ton!

The plan is to do some more exercise just before bed tonight, but it hasn’t happened yet🤣

Eating:

We had a staff breakfast this morning and twelve of us made it out. I had my usual at Coquitlam Grill and it was as yummy as ever!

The even better part was that it kept me full forever! I grabbed a Kind bar at about 1:30 and then didn’t eat again until I went out for sushi with friends this evening.

It was yummy but not very filling as I couldn’t have any rolls. Two times from now I get to go to the gluten free sushi place:)

Teaching:

No teaching today, just cleaning and piling everything in my coat room.

Knitting:

After a lovely nap on my couch, I have been working on my cardigan again and am finished the left side:)

Well, that’s it for me tonight. My run is even earlier than my usual Saturday morning tomorrow so I think I’ll go to bed early!

Have fun!

AJ

The Last Day with Kids

Well it finally got here- the last day with my students!

Exercise:

I was worried when I heard it called for rain today that I wouldn’t get out, but I actually did and still enjoyed my morning run in the rain. I went the opposite way as I have been, but it went well as I got to run on the new path:) I shouldn’t call it a path though as it’s as wide as a road and feels like a road.

I did do the dynamic stretching that Maureen suggested. I just did leg swings and high knees, but it seems to have helped as my average speed was 13 seconds faster per minute and I’m definitely not as stiff tonight:)

Teaching:

Again, absolutely no teaching today- just handed out report cards, talked about the best friend moment of the year, went to the leaving assembly and then watched a movie in the afternoon.

I got my PR cards done twice today 😖. Don’t ask!😫

Socializing:

I met up with five amazing women I work with who make every day better. Our school isn’t a particularly happy place right now, but these women make me laugh and keep me sane. I really can’t imagine working somewhere without friends. We had an awesome time snacking, sipping and socializing for more than the 25 minutes we get at school. A pretty awesome end to the school year!

Eating:

Was really good all day

Breakfast- cheddar and peanut butter sandwich

Recess- larabar

Lunch- apple sauce, fruit

Party- way too much yummy stuff!

Well, I’m off to bed!

Have fun!

AJ

Workout Wednesday and a Baking Challenge

It was a very busy day and yet not.

Exercise:

I got out once again for a run before school. I figured this may help calm my after school time. My left leg is definitely a little stiff and I hope it eases up. I got another 3.5km so am chipping away at that yearly goal slowly.

After school we had our bootcamp. It was quite the workout, but I think I need more cardio in between as I’m not sweating much:( we did 30 seconds of cross cross jumps and then a burpee between the first four rounds and then forgot the second four so we did two minutes of running at the end.

We did:

High rows/ superwoman

Reverse lunge with tricep extension/ hamstring curls

Lateral lunge to step up

Bench plank flies

Banded hammer curl/ banded static crunch with scissors

Plank with arms in and out/ band front raise

Bench lunges

Bench sit-up to jump squat/ uppercuts

It felt like there were a lot of arm exercises today, but that’s probably a good thing!

This evening I managed to be slightly active again by doing 100 front kicks, 50 squats, 50 plié squats, 100 roundhouse kicks, and 100 standing crunches.

Teaching:

There was absolutely no teaching today!🤣. This morning I gave the students their year end gifts- a Canadian beach ball. I had signed Happy summer on them and then the children got to go around and sign each other’s. I think I like this gift a lot more than the others I’ve done over the years.

We also cleaned out all our extra supplies and our desks.

This afternoon we watched a movie and played outside as I had two classes on my own. My co teacher had to be at the rehearsal for tomorrow’s leaving ceremony. It went really well, but it probably helped that two of the biggest issues were away.

Baking:

This evening I wanted to tackle Sally’s Baking Addiction monthly challenge which was an angel food cake. I figured this was the perfect time to make it as I’m meeting up with the girls tomorrow so I can take the cake and not eat it all myself. I had to use this recipe instead of Sally’s as I figured there would need to be changes for gluten free. It was super easy and looks like it turned out well.

I hope it tastes good tomorrow with strawberries and coco whip!

Movies:

I watched Summer In The City tonight. I have to admit the leading man wasn’t particularly to my taste, but it was an interesting movie.

Eating:

Breakfast- peanut butter and cheddar sandwich

Recess- larabar

Lunch- assorted sashimi

Snack- tuna snack kit

Dinner- cucumber and cheese, grapes

Well I need sleep as I have to run before work again.

Have fun!

AJ

Learn Something Every Day

I got up this morning and really wished it was already Friday!

Exercise:

I got out for a 3.5km run first thing this morning since I had a massage after school. It was lovely and cool out, though I was still a little slow starting out.

I just realized this morning that I am probably slow in the morning because my muscles and joints aren’t warmed up. All I do is walk downstairs and then start running, whereas when I go after school I’ve had all day to warm up and loosen up. It’s only taken fifteen years to figure this out🤣🤪

Teaching:

We worked on finishing up our printing this morning, had a math drill, handed out some work and then this afternoon we did the “It Looked Like Spilt Milk” activity. We read the story by Charles G Shaw to the kids and then have them look at the clouds to figure out what they look like. It’s a lot of fun to do during this last week.

Blogging:

Today at lunch I learned that the search feature only searches the titles of blogs. I guess I’ll be changing all of my titles so I can actually find something. I don’t like this as sometimes I really like my title.

I have also installed google pics on my phone and will try to figure out how to get photos from there to show up on my blog. It’s times like this that I wish I was more tech savvy!

Which by the way, I was unsuccessful at which explains why there are no new photos in this post:(

Knitting:

Finally got the arm decreases on the left side so will hopefully keep making progress!

Shopping:

After a lovely nap, my evening took a downturn when I went looking for my angel food cake pan. I don’t seem to have it. I tried three different stores for it or the ingredients for some roll ups and came home empty handed:(

Movies:

At least my Hallmark movie of the night was cute- My Perfect Romance was quite cute:)

Eating:

Breakfast- my last chorizo sausage

Recess- granola bar

Lunch- Pb & j sandwich, Rice Krispie square

Snack- granola bar

Dinner- cucumber and cheese, popcorn

I’m off to bed as I need to change around my day tomorrow to allow for going to Walmart for a Pan after school tomorrow.

Have fun!

AJ