Trivia Tuesday #22

No!No!No!

Exercise:

I headed out this morning for my run but at just under 1.5km my left hip had a pain that was not the ordinary. I thought for a moment of carrying on and then decided not to be stupid and turn around. I only got 2km in and hobbled around all day. I actually felt better when my colleague reminded me we had that tough workout after school yesterday. Hopefully that is the cause of the pain and it will go away quickly! I took a long Epsom salts bath after school (I figured out to read blog posts during it so I stayed in longer) and then foam rolled as well. I’m hoping a few days of this and I will be all better!

Teaching:

I might see progress! This morning we got calendar done which is truly painful right now but teaches so many concepts that it’s worth the pain. We also did our first journal entry and got our first poem/song. Not bad for just the morning! After quiet time we did our first math- counted to 100 and played mystery number which they loved. I don’t get what’s so exciting about guessing a number covered by a sticky note on the 100 chart, but year after year, it’s a hit!

We went to the gym and played turtle tag. I am so glad that so far our classes can handle gym together as that gives them gym every day. So necessary when we have rainy weather like we have now. It was also hilarious that my colleague usurped the talking role and made me the turtle in the demo and the kids said, I was a pretty fast turtle🤣

Before recess and lunch today I had my three boys decide who they would play with and where. I made sure it was a wise decision and that they were separated. It worked! No reported problems at recess and lunch🎉🎊.

Unfortunately another little guy hit a Kindergartener with his jacket🙄

I never thought I’d be this teacher, but I think we need some external incentive and we’ll start using bee tickets early this year.

This afternoon we managed planners, 5:47 of silent reading and some work on tattling versus reporting. Hopefully it sunk in!

Reading:

I have been reading A Wedding in December by Sarah Morgan. While I was not invested for the first 20%, this book has turned out to be great:). I love how Sarah Morgan is writing longer women’s fiction now that allows her to explore more relationships in greater depth in her books. This is the story of the White family coming together for the youngest daughter’s wedding.

I loved how realistic the characters and relationships are. Every member has their secret to hide, their own agenda and their own journey. The characters are flawed and yet completely lovable and the series of events keep you going at a great pace. My favourite line of the book was, “try it and I’ll let you know”. This is definitely another winner from Sarah Morgan. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

Trivia:

It was just Liane and I tonight. Last week we had great success just the two of us, but tonight, not so much…

What we knew:

Which character in Harry Potter was known as the Dog Star?

Sirius Black

Who is older out of the Sedin Brothers?

Henrik

Which country is Steffi Graff from?

Germany

How much do you pay for a distracted driving ticket?

$368

Put the bridges in order going West.

Port Mann, Patullo, Alex Fraser

Who wrote War and Peace?

Tolstoy

Name three names in Mambo #5?

Sandra, Mary, Jessica

what is the last race in the Triple Crown?

Belmont

Who won in Football on Sunday?

Indianapolis Colts

Which Olympic throwing event doesn’t start in a circle?

Javelin

What craft is done on a loom?

Tapestry

What does the Scoville scale measure?

The best of chili peppers

What is the most popular way for potatoes to be eaten in Canada?

Fries

Where is Old Faithful?

Yellowstone

Which galaxy is nearest us?

Andromeda

How much of an iceberg is under water?

90%

We came in third for the Kahoolawe round!!!!!🎉🎊

What’s the name of coyote?

Wily E Coyote

Which religion does the Dali Llama follow?

Buddhism

Put the people on Canadian money in order from 100,50,5?

Borden, King, Laurier

Well we didn’t win, but I think we made a pretty good showing for just two people.

Eating:

Breakfast taco, granola bar, fruit yogurt cereal parfait, orange, plum, salmon with veggies, some fries.

Liane is obviously a bad influence on me as I was doing better today until we shared fries.

That’s it for me.

Have fun!

AJ

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Moving Monday

It doesn’t look like we’re having Workout Wednesday this year so now we have Moving Monday:)

Exercise:

I started the day with a run, but had to content myself with the sidewalk. I could have come home on the trail, but was worried about making sure I got all my mileage in. I did manage to get 3.32km in which is fine with me:) I was faster than normal which really surprised me because it sure didn’t feel like it!

This afternoon after school we had our first bootcamp. I really tried to push myself because I’ve been feeling flabby and frumpy lately. We did: plank, mountain climbers, squat jacks, pushups to shoulder taps, front kicks, squat to shoulder press, reverse curls, front punches, bench step ups to burpees, single leg bench lunges, side lunges with hammer curls, bridge March, side wall balls. It felt great to be sweaty!

I just feel like I need to have a couple of days in a row of healthiness to get on a roll. I’m not gaining weight, but I’m not losing like I want to be:(

Teaching:

Monday is always tough as I feel like I have to retrain my students after the weekend.

The day didn’t start great as I had to encourage a mom to give her kid a hug and let her be independent. This of course, was the one who was standing waiting to be dressed last week!😖

We finally got our All About Me page done and put up, only a week late! I had some children using privacy screens so they could get their work done.

We started talking about bucket filling (being kind) and designed our own buckets. Of course right after that I had three boys go outside and have a huge fight on the playground🙄. I’m glad this stuff isn’t happening in the classroom, but I finally made it clear that they wouldn’t be going outside if they can’t handle it. I’m really not sure how much the office follows through with consequences. I was also thinking on the way home that maybe we need to put the boys in separate areas on the playground for now until they earn the privilege of playing together.

Finally this afternoon after planners and silent reading (the stamina didn’t increase today☹️), I introduced the class jobs and allowed them to pick their jobs. I’m thinking I need to keep better track of which jobs they do this year and how well they do them so it can be part of a report card comment.

That was my day and I was exhausted by the time I got home!

Eating:

I had a half a turkey and guacamole sandwich for breakfast, a breakfast taco and fruit for recess, a plum mixed with yogurt and cereal parfait for lunch and a feed of beet greens and two rice cakes with cream cheese and jam for lunch. Way too much food!!!!

Knitting:

I have finished two cowls that are the same pattern and yarn for my HPKCHC class this month. I’m glad their done and it was perfect timing as the designer got back to me with the stitch confirmation.

Well, I guess I’d better go to bed so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow.

Have fun!

AJ

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

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

The First Day

I realize school started a week ago, but today was my first day with my class for the year. I was super nervous about it.

Exercise:

I got out this morning for my morning run and managed to be out the door at 6:30 so I’m happy with that as I didn’t want to have to get up any earlier! I got 3.47km in. I really want to make sure that on non-work days I get more mileage in so my body doesn’t get used to only doing 3km. At least this 3km ensures I am still on track this week:)

This evening I got a little bit of weight work done, 3 sets of 12 of the following:

Bicep curls, squats, front raises, calf raises, tricep kickbacks, bridge, shoulder press, deadlifts, sit ups, and Russian twists.

Teaching:

It was a truly exhausting day because I had to teach absolutely everything! We came in and sat down and I taught how to use the coatroom. We did a talking circle and everyone introduced themselves. 8/21 children challenged themselves to come up with something they liked that starts with the same letter as their name. Not bad for a straight grade one. I taught the bathroom routine, the recess routine, we read a story called First Day Jitters which I always love. We also read No David and brainstormed our rules. I always post the rules and have the children sign them and I had one little girl who didn’t plan on signing them because she didn’t plan on following them. Can you guess that this was the same girl who drove me nuts all day with her attitude and learned helplessness!!!

The children finally went home and I got to sit through a very painful staff meeting where nothing seemed to be decided and then did some more prep for tomorrow. I got home extremely late:(

Knitting:

I got a few rows done on my sweater:)

Eating:

A hard boiled egg, a mini kind bar, salad with chorizo sausage, grapes, cherry tomatoes and crackers.

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

A Wednesday Delay

I went out with friends last night, but even with my two hour nap yesterday and being home by ten, I went instantly to sleep.

Exercise:

I got another 4.3km done. I really wish I could just do the whole 16km at one time and be done with it!! That’s not going to happen though so I will keep plugging away with my four kilometers a day.

Teaching:

My nephew and I went in and set up my classroom. I at least have desks out, chairs present, and the coat room unloaded. The rest will have to wait.

I paid him with a Wendy’s lunch and a trip through the new rec centre in town. The rec centre is gorgeous and we both noticed how clean it smelled, but to me it seemed to have a lot of wasted space. For having two rinks, a library and a games room, the place is huge and all hallways.

Knitting:

I unfortunately only got a few rows done because I had the big nap.

Socializing:

I met Cori and Lyndsay for happy hour at a local patio. It was really nice to sit around and gab and catch up. We also checked out the new brewery in town as I had never been there. I’m not a huge drinker, but I like to at least be able to say I’ve been there. The Bakery is definitely fancier than the other breweries we have- booths and a fireplace corner and very bright and open. It was quite nice! We were noticing how dead it was when we got there, but then how busy it got! We also stopped at Twin Sails and again the other two had to drink my cider as it wasn’t sweet enough. The sunset was gorgeous though.

Well I have to get cleaning at Tavia and Cori are coming for a knitting lesson this morning.

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