Back to work...

The French trip came and went. 5 days with our students, trekking through England to get to the stunning French countryside.

We took a 6.hour.ferry.

Way too long.

The kids were very well-behaved though, and they brought lots of games and bracelet making things to keep themselves entertained.

There were a range of activities and the camp (camp? residential? something like that) was very well organized. And the food!!!! The bread! The cheese! The wine!

Everything was in French.

Everything.

Yep, I don't speak any French. It was all a bit much. On one hand, I felt so fortunate that I saw and participated in all the amazing activities with the students. But on the other hand, long days with the children were so exhausting.

Thank goodness I had my little book translation thing. Although I still can't tell you any French words.

After the trip it was half term! 1 week off-hooray! Only bad thing was the terrible weather here in rainy England.

But I did manage to rest and not do any school work (although I'm paying for it now with reports due soon).

I guess I technically did a bit of school work. I had to take the opportunity to update some of the math journal activities in my TPT store and finally get my second grade place value printables finished!!

 

Next--------> 6 weeks left of school!! The major things are reports, parent conferences and our big play!!

I have got to say that our lovely students are off to a great start with this play and I am enjoying this sweet time of the year with them. Despite the lack of stability with our admin, and high turnover of staff, I thoroughly enjoy my students and the subjects I get to teach. I am fortunate that I get to focus on a few subjects instead of teaching everything, in addition to teaching across a couple year levels. It's nice to get to know the children throughout the school this way. I must remember this when the gossip and low staff morale get me down!!

Have a great day!! 

almost forgot my fencing picture!!

 

FREEBIE FRIDAY!

YAY!!!!!!! It's Friday!!!  What would we do without the weekend??!! I'm so exhausted and I get to sleep in tomorrow!!!!

I hope you're having a good day.

Here is a Friday FREEBIE for you! I made some flashcards this week to go along with some fluency passages I bought for my intervention students. Hope it can save you some time!

Can I just mention a few things I'm loving right now?! 

This ice cream:

 

 

I forgot how much I LOVE this show:

imovie trailer app for ipads with older students:

and I would LOVE to be here:

Have a great Friday!! Don't forget to welcome my friend to the blogging world...

Je ne parle pas français (I can't speak french)

AHHH! Would so love to blog more often than I am! 

Hope you're having a great day...things have been crazy busy as always. Are most of you nearing the end of your school year? So awesome.

Coming up: a residential trip to France for Year 5 and 6 (fourth and fifth grade) next week, assessments and the play next month! Sidenote on the play-my students are making movie trailers for the play with imovie apps.Best.Thing.Ever. Hope to share some of those later.

I'm desperately trying to learn some French phrases for our upcoming trip but that is not easy! Two other teachers are coming on the trip (and they speak French), but I've gotta learn a few words right?

Anyway, I'll share pictures when I get back!

On another note, you MUST check out my friend who has recently started blogging. She is a British teacher, just learning about the blogging world, Pinterest and TPT. I'd love it if you stopped by her blog, Resource Angel to say hello and give her some encouragement. She makes amazing resources for 3-5th grade and is one of my closest friends!

Have a good one!!

English Homework for grades 4-6

Hello! This is probably the wrong time of year for this, but if there's anyone from Australia, the UK or other places that still have a while to go for the school year, well maybe you can use this.

 
English homework.
 

Sometimes I struggle to make it interesting.

I'm required to give it once a week and I wanted to make it more interactive and possibly fun.

I saw this idea for having an on-going project that incorporates many of the features of text that we'd previously worked on in class. I tweaked it for my Year Six class for half a term and put the page along with the required paper in small folders.

Would you believe they loved it?! They loved the idea of choice, they loved adding onto to it each week.......they said it was actually...fun! 

Even better...I didn't have to sort homework week after week. They had their homework assignments for the next 6 weeks!

I've uploaded it to google docs in Word so you can change it to what you need. Please tell me if that works. I haven't used that in ages. I was too lazy to upload it to TPT. Click here for it.

One more thing for homework.

We recently returned from Easter holidays (off for 3 weeks). Again, I'm required to give English homework. This time I gave a letter with choices.

They had to pick 3 writing choices (to average 1 a week). I did mention reading in the letter, but focused more on writing for this holiday. I copied this cover sheet on bright yellow colored paper, along with several pieces of blank writing paper, and put it in a folder. Easy. Except for grading them when they come back, but hey.

Can you believe they came back showing each other what they picked and what they wrote and were so proud?! I was speechless. I was just so happy to see them enjoy writing and even want to share it with their peers!

Click here for this document in Word so you change it for your needs.

Hope some of you can use this and I can save you some time!

Have a good one xx

FREEBIE FRIDAY!

Oops, a day late.

Hope you're happy and healthy today! I'm enjoying my Easter break. Love it!

Here are some book review forms I created for 3-5th grade at our school. I have a few other options too, just have to round them up. I make a bunch of copies of them and  put them in the folder on the bulletin  board for our Reading Challenge. Maybe you can use them!

Wordless Wednesday

FREEBIE Friday!!

Hello!

I am finally on Easter Holidays/Spring Break! It could not come quick enough. 

There is some yucky stuff going down at my school.

I can't say much, but let's just say between student bullying allegations and nearly half the staff leaving at our very small private school (including our Head/Principal)...school life has been stressful to say the least.

In all honesty, several of the teachers are leaving because of maternity leave/staying home with new baby. 

However there is other crap stuff going on too.

Needless to say...school morale is low.

It's hard to get away from low morale when it seems to be everywhere. Does anyone else feel like this at their school at the moment?

But anyway, we've got 3 weeks off, then 1 term left (schools go til mid/late July here). It is great to change environments for awhile.

Therefore, on a positive note-I've decided to get back into blogging a bit more and am starting with [trying] to post a freebie every Friday! I know that structure might help me blog more regularly like I want to do!

I would like to blog once more during the week. I was thinking Memory Monday or Wordless Wednesday? I think I've heard of those before. What do you think?
 
So here is the freebie for today! A spelling menu (one for second/third grade and one for fourth/fifth grade).

Now I have a love /hate relationship with spelling lists and spellings tests, but hey. My boss says I have to do it. Now while I do have differentiated spellings lists, I have not been satisfied with the ways I've seen for practicing it. 

I'm not sure how it will go, but I'm going to give it a try. Maybe you can use it too. (We have a spelling notebook/journal for all their spelling homework so it's all in one place. I will have them glue their spelling menu into their notebook)