Oscar Night!

If you know me, you know I love movies.  Sadly I had to leave all my DVD cases in storage at home, thus eliminating my beautiful display of hundreds of movies.  However, I did manage to bring up binders full of DVDs.  When you are too cheap to pay for cable and do not particularly enjoy the outdoors, movies are a single gal's best friend! So tonight, Oscar night, is something I have been looking forward to for ages!  I have seen most of the nominated films (movies are just a little difficult to download over here on Creenet - Magic Mike, 96 days) but I saw the ones I was really interested in! I do miss movie theaters let me tell you that.

This last week has been one for the record books let me tell you that.  Without revealing too much and risking professionalism, I will just say that drama ensued and I managed to come out unscathed (hopefully) and maintained my dignity.  My students on the other hand were awesome, produced almost all-independent short stories and made me feel like I am doing something right after all!  I look forward to the next few weeks and seeing how far we can go!

This week coming up we have an interesting series of events taking place.  The Cree School Board has ordered that all grades 1- Sec 5 (Grade 11) take standardized, multiple choice exams to get a base line standard to measure against the years to come of evolving GVC. Standardized tests irk me 'till no end, but you do what you are told and at least this will not reflect the quality of my teaching.  The particular timing of this CAT test is also frustrating.  I feel that if you must have a baseline of what they are calling "pre-GVC" when why implement the test after we have been using the GVS for 6 months? Why implement a test on students who are not fluent readers and therefore cannot answer the questions (Grade 1, some 2's, some 3s)?  Why implement a test using material that has not even been taught to the students yet? All of these questions boggle my mind but, I will be a good teacher and do what I'm told! This test, while giving the Board a measurable statistic, will not deliver a baseline of any kind because the timing is all off.  It is taking a huge part of the day away from learning and I worry about the stress and test anxiety some of my students may experience.  I reassured them that I would not be mad if they didn't know the answer and not to stress too much! we'll see how it goes!

Anyways, we have been focusing a lot on character building in my classroom lately as the drama with the girls has been NON-STOP. I have abandoned the "can't we all be friends" approach and gone right for the "you don't have to be friends, just be friendly" tactic which may or may not be working, I'm not sure yet haha.  We read countless books on friendship, manners, kindness, sharing and keeping our hands to ourselves. I'll keep you posted on the "dramalicious" details (a term coined by one of the very observant boys in the class).


This week's weather has been crazy too! Today and yesterday the sun was shining and the temperature was a balmy 0 degrees!! Holy crap!! The snow melted enough for me to shovel a path on my stairs and all is bright and beautiful.  I still refused to go outside though ahh haahhaahah.

Anyways, enjoy the Oscars and Red Carpet glam!!

Contraband

This copier is the bane of the entire school's existence.  It is also right outside my classroom door.  The abuse this machine endures is awesome to listen to.

IT ARRIVED!!

This was my door Wednesday morning.  AHH!

Mini doggie, mini muffin!! EVER cute!