Preparing for the year to come

Anyone who's been on Facebook recently knows that there is a bar on the right hand side where the people at Facebook take stats about your age, sex, location and interests and they prepare ads for websites or services they think you may like. As a female between the ages of 24 and 30 they seem to think that I need a mani/pedi every day, sometimes many times a day. Now I like getting pampered as much as the next guy (or female in my age range) but there are only so many pictures of people's nails I can stand to look at!!

Today, however, something amazing popped up. A website called Really Good Stuff- and believe me when I say that they are good to their claim. I spent hours on the site earlier today looking at some very interesting resources that will help me in the classroom next year, no matter what grade I end up teaching. What I particularly like about this site is that they offer resources to go with many of their products.If you have an hour or so to check it out, please do so! Many of the resources they carry sparked my imagination and I am now the proud owner of a new folder in my documents FULL of ideas for the new school year.

Happy browsing :)

Digital Photography

Hello Everyone! Hope the rain is treating you nicely. Well, it's been raining here. If you're lucky you're getting a lot of summer sun where you are!!

I found these pictures on my computer from when I did a photography project with my grade four class. We talked about nature and what elements in nature are artistic. We talked about colours in nature and forms in nature and we talked about what we could capture that would cause people to think when they observed our artwork. I created a flickr acconud and used blogger to create a slideshow of the images I put on flickr. These web 2.0 tools are great for working with kids!! You can't see any of the kids faces and their pictures are absolutely amazing. Some of them really put a lot of thought into how they see their playground and school grounds. Stop and take a look if you have a minute!

xo

Buttons

I found a bag of buttons today. You know, the ones that come with your clothes just in case you lose one somewhere? I'm sure we all have a stash somewhere and today as I was putting away the end-of-the-year gifts my students gave me I came accross mine. Now it's a much heaftier bag than I remembered and it made me wonder why I am even keeping them! I don't even own most of the clothes they once belonged to.

Although it would make sense to get rid of them and clear up some room in our tiny 560sqft apartment, the teacher in me insisted I keep them. As I sorted through them and took them all out of the little baggies a bunch of the little guys brought on some memories: the dress I wore to my brother's high school graduation, the suit I wore to my interview at Malmo, summer clothes I bought with my mom when I graduated from university... the list goes on.



It's amazing how buttons bring on so many memories.

They bring about a sense of wonder too. You see as I sorted through these old buttons I couldn't help but wonder what they'd become. What project is there in my teaching future that would utilize these buttons and give them new life. Last week I said goodbye to Malmo. I cried a tearful farewell to my students and the co-workers I met three years ago who I now call my friends. Somehow sorting through these buttons reminded me that my career is far from over. Someday, somewhere my future students will use these buttons to create something beautiful - new memories.