Teacher Appreciation Week: Merci Beaucoup!

Our PAC did it again!

They pulled off an absolutely amazing and beautiful Teacher Appreciation week!

The theme this year was French. . ."Merci Beaucoup!"

Here is their Staff Room Pendant. . .

their foyer bulletin board

their staff room table décor

and some of the daily gift baskets to be won.

And I actually won one this year! Woot woot! (Mine isn't pictured though. . .it was made by a mom of one of my students, and contained handmade rustic-ish décor. . .so now I have to re-paint our ensuite to match, of course!) I NEVER win these things, so I was thrilled! (And that the one I was eying hadn't been scooped up yet by another lucky winner before me!)

 

Students brought in adorable little notes and encouragements for us teachers and all who work at the school. They are so sweet!

 

The PAC--they spoiled us!

Monday--an invite to the staff luncheon on Friday, a visit from some French servers gearing up the students and serving a bubbly fruity treat

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday--treats in the staff room every day! These were wonderful, and ranged from things like brie and baguettes to crepes to fill.

They also treated us to mini candles, chocolates, and verse to encourage us each day. Some included:

Ruth 2:12: "May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully for what you have done." (NLT)

Zephaniah 3:17: "The Lord you God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing."

1 Corinthians 9:8: "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work."

Friday--and of course, Friday included a wonderful and delicious lunch of croissants, quiches, fruit and pies/torte for dessert. . .complete with the PAC taking over outdoor duty responsibilities!

They spoiled us!

 

Our families own little gifties to the teachers . . .

bath bombs (bath fizzies) with adorable printables and homemade cards.

As a mom, I appreciate what the teachers of my kids do, and as a teacher, I LOVED the encouragement and appreciation I felt by the parents and students of our school. Thank you!

Star of Wonder. . .

This past week we had a snow day, which would have been perfect, except that my princess also decided to come down with a nasty flu bug that same day! Lucky for us, it was only one of those 24 hour things and so far no one else has caught it. Not a pleasant way to start a blog entry, I know, but I needed to give you background for this one. The day I stayed home with her was supposed to be a Christmas craft day with my students. The snow day was supposed to be a day that we would do some art for a Christmas Pageant Chapel my primary cuties were doing. So, suddenly I had two days of art activities that I had to cram into a day that I wasn't able to be there!

The sub plans were all there--crazy art explanations and all--but of course, there were those projects that I knew just could not happen! I've been on the TOC list before so I know what a TOC needs to put up with, and I just wanted to be kind to her--and I wanted a star ornament that would be all that I envisioned it to be! So I ditched the old idea and came up with something new.

And then, not even knowing if it would work for little kids or not, the princess (and her partner in crime) and I gave it a try at home. If you say the words art or craft, the princess perks up pretty quickly!

So. . .first we made a Star of David out of Popsicle sticks. You can Google how to do it, or you can glue together two triangles and then place those on top of each other with more glue.

Once that was dry, we painted. (Unfortunately for the Royal Sick-o, all my glitter was at school, so hers was straight paint--maybe we will add some sparkles soon). Her little follower thought black was a pretty cool star colour. I tried, but how do you argue with someone who says, "Shh-shh. Mommy, I do good" ? You don't--you let the star be black. Maybe we need to add some glitter to his too!

While that dried, we traced a 5 point star pattern on scrapbooking paper (mine here came from the ActivityVillage website). The other side has musical notes on it that the princess and Mr. Black-star traced in yellow and orange for star colours.

Then a hole-punch, some raffia ribbon and a loop to hang it on the tree.

Easy enough?

The finished star craft

So, here it is: hanging alongside out mudded walls--not my best photo op. Oh well.

The cute creators

And here are my cute little sick kids, proudly showing off their creativity!

 

The good news: when I went back to school on Christmas Chapel day, the stars were already hung behind our stage for ALL the moms, dads, grandparents, family, and friends to see. . .

and they looked great!

Hooray for easy, last-minute crafts!

Row-on-row

My little princess is having a bunch of fun in school. She learned to draw owls recently. . .

so at home she tried to do it again, and do some writing about owls, and for some reason this all got her into  the poem, In Flanders Field.

I *think* it says, "Owls fly.Owls hoot. Owls have good eyesight on the trees."

 Today her brother showed her how to make flowers--poppies--out of Kleenex. Here is her droopy one that she put on a sign on her door. . .

 

 and then inside her room--it is her Flanders Field--with the poppies that she made "row-on-row."

(Is that adorable or what?!?!? Oh to see all of life through the eyes of a child!)

She spent a bunch of time drawing, colouring and cutting poppies. Little did I know that this is what it was going to turn into!

Lest we forget!

Superheroes and Sidekicks. . .against bullying

Our school recently celebrated a "theme week," with this year's theme being "Superheroes and Sidekicks." This was a theme that was centred around our Greatest Superhero, Jesus Christ, whose greatest gift to us was His saving love. We focused on the following verses:

Matthew 22:36-40

New International Version (NIV)

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

In this theme, we tried to foster positive character building and friendship traits by taking a villain--something that stops love from being spread--and to fight that with a superpower, which turned out to be the fruit of the spirit. The theme week overlapped "Pink Shirt Day," a day in which people wear a pink shirt to show their desire to take a stand against bullying.

The school's PAC so willingly decorated the display case in a "comic book"style. Our week included Captain Bucket-filler--a superhero we created in connection to the book about filling people's buckets--and our school's theme from last year about how God desires us to fill the buckets of others by doing kind and loving things.

One of the grade five classes created these banners for the "Pink Shirt Day."

Our staff room had a HUGE table filled with resources about friendship and bullying for teachers to use throughout the week.

Here is Captain Bucket-filler himself (our principal!) in a visit to each classroom to encourage the students to keep filling others buckets!

Pink Shirt Day was accompanied by pink lemonade for all the kids and treats to celebrate friendship!

Friday was a superhero dress-up day, closing chapel, and grade-level presentations.

Each class was responsible for creating a project of some kind to present to their grade level on Friday to show what they learned about friendship. My group of grade ones picked the villain, "The Meany Monster. We created "Wanted" posters with pictures of crazy monsters and wrote descriptions about what a mean monster might do. Then we talked a bunch about the Fruit of the Spirit.

With a little searching on google, I found colours that represented the fruit of the Spirit, so we made beaded bracelets for our grade one friends in the other classes, and also made a card that went along with it explaining how we wanted to practice "loving our neighbors" by letting the fruit of the spirit flow out of us instead of those mean traits.

Here are some of the kids working so hard on their cards. (We each had to make 2-3 bracelets/cards so that we could have one for ourselves and also share them with the other classes!)

It was a great week of watching the presentations of the other classes and spending a lot of time talking about how we can show love to God and our neighbor in the way we treat our friends.

The week started out with an opening chapel, featuring a teacher skit of a Sloth who saved his sleepy friends, even though they at first found him annoying.

The week ended with a worship chapel, where we also acted out the Good Samaritan story and sang our favourite song of the week, "Jesus, You're My Superhero!"

Teacher Appreciation Week

This year, the Staff Appreciation Week that is put on by the school's PAC, had the theme "Life's a Picnic." The PAC did a beautiful job of decorating an entryway bulletin board in a spring-like picnic theme. I love the flags!

Our Staff Room continued the theme with flags out of "picnic" themed colours.
Below are some of the gifts that were given out during the week. It's kinda too bad--I don't know who received any of them! I have no idea when they drew the names, but by the end of the week, all the gifts had disappeared! :) It was a very generous gesture, nonetheless!

The PAC also sent home some pages for the kids to decorate, draw pictures on, and to use for writing little notes to the staff. At least one parent brought in a treat for our breaks each day. It was wonderful! We were well-fed and spoiled all week!

My birthday fell on one of these days and here is a little gift from one of the parents for the class to enjoy together!

The PAC did special things each day for the staff: (I hope I remembered each day accurately--my blogging is a little late~this happened almost 2 months ago!)

Monday--a classroom visit by a cheerful (and cheering) ant to hand out the note paper to the kids and gear them up for the week. Smoothies and invites to the Staff Luncheon were handed out.

A card included the verses from 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3: "² We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. ³ We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

Tuesday-- we received a gorgeous rose, along with the verse from Jeremiah 17:8:
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

Wednesday-- we received a cute little bookmark with is verse and quote:
"Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. " ~1 Corinthians 15:8

Our bookmarks read: "So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is useless. 1 Cor. 15:58
Every calling is great when greatly pursued.-O.W. Holmes"

Along with this was a Bath and Body works hand sanitizer! :)

Thursday-- I believe this day's verse was Ephesians 2:10 (NLT): "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." And a few chocolates to go along!

Friday-- We were given delicious gourmet cupcakes (chocolate or strawberry cheesecake!) with the verse found in Galatians 6:9-10

Galatians 6:9-10

New International Version (NIV)

⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Friday also was our staff luncheon. It was overwhelmingly too much food, served by many wonderful parents, and so delicious! For me it was an extra treat, as I had outdoor duty and it was covered for me so I could sit and enjoy this yummy lunch time!

Many thanks goes to the PAC and the parents of the ACS school community! It was a wonderful week, and it was nice to feel so appreciated!



A little teacher giftie

Last week was a Teacher Appreciation Week at my son's school. This was our clever idea. Although, I have to admit, there was nothing clever I can take credit for, except for making it with my son! The idea came from this blog. It links to the printable and everything. All you do is print out the printable (small hint: leave the extra white space that goes to the edge of the paper--these labels are a hair too short!), wrap it around the water bottle, attach a crystal light-type of tea packet with a fancy ribbon, and add a tag. So-o-o simple!

Here is how they turned out for us:

And a close up. . .

It was very inexpensive, but very cute. Enough to say thanks, and useful enough, too.

Here is another way of doing it. . .although, I kinda like the first way better.

Crumpled Paper Bullying Lesson

Here is a little devotional I prepared about bullying/treating others as God would have you treat them.
The story/text came from here, but you can find stories based on this one if you type in the right search words (crumpled paper bullying worked for me). I actually first came across this activity one day checking out Pinterest for the first time--a pin told the story of a teacher from NY who did this. Whoever this teacher is, thank you for letting me use your idea to hopefully challenge and change a few minds.

Begin by  handing out pieces of paper, having every one create their name on one and read these verses:

Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

Jeremiah 1:5(NIV)

⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

(Crumple and crush paper)

Read:

"The teacher gave each student a clean crisp sheet of paper. She then instructed the class to crumble up the piece of paper, toss it around, get angry with it, and stomp on it.

After which, she told the students to return to their seats (with their piece of paper), flatten it out on the top of their desks, making it as flat and perfect as they can, and finally, apologize to the paper.

When all the students had done their best to iron out the paper and apologize to it, the teacher picked up the paper on the first classmates desk, held it up so the entire class could see it and said:

If this piece of paper had been another person, and you had done all those things to him or her, by making them feel less than perfect (through your words or actions), these are the scars you would leave. That person would never be the same, no matter how many times you tell them you are sorry, no matter how many times you try to smooth things out..."

 As a follow up: I would talk about how we can never make the piece of paper straight again--there would always be creases left, no matter how many apologies were made. No matter how many crease we may have made in our own papers or in the papers of others, we could never take them back completely. As a Christian, there is one who already did this for us. He took our crumpled names and brought them before the Father. He showed the Father His wounds, He reminded the Father of His Love, and the Father made the paper new again.

A few more verse to read:

2 Corinthians 5:17(NIV)

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[The old has gone, the new is here!

1 John 3:1(NIV)

¹ See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

John 3:16(NIV)

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 Peter 3:12-14(NIV)

¹² For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

¹³ Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? ¹⁴ But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.”

Luke 12:7(NIV)

⁷ Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.


And a few verse you can read as you picture yourself standing before the Father, and He is saying to you that because He loved you and His Son already paid for your sins:

Song of Songs 2:2(NIV)

He

² Like a lily among thorns
is my darling among the young women.

Song of Songs 4:7(NIV)

⁷ You are altogether beautiful, my darling;
there is no flaw in you.


And a video or two:

You Make Beautiful Things
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uumI-PdeZzY

Something Beautiful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xuRcW4bvM

How He Loves Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxTOsQ3LDE4

You're Beautiful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg4cYdP1ngw&feature=related

Pumpkin Patch

More Fall FUN!!!

The school I teach at went on a field trip to Aldor Acres. It is a 4 seasons farm, but we went to help celebrate our unit on Fall and Pumpkins. It turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day! I'm not sure we could have asked for a better day! (Okay, maybe a few less bees. . .)

One great thing about this field trip was that the class I taught had lots of parent supervisors come along, so I got to spend some time with my class and some time with my son, who is in a different class. What a blessing that was for me (because it is also one of the "bad" things about working/teaching as a mom!). So here is my little guy with his pumpkin!

 Playing on some of the decorations they had. . .E loved this one!

 This is one of the barns the kids got to go in and see/play with the animals. This farm did a pretty good job of having displays and information about the animals, and lots of them to pet as well!

 The big pig and the piglets!

 Just a fun little picture of E and the kids in his group. It was great to be able to see the kids in all the classes play and explore around this great place!

 Holding the baby bunnies. . .I think E wants a pet now!



It was another great day to explore God's creation and the changes He brings about during the seaons of FALL!



Teacher Appreciation Week Post

Okay, I have to admit. . .even after a year or so of blogging, I still don't have it all straight! I started a post, saved it as a draft, edited it, and wanted to post it now, but it posted in order of when I saved it in a draft. I figured it would post as a "new" one because I finished it and edited it now. Not sure how to solve that problem. . .

Anyway, here is a link to the post I made. Enjoy. . .

(* Note: the picture comes from here.)

Teacher Appreciation Week

A few weeks ago (the week before Spring Break AND the week us teachers had to hand in our report cards!), the school's PAC hosted a Teacher Appreciation Week. I thought they did such a wonderful job that I wanted to make a blog post about it!

Their theme was Italy, and here are a few photos of some of the things they had set up in our staff room:
The above photo just showed some of the special things they did for us each day. The below photo was the daily draw gifts they had.

Here are some of the decorations in the Staff room:

And some more:

Then, each day they had a "special thing" for the staff.

Day 1: The first day was a treat, with the attached verse: "I thank God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy." Philippians 1:3-4

Day 2: The next day was a flower with this poem:
Why God Made Teachers

by Kevin William Huff

Day 3: We got a card with the Bible verse: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

"Our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father loved us. By His grace God gave us comfort that will last forever. The hope He gave us is good. May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father comfort your hearts. May they make you strong in every good thing you do and say."

Day 4: The PAC hosted a wonderful Italian-themed lunch for us. It was simply amazing!
We received the poem, Unity by Cleo V. Swarat.

Day 5: We were treated once more to "fancy" ice-cream in the afternoon. Chocolate. . .how could I possibly complain!

Throughout the week, I received many pictures, notes, cards and gifts from my students and the parents of my students. I felt very appreciated and loved! It's amazing what taking a little time to write a note or say a prayer can do for another person.

Then to end, in our boxes, we were left with this note:

Dear Staff,

We want to thank you for all the lovely things you do for our children. They may be encouraging words, your hugs, your great teachings, the love you show, your helping hands, and your never-ending prayers. We wanted to show you this week especially how we appreciate you and all your hard work. We pray that you will have a great two-week break and that you will come back all rested. Here's one more prayer we leave you with:

Teacher's Prayer

Author unknown

Lord, please help me,

To strengthen their voices,

bodies and minds,

To express their feelings and

control them sometimes,

To explore what's near

and venture afar,

But most important to love

who they are.

Thank you so much, PAC, students, and parents for all the love and encouragement you showed to me and the staff at ACES!

Olympic Theme Weeks

Here are a few highlights of our past two Theme Weeks for any parents visiting this blog.

Throughout the celebration, we had a bulletin board decorated to show Canada's accomplishments and to highlight some of the events of the day. There was one teacher (W.W.) who faithfully changed it and found new information to add each day. Way to go! We appreciated all that work!

We started our two week long Theme Week Celebration of the Olympics with an Opening Ceremony Chapel. The kids were invited to wear their patriotic colours and Olympic gear. Everyone was pretty excited!

We had a special guest come in, Mrs. Friessen, to talk to us about her experience running with the torch.

She brought her torch and came dressed in her gear. It was great to see and hear about it all! The Opening Ceremony ended with her leading us in an all-school run with the torch. She let each student touch/carry it to see how heavy it was--and to share in the experience!

Each classroom "studied" an event during the two weeks. Each classroom had to decorate their classroom door to represent the sport they studied. Here is mine. . . (our bulletin board beside has all our curling art projects. See last post for some of it.)

In our Closing Ceremony celebration, we all shared "cheers" that we made about the sport we studied. We had classes come to the podium to receive Gold, Silver or Bronze Medals for the reading hours they had done, too. We ended the time with a "tour of the doors."

Our afternoon was a mini-Olympics for the entire school. We were in multi-grade level teams and visited five Olympic events (based on the ideas given from the "Paint the Town Red" website). It was a high-energy afternoon!

So. . .that is it! Theme Week in a nutshell.