Back from Waskaganish

Time is Money: A 15-minute mistake cost me $333.43. After spending a lovely weekend in Waskaganish, I went to the airport and missed check-in by about 10 minutes. The attendant wouldn’t budget or allow me on board – despite the fact everyone was still waiting at the gate – and I ended up returning to Chisasibi the next day on a few flight. Utterly embarrassing, considering that I am usually on time and never let myself make such a silly slip-up. This was probably the first time I’d ever missed a flight.

Back to Hudson’s Bay: In a couple of weeks, I'll be headed back north to visit Whapmagoostui. I’d previously worked there for 8 weeks last spring when I was still a contractor. The refundable fare on Air Creebec costs $434, while the non-refundable ticket is only $232 – that’s a difference of $200, nearly double! We’ll be staying with a friend.

Back to Work: Part of me hates going away for the weekend because I come back feeling a bit disorganized. It’s been a hectic week and I feel like the paperwork is a bit overwhelming. I didn't even eat lunch when I came back from the airport. I’m actually looking forward to having some time off classes – two afternoons are being canceled because of Hallowe’en and a hockey tournament – to play catch-up. Don’t ever go into teaching if you can’t organize your papers!

Good Planning is Key

Teaching has been swell. The students are enjoying my lessons and are responding well. I regularly use media, especially YouTube, to support my lessons and wrap up ideas with formative assessment (although I'm a bit behind with marking). They are picking up the material better than I expected and seem interested. Today, I taught them about bioaccumulation with an activity I learned during my Project Wild workshop in 2008. Here's a lesson plan with construction paper instead of popsicle sticks.

Part of an effective class is good planning. Foresee your problems (i.e. have a whistle and lay down ground rules, boundaries), especially when your plan involves kids running around in a gym. Make sure they know the consequences (i.e if there's too much chaos, they know that the activity ends and we all go back to the classroom).

To a teacher from the south, it looked like a regular class. To a teacher up north, that was a fantastic job, especially when you had half the class activity participating, giving answers and in the last ten minutes, they're still writing (instead of standing at the door waiting for recess.

These are the days I work for.

Saganash

This is unfortunate:

NDP MP Saganash taking sick leave to treat alcoholism 'I need help to overcome a medical problem, a dependence on alcohol,' MP says 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/10/22/pol-saganash-flight-intoxicated.html

Anticyclones and Depressions

Hands-on activities are great. This is a model that the kids made.

Notes should be concise and easy to remember.

Lesson: Tides

Great activity we did this morning on how tides work. I came across it while searching for videos on YouTube. All you need is string and a few small objects like marshmallows, a cup or a ball.



I filmed the students with my iPad and they were quite proud. It's nice to see when they pick up a lesson quickly and are interested. I'll use their videos to review with them tomorrow. Here are the four that we made:

Vincent Maurice and Wesley from Min Min T on Vimeo.

Kyle and Colin from Min Min T on Vimeo.

George and Christian from Min Min T on Vimeo.

Kyle and Colin from Min Min T on Vimeo.

Whoa!

I saw the craziest northern lights last night! We went to another teacher's house for a potluck and someone noticed the lights. Everyone went out in the cold to watch the sky filled with purple and green, just streaking and flickering, dancing very fast!

Tough Luck

I am working with a student who likely has dsycalculia. She cannot isolate variables and doesn't know the difference between a negative sign and a subtraction sign.