Very Very Shank You.

Today was the last day of lessons with my Grade 5s and 6s at three different schools. On Wednesday, I do a switcheroo with another teacher and start at three more schools. Since I taught these guys last year as well, the departure of the Grade 6ers was a little more difficult to take yet it was one of my 5s that almost put a tear in my eye. One of the most boisterous of students handed me the classes' tribute sheet and then did a little dance and impersonation of me. So awesome.

Before I get to the tributes, here are some travel posters that they've been working on all month and made presentations this week. Coming up is Spain.

As you can see, they're fairly similar. I copied pages from an Atlas and then they embellished them. Here are some representing France, Brazil, Greece and Australia.

Only a couple chose Canada (it wasn't part of the textbook) so they got some stickers of mine to use.

It was the kids who chose America that I really enjoyed. All of them expressed a desire to "I want to eat Hamburger" or "I want to drink Cola".

The Statue of Liberty holding a hamburger and the guy bungee jumping down the Grand Canyon are my particular favourites.

Now let's bring on the tributes! The Grade Sixers at one school hadn't prepared anything so they wrote a farewell on a piece of paper after they'd performed their presentations. (In all fairness, I returned to that school twice afterwards so they had some reason to be ill-prepared.)

There were some highlights though.

One of the teachers felt bad about this so at the end of the day, the kids put together a Sayonara Sheet fresh with origami. 

The Grade 5s at the same school were on the ball and presented me with these really nice Autograph cards with each and every student mentioning an item that they like (one of the lessons.) I've shrunk it down cuz it takes too long to white-out all their names.

Now if they'd only used the English spelling of my name and not the French. C'est la Vie.

Another school prepared their send-offs in advance and I got an envelope full of cards that said pretty much the same thing with next to no English whatsoever. (It's the thought that counts.)

Today's school had indeed prepared in advance and since I had time to kill after the presentations, I asked them to draw a picture. This is what they came up with. First up the Sadako fans, honouring one of my more popular lessons.

Frozen, of course.

And then there were some portraits of me. I think they capture my essence quite succinctly. First beardless.

Just as a reference point, this is what I normally look like at school, though not necessarily wearing a mouse upon my head.

And my scruffy look as seen through the eyes of my students...

The last three are my favourites. My Charles Manson look, my happy look and the kid who wants to shank me!

Please before any grammarians weigh in, their spelling and grammar IS atrocious because, much to my chagrin, we are mandated to NOT teach them the basics.

Got The Munschies?

When I was home in August, I had the opportunity to head to my old alumnus, The University of Guelph. I didn't spend much time on campus (only enough to take this photo of our Football mascot, the Gryphon.)

That wasn't the only mythical creature I espied for I also got to see a dragon. When I was in the Child Studies course at UofG, we occasionally had a special guest entertain/teach us, Guelphite, Robert Munsch. I recall he adlibbed a story about a giant fart for us.

Anyway, there was a library display featuring my favourite story, The Paperbag Princess. I snapped a few shots of her nemesis, the dragon.

Honest, it only appears as though I'm looking up Elizabeth's paper bag. I would never do that. Here are some other shots from the library.

As an added bonus, there just happened to be a display of Munsch's work at the Guelph Civic Museum which has recently taken over the former Catholic Church.

I bought a copy of The Paper Bag Princess and you can hear Mr. Munsch read the two-minute story in his inimitable style that takes over four minutes.

 Or you can watch an expanded version from an episode of A Bunch of Munsch.






I also bought a copy of Alligator Baby and just read it now while the picture was uploading. Cute story.

 I'm not familiar with this story (though everyone else seems to know it) but here is I Love You Forever in Japanese. I'll have to try and track down a copy over here.

 Finally, a small world story. The son of my friend Iris is dating the daughter of Robert Munsch's next-door neighbour and it is rumoured that she will be the protagonist in his next story!

Back To Back To The Future!

I picked up a toy magazine a while back and it came with this exclusive figure of Marty and Doc Brown's dog. (Bonus points if you can tell me the dog's name.)

So who's looking forward to Part IV?



Hmm. This post is lacking much substance so I'll throw in some t-shirts that my students designed.

I think the only one Marty would wear would be the last one.