The Haydn Hideaway

 Hi folks!       We performed our spring concert a few weeks ago and I'm finally ready to share my thoughts and things that I can think about to do for next time. I found my last post about the winter concert was helpful so I thought I should make another one after our spring concert!      It took me awhile to really sit down and brainstorm about what I wanted the spring concert to look like. We could have worked with a spring theme, but that felt boring and predictable.... So off I went on Teachers Pay Teachers, and reading others blog posts about concert planning, and finally I came up with the theme.... Food! My parents always said I had an obsession with food - I could tell you what I ate for breakfast on a specific holiday, when asked about birthday parties I would talk about the kind of cake they had.... things haven't really changed since then! I got the idea from Leah Wanner 's Teachers Pay Teachers shop where she has a few items with conc...

       Today is my first Christmas concert of my teaching career! With COVID, our school is doing a pre-recorded version to share with our entire school. I spent my whole week dreading today! I was so anxious about how the kids would perform, how I  would perform, what people would think about our performances.... I have some thoughts that I want to take into account for next year. START SOONER      Catch me racing the week of November 22nd, finally deciding on a theme for the concert.... I have learned that is a little too late! I didn't realize so many classrooms would want to get involved with the creation of the concert! We have a ton of Nutcracker art pieces for decoration in the room, there was talk of students creating a back drop, other classrooms (who I don't teach) wanted to be involved... I hadn't considered any of these things! So when I didn't have a theme chosen, I didn't know what to tell all these people (and students!). I think ne...

       Well, hello there! Welcome welcome, if you find yourself back to this blog. Remember how last post, I mentioned blogging every Friday? Is it okay if that Friday post is approximately 60 weeks late? I hope so!     Of course, a lot has happened in the last 60 weeks. I'm not sure I can write about all the things that happened in those 60 weeks. A lot of great things, and some not so great things, but the great things outweigh the bad... I think. Gillam     I have left Gillam and started a new position in Winnipeg. I felt (and still feel) bittersweet about leaving Gillam. When I think about Gillam I am often tempted to cry! I made wonderful friends and had such wonderful students. I applied for MusiCounts Band Aid Grant, and  we won !! With $10,000 I was able to buy a class set of tubanos, and 15 steel pan drums. We received the instruments in late May, and you bet I spent that last month really soaking up my time with the new equipment. T...

 Hi everyone! What a whirlwind the school year has been. We are starting Week 3, which is difficult to believe. It feels like I'm flying by the seat of my pants, trying to organize my activities for students. Until you're in it, it's hard to imagine how school operates in COVID-19. This year, I am teaching my K-4 students on a cart in their home classrooms. That in itself has been a change to how I do things. Thankfully, I was gifted a tablet earlier this year and it has been a LIFESAVER for my cart. I purchased a small Bluetooth speaker to connect it to, and it has made many more activities possible. The speaker really helps amplify the sound - my first couple days without it didn't go so smoothly. In the busier rooms, it was hard to hear anything, so I'm glad that the speaker arrived quickly, even in such a remote community! Just before the school year started, I was asked to teach computer class to Grade 7 students. It has been a challenge figuring out how  to co...

Hi everyone! It has been about a month and a half since my last post. Usually I'm inclined to apologize but life, as I'm sure you know, has been crazy. My last post was about the ideas I had for online learning during my placement. Needless to say, COVID-19 is still a very relevant part of my life. So relevant, it has changed what the start of my career was supposed to look like. All's well, but just not what one expected. Oddly enough, I find it super ironic that the year schools need to go digital and learn how to teach via distance learning, is the same year that I take Internet for Educators. In starting a new job, especially at a distance (almost 1000 km away from my school), I feel a little lost and unsure of myself. How do I even approach online learning? At first, especially given how simple I found navigating this blog, I thought I would make a new blog for my students to visit to find videos/digital lessons. I even went and made the blog, formatted it the way ...

Hi readers! It has been a few weeks. I didn't mind having a small holiday from blogging. I really didn't do a ton - moved to my new apartment in Morden for my student teaching placement, and started student teaching. Almost as quickly as I started teaching, we were told that schools will be closing for preventing the spread of COVID-19. Needless to say, it's been a stressful few days trying to sort out what is going on with placement and with my upcoming job in Gillam. Thankfully, we have more than enough things to do while the students are away. My cooperating teacher has been excited to have the extra set of hands in making an escape room activity for the students, so that will be one thing we're working on, among other things. I'm hoping to get a lot of my specific planning done for my job in Gillam, now that I know my schedule. What do we do in the next couple days, is the bigger problem. My cooperating teacher and I have been brainstorming, trying to find...

We just finished up our last class of Internet for Educators at Brandon University. I guess it's time to update the 'About' page. I figured, with the time I should be in #I4Ed, I'll write a blog post to discuss my reflective thoughts on not only this course, but also my time in the Faculty of Education. I'll save the School of Music for another day. Faculty of Education Being an integrated B.Mus/B.Ed student was an interesting experience. Because there are always constantly scheduling conflicts between the School of Music and the Faculty of Education, I take my required education courses whenever I can, in whatever stream I can - doesn't matter if the course is for early, middle, or senior years. Just fit it in there! Because of the mixture of courses, I don't really have a "cohort" in the Faculty of Education. There were some familiar faces in #I4Ed but many of them were new! And of course, no other music education students, so I stuck to m...