New Year, New Teaching Role

Happy 2012!  I hope it's going well for everyone so far!  I'm having a super busy start to my year.  After  a great start to the year on an island in Malaysia, and a few lazy days back in Dhaka, school started back up on January 8th.  I've been non-stop since then!  For those of you who don't know, my teaching mentor, Nadine, flew back to Canada in December to have her baby (he's due any day now!), so now I'm teaching 5K independently!  It's been great to teach without a shadow, but if I was going to have a shadow, I'd want it to be Nadine!  I miss her!

Grade 5 has been studying Supply and Demand and to show what they've learned, students created their own businesses!  So, my first two weeks back were just planning and managing six different businesses as they prepared for the Mall Day, where all the grade 5 students would set up and hundreds of students, teachers, and parents would come to shop!  Man, were we busy!  The six groups in my class sold specialty hot chocolates, homemade lollipops, beaded jewelery, crepes and floats, smoothies and fruit kebabs, and delivered flowers.  The flower delivery was the favorite business of ALL the classes.... but they ran out of flowers halfway through the mall, so they weren't the highest earner by any means.  I was so proud of all the groups!  They all worked so hard and learned a lot!  As a grade, we raised about $1,300 and we're donating it all to the Bearers' and Drivers' Fund.  It's an account started a few years ago where people that work at the school, the cleaners and drivers mainly, can take loans out to send their kids to school!  They all pay back the loans to keep the Fund's balance where it was or higher!  Great program!  Glad we could help!

CLICK HERE to go to my 5K classroom blog to see more pictures from the mall and student reflections.

"I'm French!  How can these NOT be good crepes!?" ...and yes, they made their own t-shirts!

So proud!  I bought that spirally red one!

Tastes from heaven on Cloud 11

Such a good idea!  They sold 150 flowers and could've sold at least 100 more!

Healthy options!  Tiny kids with money still went for the chocolate for some reason....

Homemade caramel lollipops were a hit!

I'm so busy with upcoming Grade 5 happenings though... To list a few:

• I'm getting a new student on Tuesday!
• Thursday is our Fun and Games Day (field day)!  We are the Five K Famous Flames and we are going to be SO cool! I'm pumped!
• We're starting a new unit next week on Leaders and People that Changed the World!  I'm teaching the whole grade about scientific leaders and inventors!
• Grade 5 is going on overnight field trip at the end of the month!
• We're starting to plan and talk about our Grade 5 Exhibition, where students get into small groups and research local and global issues (human rights, education, poverty, pollution, health and emergency services, conflict/peace, etc) and present their findings in creative ways after months of hard work! (This won't be until April)