I have been toying with my name story – where my name came from. To be honest, my name story isn’t particularly exciting. After two girls, my parents were convinced that they were having a boy – lo and behold, another girl. The original plan was for my name to be Stephen, however being that I was a girl, Stephanie seemed to be the obvious choice. So I decided instead to focus on my names instead, and the significance of each.

Here is a start to my process:

The story of my name….

“Stephie – what are you doing?”. I flinch when I hear it, Stephie is only reserved for my family, and this person is not my family. It is a pet peeve of mine – when people who are not my family, call me by a name that is only reserved for them. Outside of Stephie, I’m Steph, Stephanie, Mrs. Gardner, Auntie and finally Mommy. However, my sister’s newest boyfriend does not fall into the category of getting to call me Stephie. “Stephie, are you headed down to the dock?” ‘Grrrr – not my name buddy ’ I think every time he speaks. Honestly, I’m not sure what irks me more, him calling me that or the fact that he is younger than me and addressing me as Stephie. It probably doesn’t help that I am also in my 30’s and I am still being called Stephie. I doubt that this will ever change from my family. Stephie weffie, Stephie Jane, – Stephie from my sisters and Stephie Jane from my dad. I guess this is familiar which in a sense I love – but I also feel that it has an attachment to a person that I am not. Stephie is a young child who cries when she is forced to wear something other than the colour pink, Stephie represents only part of me – while Steph or Stephanie represents something much more. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the colour pink, I just don’t cry about it anymore.
I feel that a name can represent so much more – so many emotions. My name now is so much more than just something on a birth certificate. Stephanie represents a successful teacher, an adult, someone who has mortgage payments. Steph represents a wife and a mother, and I guess Stephie represents the baby of the family.

Not happy to be wearing something other than pink

On Monday, I had the opportunity to attend a session on how to Inspire Reluctant Writers.  I found that the session was very eye opening for me.  When I walked into the room, it was flooded with text, and there was a white board with a Would you Rather question on it.  The question was would you rather read or write.  I automatically went to read – which don’t get me wrong, I love to read, but I used to love to write.  I feel that I have lost that passion for writing and I want to get it back.  I hope that these sessions will continue to inspire me to write, but also to push my class to write more. I want to inspire my reluctant writers to be engaged during writing.

One of the many things that really stuck with me was the “You should write about that”. I love that idea, especially when we are thinking about writing territories – what do we know about, what can we write about.  I feel like this is a great jumping off point for students when they are stuck and that blank page is staring them in the face.  From these sessions I want to make a commitment to myself and my class to write more, and look for more opportunities to engage my reluctant writers.

Amazing journal

My goals for the session

My Writing Territories

Today we focused on what inspires us and what motivates – the group task was to find two inspiring or motivational quotes to go on our classroom door

7/8G knocked it out of the park – the quotes represent them and all of the amazing things that they will accomplish

Way to go 7/8G!

Well September has arrived and today was the first day.  Our classroom is a SOLE set up and flexible seating – it should be a good start to the year.

Great team building was happening as well.  Can’t wait to see what else happens this year 🙂 

Well a lot has been happening in 8C that I have been so proud of.  My students are constantly showing their innovation and awesomeness.  Recently, I have had the opportunity to take part in helping move our library into a learning commons – at my last CODE session, I was able to learn about Garage Band and how I could implement it in the classroom.  My students have been creating their own musical sounds with every day instruments (rulers, buckets etc). It has been almost like a STOMP environment.  I gave each group the opportunity to record their songs using Garage Band and to add different musical instruments to go along with their own creation.  The results were amazing!!

At the beginning of January I had the class think about One Word that they could live by for the rest of the year – to represent their goals and how they wanted to live their life.  My One Word for 2016 is Change.  I’ve chose change because I think that change is integral in everything that happens in life.  We can’t stay the same and we always need to adapt to our environment.  I think the word change, is particularly relevant to my job.  I need to change/adapt to the environment, and adjust my teaching practices to what is best for my students and for myself professionally. Without change, I wouldn’t be able to push myself to try new things and to get out of my comfort zone.  In my personal life, I think it is important to embrace change.  Without embracing change we are stuck in one place, where things do not move.  If I didn’t embrace change then I wouldn’t be able to see the joy and beauty in the new adventures I have with my family.  As well, I wouldn’t be able to see new opportunities – be it in work or my personal life, if I didn’t focus on change.  It can be difficult to change sometimes, but I truly believe it is integral to be open to new opportunities and embrace the adventures  along the way.  Without change, there are no possibilities.

My class is currently exploring heat – what is this demonstration proving – and how does it relate to the images below?

I had my students complete a survey using Google Forms about what they know about Heat – what do they know, what do they want to know.  I love that most know that Heat means energy.  Check out the wordle below of their answers!