I just about forgot to mention the big TpT Sale coming up.  Everything in my store is 15% off during the site-wide sale.  Happy Shopping!!

The Sochi Winter Games Are Almost Here!

I love watching the Winter Olympics.  I love hearing the athletes' stories.  I love watching CBC's coverage of the games.  I love watching reruns of events.  I love seeing the Canadian flag get raised.  I love the excitement.  I love hearing O Canada play.

Here are a few of my favourite Olympic moments:

~ Sidney Crosby scoring the gold medal goal for Canada's men's hockey team

~ Jamie Sale & David Pelletier winning silver at Salt Lake & then later getting their well-deserved gold 

~ the loonie under centre ice at the Salt Lake games

~ Catriona Lemay Doan skating with the Saskatchewan flag after winning her speed skating event

~ Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue winning a gold medal in ice dance

What are your memories?

I've put together a few Olympic goodies on my TpT store.  Here's a sneak peak:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Canadian-Athletes-Sochi-Winter-Games-1057399

I printed this poster set last week and got them laminated.  I plan to use them on my hall bulletin board with the research activity above.  Aren't the penguins adorable?

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Winter-Olympic-Poster-Set-Canadian-Version-1057413

Thanks to these wonderful artists for helping me out with these products:

Font courtesy of JF Keep It Simple designed by Jackie Golden @

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jackie-Golden

Background graphics by Lovin’ Lit @

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Lovin-Lit

Penguin graphics courtesy of Poppydreamz Digital Art @ http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/PoppydreamzDigitialArt

New Room, Technology Glitches, and Reader's Theatre

What a week!  The weather in southern Alberta has been gorgeous.  We've waited a long time for spring to arrive, but with the warm weather also comes squirmy kids and a hot classroom.  We did get a break on Wednesday when we relocated to the cooler basement to allow the painters to come in and do their thing.  The new paint colour makes the room bright and airy.  I won't be missing the Smurf blue that's for sure :)  I might go in on the weekend and put up a few posters ... maybe.

I love technology ... when it works!  I lost two Social Studies classes this week because we had computer glitches.  A couple months ago our school eliminated the computer lab and replaced it with laptops on a trolley.  So, if you want to use the computers, you just sign out the trolley, roll it down to your room, and away you go.  This worked really well for the first two months and then this week we had issues.  The students couldn't get onto the internet and that made my New France Webquest a huge disaster.  After two days of rescheduling, I was done with the idea of doing a webquest.  We went over the answers as a class and filled in the missing information.  The school days are running out and we're on a schedule.  We gotta move on!

This leads me to my last thing - Britain's Influence on Canada in the 1600 and 1700s!  Aren't you excited?  Probably not and I totally understand if you aren't.  Chances are the kids aren't either.  Well, that's what I figured when I planned my next section in Social Studies 5.  I decided to start with a Reader's Theatre script.  There are 5 speaking parts: Narrator, France, Britain, Acadians, and Cornwallis.  I tied a little art activity in and posted it on TpT.

You can check it out here:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Britains-Influence-on-Canada-1600-1700s-Readers-Theatre-Activity

I wasn't planning to put it on TpT, but when I was searching Canadian History, I noticed there wasn't a lot there.  Maybe this will help someone out.

Have a fantastic weekend!

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