Every year at ROM Camp, the 2-week program includes a dress-up day.  Last year, Alex envisioned (and we adults tried to execute!) a box-like structure representing the Museum's Logo.  It was such a success that he saved it to use again for this year.

I can only imagine how ROM-box-boy, Green Lantern (Simon) and Tatsy made out on the TTC with their unusual garb. 

I sure hope the subway is running again, lol!

Well, I was going to write a nice little post about the new ETFO building on Isabella, which I had occasion to visit this morning, after dropping the boys at ROM camp (they’d had a sleepover at my place downtown, where I’ve been staying these two weeks before heading off to PEI, in order to get my PPL done for once and for all)… 

But then the power went out, and in the middle of me cooking myself up a little potatoes, eggs and buttered broccoli to boot!  So, instead, I wolfed down my (thankfully finished) boiled eggs, half-cooked potatoes, and very raw broccoli, put on my rain jacket, and headed outside to see what there was to see.

What there was to see was a lot of grey.

I wandered past neighbours visiting neighbours, peered through candle-lit windows, and trudged through the already-saturated grass of the nearby park to have a look at the two Porter planes that were lined up at the end of Taxi-way Alpha.

I’m not sure if they were lined up because of the thunderstorm, or the power outage, or what, but they sure were NOISY!  (Especially without the hum of a hundred or more air conditioners to drown out the din.  Let me just comment as an aside, that -- much as I am infatuated with aviation -- I do not subscribe to Bob Deluce’s “whisper quiet” promises… if these Dash 8’s are any indication of what the allegedly “silent” jets will be like, NO THANK YOU!!!)

In any case, I puttered about in the rain for a bit, then meandered back to the little town house I’ve been subletting across from the airport, to see if I couldn’t get a little more studying done and -- behold!  The power is back on!

Our final morning together was spent discussing assessment.  We considered how OTs might practise and develop their assessment skills in the daily context.  Some time was given for OTs to develop their own assessment templates, which they could use on the job and leave for the host teacher providing the homeroom teacher with some concrete assessment notes for him or her to use when reporting to parents. 

Each group created one possible assessment template to share with the larger group and with other OTs out there...

The second sample, created by another group, is meant to be used for Guided Reading.  This doc has space for 5 students' names and specific look-fors to comment on while observing reading behaviours in a small group.

The final document is a more generic document with space for several students'
names and relevant comments.

Don't worry, nothing "dirty" here... just completed one of my favourite activities to do with students, with the Occasional Teachers at my ETFO workshop in Waterloo.  And they loved it as much as my Grade 3s did this past year, and my Grade 7s, 6s and 2s in previous years!!!

The "Grebigol" is a Literacy - Art - Learning Skills - Science - FUN lesson which I picked up years ago from Larry Swartz, one of my very excellent pre-service instructors at OISE.  It is one of those rare lessons I still use -- nearly unchanged -- to this day.

When Larry introduced the lesson to us at the faculty nearly 20 years ago, he did not give all groups the same materials.  It was frustrating to some of us that a few of the groups had scissors, or glue, or tape, while others had to make due without.  As a teacher, I am focussing now more on the social justice lens of this contrived inequity, as a springboard for discussions about entitlement and privilege (both with teachers and with students).

Pity flying can't be all fun and friends and flying clubs...  I do love soaring high above the water and the city, and feeling like I can almost touch the clouds, as I did on my recent cross-country flight to Tillsonburg - Waterloo and back.  And I enjoy my Saturday morning breakfasts and flights with the boys in the PEI flying club each summer...

But it's the math, the endless calculations that kill me in this crazy hobby of mine!

Behold Exhibit A, above, my planning sheet for the west cross country.  This gal who dropped math -- much to my mother's chagrin -- in Grade 10, and swore up and down she'd never again play any sort of numbers game unless absolutely necessary, now spends hours and hours and HOURS filling in columns and calculating magnetic variation, weight and balance charts, wind corrections and other such nonsense, just so she can go on a wee, little flight to two nearby airports and back.

It's PAINFUL!!!

My brain is just not set up to work that way.  Those muscles are not fit, haven't been used in decades, are cobwebby and hidden away in dark corners.

But somehow I do it... and each time I do, it becomes marginally less mysterious to me, and increasingly, I begin to see links, and am able to notice logical errors without my instructor screaming, "Whaaaaat?!" like I'm some kind of idiot.

And if I keep it up, I'll eventually have a real pilot licence.  Amazing!