Four Pictures of spaces that mean something to me

November 8, 2024November 8, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 2 Comments

Four pictures of spaes that mean something to me, some are new pictures, some are old but they all have a special meaning to me.

View: A picture of a different point of view-this picture is from the top of the famous coffee pot that sits at the entrance of Davidson, SK. A few years ago I joined a community group that was interested in redoing the coffee pot, little did I know I was going to end up in the bucket of a zoom boom at the top of the huge pot! Not only did I conquer my fear of heights I also realized how everything underneath us looked really, really small. As an educator this made me think that for little kids or even big kids we look like giants to them and how we can be intimidating to some students.
Emotions: This is a picture of our student wall at the school I work at, this wall showcases all students from k-12 as well as all the staff in our building. Working in a small town school creates a family like community and I am very thankful to be a part of this community. I am grateful to work alongside these amazing individuals. I am thankful that my children get to attend this school and grow up in a close knit community.
Sit & Think Spot: This was tricky for me as I don’t often sit and think unless its in the drivers seat of my car. I really enjoy getting out on the water on my paddleboard with music playing and floating. This is one of the only times I let myself be, take a deep breath and enjoy my surroundings.
Path: My most travelled path, #11 highway, the road home. This picture is right outside the town of Davidson, my home. I spend many hours a week travelling up and down this highway and when I see the top of the elevator (on either side of town) I know I am almost home. My extended family means a lot to me as well and this same path gets me to them as well. This highway is the heartline of everything that is important to me.

Sketch Notes

November 8, 2024November 8, 2024 - Angela Fahlman Leave a comment

Sketch notes weren’t a new learning for me. A grade 8 teacher recently introduced me to sketch notes while listening to a podcast. I find them a neat alternative to regular note taking-not all kids are into copying or making notes the regular copying way. This teacher encouraged students to add colour and use things within their notes that would help them to remember what they meant.

I was excited to try sketch notes on my own. Mine do not have colour as I find this too busy for me, and mine have more words then pictures as I am not the best drawer and I find that I learn better by the use of words. I used quick jot notes instead of long passages and a few little drawings when I felt like it was important. I really like this task as I think it would be a great strategy for the classroom as students can have a little bit of choice how they make their notes.

Here is an example of my sketch notes on our Residential School learning

Let’s try something new

November 4, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 1 Comment

This week I decided to try a different way of learning. From the beginning of this project I have been finding a new “how to” video on youtube. This week I found a website that had the option to follow along with the pictures and writing, but there was also a video option if you would like to watch. I went with following along with the pictures this time, this was I could work along at my own pace and not feel like I was constantly rushing so that I could keep up with the video.

This first part of these instructions is to just do one solid braid first, I went back to the basics and worked on this, as they showed a different way to get the hair on the sides into the braid which is my downfall. I did pretty good with this task this week, I still struggled to make the sides look clean and finished. I think that I need to start using more water to keep the hair more damp, I try to avoid water as I wasn’t sure how my mannequin head would fair.

The next step was too split the hair into 2 sections-this is the way I need to make perfect as this is what I need to do for dance season. I am getting the task of the under hand braid perfected, but I find I get mixed up as I start to add more hair to the braid in a smaller section. I get the different sections mixed up and I find that I do a mixture of underhand braiding with some that are normal braiding so it looks clumpy and messy. I also didn’t go good with adding the sides at all…another fail.

I did learn something new about myself though, I definitely learned better reading and following along with the pictures than I have with watching videos. I am going to try and find some other resources that are laid out this way to see if it helps me finally figure out how to add more hair and for it to look clean and finished. Maybe this week I will be able to use my daughters hair to see if that is easier to braid than the mannequin head.

Thanks for following along with my braiding journey. I didn’t take any pictures this week of my progress, but I will bring them back next week. Whose hair do you think I will braid my mannequin or my daughters, check back to see if your guess was correct.

Can I made my braid look pretty?

October 28, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 1 Comment

I decided to try a new video this week, I had used the same one the prior two weeks because I liked the guy in it. This girl was good, she repeated herself which was awesome-that way I had a constant reminder of what I needed to do.

How To Dutch Braid Step by Step For Beginners – Full Talk Through – Dutch Braids For Beginners

My goal today was to work on adding hair from the sides and making it look tight and clean….you’ll have to check out the picture to see how this went. I am really struggling to gather hair from the sides and add it into my braid. My hands aren’t big enough to hold the three strands separate for that long. I’m hoping if I practice more it will help. I’m finding that my mannequin head is getting quite knotty, I brushed it all out today before I started and it seemed to be better. Next week I think I might try on my daughters head and see if I have better luck. Her hair is also super long with natural curl/wave so it maybe tricky as well.

I started off good this week and ended in a bit of a disaster! I found that the top was staying tighter, the problems seemed to get worse as I attempted to add hair. The sides did not stay tight and they did not look pretty! Thanks for checking in and hopefully I’ll have something beautiful to share with you next week.

Technology and My Classroom

October 28, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 2 Comments

Embrace it-technology isn’t going anywhere! I remember when the internet was first being released and the excitement that the dial tone of dial up internet caused. It was opening a whole new world to me, we could search things up and what’s this new email thing? You mean I can send letters and messages to friends without handwriting them and mailing them?!? I remember when we got our first bag cell phone for our car, to only be used in emergency situations and how excited I was when the big Nokia handheld phone came out. The next big excitement was getting a flip phone and with that came this new thing called text messaging? No more having to make phone calls, right on, I got really fast at T9 texting. Then my 7 year old daughter came home from school and at the top of her Christmas list was an “ear pod” because all of the kids on the bus had them and she could listen to music and be like them. I thought what else can come along and low and behold out came Hi5, Facebook, the Blackberry and now the iPhone. I never thought I would have all the information of the world in the palm of my hand, but the iPhone brought just that.

I honestly don’t remember the Numa Numa dance craze, but I do remember some that have happened later. I remember the Gangman Style, and in more recent years Fancy Like. I do love seeing these crazes and how it brings people together on social media. Social media has become such a giant in our world. I was hit pretty hard in class when Katia said that sharing your ultraspound picture in a baby announcement means your child has a digital footprint before they are even born…I did just that with my son. I have continued to share our life on social media as a means of our family being able to keep up with us. But I am beginning to see how much time I spend on facebook and Instagram and how much time it has taken out of my everyday life. I have not entered the Tik Tok craze as I know that it will be a dark hole for me so I have decided to stay off.

I see so many benefits of technology in the classroom. I like that students can have iPads and laptops to look up information, watch how to videos and do their schoolwork on, my fear is that the more that we use these things we begin to lessen our developmental skills like reading and printing/writing. I do think its wonderful to use these devices for communication devices for non verbal students and the read back option and talk to text so students who struggle in these areas can continue to be successful in the classroom. At home my son turns into a different child when he has spent too much time on technology so we limit his time often, I feel like this isn’t just a problem in my home, I think this is part of the behavioral issues that we see. This is one of the fears I have for technology in the classroom, I think that it has to be monitored and in small doses. At work I often see that the end of iPad activity time leads to more behaviors as they do not want to get off.

With COVID we saw how technology really pulled us through in the education world. It was a huge learning curve for teachers and parents as online options became the education platform for all students. Online school is a huge positive for me, with the creation of more online classes it made the reality of me finishing my degree finally more attainable. I think this has been huge for many people besides myself. I look forward to what’s to come in this department.

I think schools are getting better at controlling cell phone use in the classroom, especially with the new policy in place. My daughter is in grade 12 and told me she wasn’t going to go to school if she couldn’t have her phone-these children truly are addicted. I am looking forward to exploring technology resources for my own classroom and finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Technology doesn’t seem to be slowing down so I might as well jump on the train and enjoy the ride.

Learning everything new, some a success, some a fail

October 19, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 3 Comments

This week I had a double challenge to take on. One I had to try and move along on learning to braid and second I had to learn to make a video of some kind to showcase my learning (good thing for teenage children that can help their mom out). I started off by returning to the same video I used last week as I didn’t go farther than the learning to braid underhand part. The guy on this video talks a normal speed and doesn’t go super fast, so it’s easy for me to stop it or go back to the place I missed something.

My attempt this time turned out….horrible! I cannot figure out how to add more hair from the side so I gave in and did a smaller underhand braid on the left side instead of the right which is my usual preference. It turned out to me a messy disaster, I think that my mannequin’s hair is too long and it tangles easy so I am struggling to make it look finished. I am going to try and get it brushed out so that next week things will hopefully go smoother.

I decided that it might be easier to make an imovie on my phone-thought I might have better luck with this app. I took a series of pictures during my learning time of different points. Once I had these pictures, I uploaded them into the app and from there it makes the slideshow for you. I pushed the + button and added in the song from what they had available, I didn’t download my own. The biggest struggle of this process was getting it sent to myself properly so that I could add it into my post, for this step I enlisted the help of my daughter and she showed me how to send it to myself through icloud. The next tricky step was trying to figure out how to upload the video onto my post. I went into youtube and from there I created my own account and uploaded my video onto youtube, this gave me a link that I could then post onto my page. Hope you enjoy my amateur video making skills-I’m also not a very good selfie taker, lol.

Stay tuned to see what fun I can get into next week and if I actually conquer being able to add more hair into my braid…..

First step to learning something new

October 7, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 4 Comments

I took to you tube this week to find a video to help me get started. I put “How to dutch braid for beginners” and I picked this video first. This video is really awesome! The guy that is speaking/teaching talks slow and ensures that he explains the exact steps. I decided to concentrate on the first part of the video before moving on too far. The beginning is learning to do underhand braiding-this was tricky for me. As a only one type of braiding girl, trying to train myself to do it backwards was hard. I decided that I would stick with this step and perfect before moving on. I did it multiple times, some turned out really good and some were a hot mess. This week I am learning to have patience and perseverance, if things to don’t come to me easily I’m quick to bail usually. But I kept going and I am hoping that when I move on to the next step this week I will be prepared to move on because I stuck it out.

My biggest struggle still is to get a tight ponytail to stay in so the front doesn’t look so lumpy and like its falling out, I may have to find different hair elastics. This mannequin has super thick hair, which I wasn’t expecting, but it is also helpful as my daughter has thick, natural curly/wavy hair-so it is similar. Now I’m gearing up for the next step on this journey.

Where to start?

September 30, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 1 Comment

This first week of my learning project has been tricky for me about knowing where to start so I admit, I have procrastinated it until I find myself under pressure. I sometimes find it hard to carve out time to do tasks like these in my busy work, school, mom life, I will do better this week!

I decided the best place to start was to practice my skills where they are now and see how it goes. My husband put my mannequin head together this week and mounted it for me at my height so that I could get started. I did my classic single braid with a little bit of hair, the one I would give my girls when they were little and I felt bad I couldn’t do beautiful braids for them, I would do this single braid and then pull it back into a ponytail or a top knot/bun for them. As my girls are now teenagers it is rare that I get the chance to braid their hair so this is how I did.

Next I decided to see if I could do one big braid as a whole ponytail. I cannot do it from the top of the head and moving my way down because I struggle with gathering and adding more hair as I go. I could not pull this type of braid off often as my girls hair is thick and I found that I often lost humph somewhere, and it all came back to me quickly as this braid was automatically loose, which would probably fall out on a normal moving persons head. I also never know how to finish the end off when there is more hair on one strand then the next so I usually just scoop it into another loop.

I am gonna head and find some helpful videos for this week, hopefully. Watch for what kind of braid I do next.

Is technology taking over my life?

September 28, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 4 Comments

This is an interesting topic for me to reflect on, as this is a daily discussion in our house. Living in a world or pre teen and teenagers there is always conversations about how much time they are on their devices…but to be honest I never relate it to how much I am on mine. Reality is my phone is with me at all hours of the day and night, it has become my lifeline. If I don’t have my phone at an accessible reach then I am wearing my apple watch so that I feel like you can get ahold of me whenever you need to. I never felt that I needed to be able to be reached at all times until I got my first iPhone, oh the things I could do on here that I couldn’t do on my old flip phone or blackberry. Since getting my first iPhone, my digital camera has long been forgotten, it is so much easier to pull my phone out and capture every moment that I want to.

When I look at my daily tech life, it’s actually astonishing how much I use it in my everyday life. Now that I have returned to school I spend countless of hours on my laptop each week, and it has opened a whole new world of possibility for me as many classes can be done online and cut down on the amount I would have to drive to return to university. It took a whole lot of stress off of me knowing that I could now do 95% of my degree online-it was now feasible as working mom to finally finish my degree. If I look at how much time I spend on Facebook and Instagram, it’s embarrassing to admit how many hours I waste on both of these apps, most of the time I am irritated and annoyed by the time I’m done-this in itself should be a reason to cut back, but what do I do instead, I mute those people so there feed isn’t constantly on mine. I do use Snapchat intermitedly, more so I can watch where my kids are on their maps, which I do admit that if I was a kid that would make me crazy!!

During COVID times and at home learning as a family we really started using more educational apps. I worked in the school system as an EA so I had to learn how these apps all worked on the teacher side, which again I am not super techy so I had to learn the backside of these apps as well as the student side to help my kids get through this process. We used Seesaw and Microsoft Teams on a daily basis to complete school work and communicate with teachers and students. I also learned how to use Boom Cards as an extra fun learning tool with students. Right now the app that I use for my children in school is Edsby. I find this app super useful as a parent, I like that I can pre set attendance when I know my child will miss school and I am able to keep track of their grades as often as I want. I feel like this is one of the best educational apps that we have been given to use.

There are many apps that we use to keep our family organized. The main one we use is Timetree, this is a calendar app, I am able to color code each of our family members and they an also be added so that everyone knows where everyone is supposed to be, it has became such a handy tool for our busy family. We also use TeamLinkt and TeamSnap for extra curricular schedules, this can also be downloaded on multiple family devices, I do prefer Teamsnap over TeamLinkt it is far easier to navigate as a coach and parent.

I took a half time leave from my job this fall to do schoolwork in the afternoons when my kids are in school, I am finding that I often get distracted by my phone, mostly playing yatzee and randomly scrolling social media. I then find myself opening my laptop once my kids go to bed and I am up until late everyday, which turns into a vicious circle of being tired everyday, so this is something I need to work at and get better at putting my phone down and buckling down. One app that I have not downloaded is TikTok, I know that this app will consume massive amounts of my time and therefore I have stayed clear of it, trying to not get into the dreaded dark TikTok hole.

Technology definitely has its time and place and it has made our lives better in many ways, but I for one need to do better at putting it down and enjoying the things in life more.

Hi, its nice to meet you

September 21, 2024 - Angela Fahlman 1 Comment

Hi everyone!

My name is Angela Fahlman and I am currently in my 2nd year of the K-5 elementary program. I have always wanted to work with children and had my heart set on becoming a teacher, but another four years of school and a student loan at the end intimidated me so looked at alternate options. I still went to school right after high school, but I started off in Addictions Counselling and then I transferred into the Educational Transliterator program (sign language interpreter in classrooms). I returned to classes in 2019 and after a full year of classes I decided that I couldn’t fully dedicate the time I needed to complete my degree as my children were all quite young still, and we live in small town Saskatchewan so I had to commute multiple days a week. I have continued to work in the education field as an educational assistant as my children grew up. My dream of becoming a teacher has never gone away and I often felt like it was too far out of reach. As the time went on I decided that it was time to follow my dream and get this degree under my belt, so I have readmitted into the program and I am ready to take it on.

Photo courtesy of Focus 22 Photography
https://www.focus22photography.ca/

I decided to take EDTC because I am not very tech savvy. I find that this course is a bit intimidating, but I am excited to learn some new tricks and get a bit more accustomed to using new programs. Through COVID and online learning I had to learn how to use Microsoft teams and SeeSaw to stay connected with students. This was a HUGE learning curve for me as they were both new programs to me, I had helped students post personal items on SeeSaw, but I had never worked on the backside of it before this time. I am continually blown away by the educational apps and programs that become available for classrooms. It is wonderful to have all these resources at the tip of our fingertips.

I am excited about blogging itself, but I am/was very imitated by the process of setting up the blog itself. It took me a few tries and some frustration to get things looking the way I wanted them to and to ensure that I had everything set up, but I kept going and I am happy with the way that it has turned out so far. I look forward to checking out your guys’ blogs and maybe even learn a few things from you as well.