Another busy week of filling my teacher brain...

I spent a couple days in Williams Lake to present the New Teachers' SURT (School Union Rep Training) workshop to a group of new teachers' and TTOCs from Cariboo Chilcotin teachers.

It was awesome to talk about Professional Development, the History of the BCTF, Professional Relationships including the code of ethics and boundaries, Professional Autonomy, and the Collective Agreement. I found it so educational as the facilitator to learn some of the local language and how it differs from other locals I have presented in or my own local I work in.

Thank-you to the teachers' in Williams Lake as well as the BCTF and the CCTA for having me!

When I returned from Williams Lake I had a mentoring session with our district mentor team, where we went through some strategies and protocols to try with our own "mentees" or "prtoege" groups. I find these sessions so valuable as a mentor and hope to bring some of the strategies we practiced into our next TTOC Mentorship meeting.

Finally, on Friday, I joined the BCCLA PSA (BC Co-Operative Learning Provincial Specialist Association) at their annual conference. I am part of the new District Leadership Series and was excited to get a sampling of what we will be focusing on this year. We also had our CTA 1st VP, Chris King, as a keynote. Although I work with him often, it was incredible to listen to him speak on Safe Schools and SEL (Social Emotional Learning) and how important it is to have those connections and a safe environment so that students CAN learn.

Overall, this week was busy, but so educational! My brain felt so full at the end of each day, I am so glad I have my notebook to reflect in and return to, so that all these fabulous revelations do not get forgotten!

Magic Tree House

I first learned about Magic Treehouse several years ago when a student I tutored was reading them. I read them with him and found them to be fun, short novels for kids. My daughter now reads them and loves them.

What I like about Magic treehouse is how the story incorporates so many different topics, keeping up the fun plot of a brother and sister Jack and Annie, on adventures through time and space. Author Mary Pope Osborne then wrote some non-fiction companion books to provide further information on some of the topics her stories explore.

The series of books has 28, then moves on to a harder reading level, longer with smaller print at #29 when the series is called 'Merlin Missions"

Check out The Magic Treehouse Website here. There is a teacher page with resources, some games for kids and

There is a free lesson plan for some of the books available here.

A new book (#48) comes out this July with another 2 planned in the next year.

Wikipedia lists book names and summaries here.