love talking about school. As most of you know, my real job

as we might say in English is that I am a high school

teacher. Um it's summer right now so I don't need to go to

work but during the school year, I am a high school

teacher and I love talking about school. I think it's

because when I was young, when I was a student, I loved being

in school. I have always loved learning and I think naturally

uh people who love learning sometimes choose to become

teachers. So, as a teacher, I'm always excited to do a lesson

about school. In particular, this lesson is about back to

school. Back to school will be happening in a few weeks here

in Ontario, Canada. It's kind of the middle of summer

vacation but I've noticed already that the back-to-school

sales have started. So, students usually need to buy a

few things before they go back to school So today I thought I

would do a lesson on back to school. So school let me make

this a little bit bigger for you. School I actually modified

this slide for this lesson because school may look like

one or the other when you look at the pictures over here.

School last year for the most part for us was online. But

also we had in person learning. So if you look to the far side

of this slide you'll see there's a boy looking at his

computer. He would be doing called online learning or

remote learning and these students are doing in-person

learning. So school is of course the place where kids go

um in Canada kids from the age of about four or five up to age

seventeen or eighteen attend school on a daily basis. So

school is the place where children go in order to learn

things. This is what's called back to school time. Back to

school usually happens right after a holiday that we call in

Ontario, Canada and in many other parts of the world, I

think it's similar. Back to school is the day when kids go

back on the bus or they walk to school and they start school

again. So, the phrase back to school is used a lot right now.

We would call this the back-to-school season or it's

back-to-school time or you might even say something like,

well, it's almost back to school, isn't it? So, we use

the phrase in a lot of To talk about usually the end of August

and right uh the first few days of September we would call that

the back to school time. It is of course right now summer

holidays or what we also call summer vacation. So if there

are any students watching this they probably don't want to

talk about back to school. Back to school is not a fun time for

some students. I'm sure some students look forward to it.

But some do not look forward to it but it is right now uh

summer holidays or summer vacation. In Ontario, Canada,

students get 2 months off from school and teachers do too,

which is kind of a bonus. Um and we would refer to that as

summer holidays or summer vacation. A good time to hang

out with friends, maybe just read a book. Older students

usually get part-time jobs so they'll get a summer job during

the summer vacation or summer holidays. My two oldest kids

both have summer jobs right now. Um they both found places

to work for the summer so that they could earn some money. We

have of course other things that happen during back to

school time and we add the phrase back to school to it. So

right now people are going to start to do back to school

shopping. You know the word two in back to school. Sometimes we

actually put the number two back to school. Guess it looks

cooler. But right now I've noticed that we get flaw in the

mail. A flyer is like a paper that shows everything that is

on sale at a store and all of them say back to school. Back

to school shopping time. So we have times of the year when we

shop for certain things. This is certainly a time of the year

where there will be a lot of people doing back to school

shopping. And of course because of that we will have what's

called back to school sales. A back to school sale is a sale

during the month of August where thin that you normally

buy for school are cheaper than they normally would be. So

right now the back to school shopping has started. The

stores are sending out flyers where they're showing a lot of

back to school sales. You know pencils 50% off or pencil cases

25% off. There are a lot of back to school sales happening

right now. Because students need things like school

clothes. So in general sometimes kids buy clothes just

for school. It's not really any different than their normal

clothes but it might be different than the clothes they

play in outside. They might be clothes that they keep a little

cleaner because they are their school clothes. So, for our

kids, we would say something like, well, we need to go buy

some more school clothes for you because that pair of pants

has a hole in the knee or that shirt doesn't fit you anymore.

You need some new school clothes. Some schools though

have a school uniform This is quite common at probably I

would say about ten to 20% of the schools in Canada have

school uniforms. I know in certain countries school

uniforms are very very popular. Um for instance the school I

work at has school uniforms. But the school my kids go to my

younger kids doesn't have school uniforms. So again a

school uniform is um clothing that you usually buy from the

school or you buy from a store that the school chooses. So

that all the students look the same. Common school uniforms

would be like uh black pants with a white shirt and tie uh

and those types of things. So, if your school doesn't have

school uniforms, you might just need school clothes. Maybe you

need some school clothes because um as a kid, uh

sometimes kids outgrow them and then maybe you need to get some

new uh shirts and pants for your school uniform. And of

course, there are back-to-school sales because

people need school supplies. So, the or phrase we use to

refer to all the things you buy when you need to go to school,

we would call school supplies. Some schools supply certain

things to the students but other schools, most schools

require students to buy certain things before they go in

Canada, of course. So, the school would supply things like

glue or maybe colored paper if they're doing art or paint but

my kids and most Canadian kids have to buy certain school

supplies in order to go to school. They might need a

binder. We would call this a three-ring binder. This is

something that you can open and close and it can hold paper.

You might need to buy a notebook which is just a small

book that you can take notes in. When you're asked, when

you're a student at school, it's a good idea to take notes.

You might need to buy some pencils, pens, or a

highlighter. So, a pencil is of course something you can

sharpen and it's used for math or art class a pen is something

that's permanent. This is a BIC pen made by my friends over in

France. BIC pens are really cool. I like them. I shouldn't

tell you this but I actually like chewing on the cap of the

BIC pen. I shouldn't mention that, should I? Uh and then a

highlighter is something you can use to um basically make

words yellow so that you can see them easier. Um a

highlighter is a really good tool if you're learning

English. You can highlight new words. Don't do that in library

books though. Only use a highlighter in a book that you

own. You might need an eraser so that if you write something

in pencil, you can erase it later. You might need a pencil

case to store all of your stuff. So, once again, these

are all school supplies that kids in Canada and I think most

other countries would need to buy. They would need to go to a

back-to-school sale and if they needed, if they didn't have a

pencil case, they would need to buy one. The school would not

give these items to the kids. You might need a pencil

sharpener. Although most classrooms have a pencil

sharpener, sometimes students are required to have a small

one with them that they can keep in their pencil case. And

maybe they need a laptop, maybe they need a calculator, and

maybe they need a backpack, or what we sometimes just call a

book bag. So, let's quick review again. These are all

things that we would call school supplies and some of

these things students will need to buy before they go back to

school. A binder, maybe two binders, maybe four. They might

need a notebook. They might need a pencil, pen, and a

highlighter or kind of like a few of each. They would put

them with their eraser in their pencil case and they might need

a small pencil sharpener and they might need a laptop and a

calculator. This really depends on the school as well. I think

at my school, we have a class set of calculators um and then

they might need a backpack or a book bag for all of these

items. So, the first day of school is called the first day

of school but I wanted to put this slide in here. I mean, it

sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it? Um in our part of Canada,

the day after Labor Day, which is a holiday in September, we

have the first day of school. So, the first day of school

this year, I think, I actually didn't look this up. I

should've looked it up. First day of school, this year is

probably September seventh. That would be my guess. First

day of school, September seventh. Um but you also have

really little kids who haven't gone to school before sometimes

have their first day of school. So, they've never been to

school and and that's an exciting day for them. The

first day of school, whether you're like four or five and

you've never been or if you're like fourteen, um it's usually

a day where parents take a photo. We often take a photo on

the first day of school of our kids with their backpacks and

their new school clothes um and then uh we put that in a album.