Friday April 24th, 2009

It has been an interesting couple of days!!
The drama and emotion were at an all time high today and we made the decision as a class to do two things about the on-going issues of 'pranks' that are happening outside of school and are causing distress both at home and at in our class at school.

First we had a discussion and 'impact' session which allowed the students who wanted to to express their frustrations. Then we wrote them down and decided we would share them in a class meeting on Monday. Second we put together a seating/desk change to switch up who students are sitting with in class. The students wanted to return to groups of 5 instead of partners. A few students were away today so hopefully they will be able to fit into the new plan on their return. The students drew up the groups and put a great deal of effort into the desk plan- they even gave up a lunch break to do it!!

There was a different atmosphere in the room after we had the time to talk together and I believe the time it took from the regular time table to do this was time well spent. It is very difficult to teach when there are emotionally upset students! We are all impacted.

As for work- today we looked closely at the skill of writing complex sentences in a sentence combining assignment (it was set for homework for those who did not complete it in class). Unit 24 spelling test was completed and we recapped the Greek virtual fieldtrip so far in a run through the slides and I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the retention of details from the tour so far. Mrs. Paxton joined us briefly for our discussion session described above. We managed to fit in a library visit, computers and art time took up the rest of the day- the students work on their greek mythology art is very impressive.

Homework:
Sentence combining assignment: Write it Right
Unit 25 spelling words
Graphing of slides on cartesien grid p25 #5 & 6

Hope everyone gets a good rest this weekend. See you all Monday. My goal next week is to get on with the necessary work :) and caught up with those we are a bit behind on in Science and Math.