Projects handed in today :)

Well, first and most important a great BIG THANK-YOU goes out to all parents, sisters, brothers, tutors and extended helpers as well as the students in my class for the work that I received today on the amazing socials projects.
When we are all here we are 29 currently and with three students absent I received 24 of a possible 26 (92% completed) by the end of the day today. That's fabulous and I shared the fact that this is the best quality and biggest number of students completed such a detailed project in a few years!!! I am very happy with the effort and even although it was driving us all CRAZY, be assured that all students have handed in something to be proud of and that's because you supported and encouraged them. I would like them to acknowledge all the assistance they received.

I witnessed a great deal of support among the students who had finished helping and providing support for their classmates who left it to the last minute. It was a great thing to witness because I was getting a little overwhelmed with all the last minutes requests for assistance and materials and help and outlines (that had been misplaced) but I persevered and tried my best to support the students without being too cranky. After all, I gave them the extra week for the 'dress-ups". I still think it was needed and that the reason so many came in today was because they had some more time!! The students and I discussed the fact that for many students the time they have is never enough and if I had allowed more time there still would be students in a panic trying to finish. There's an old adage that suggests the work you have expands to fit the time you have to do it in!! LOL

Homework
Spelling test Unit 15 tomorrow (redo for 14 in the afternoon)
FSA section tomorrow morning (had to cancel today's section due to catch up on the e-fsa computer tests for a small number of students)
Only two students have late projects to hand in tomorrow (a penalty starts to be applied each late day starting Thursday)

P.S. My homework besides the usual assessment is to begin the long process of appreciating, reading and assessing the socials projects and I am looking forward to it this weekend. I try to do five at a time so I don't get too tired. I will be starting with the first ones handed in.

General Day
Hats for Haiti went well although I was a bit underwhelmed with the support (or lack of it) in our class ( it seems a lot of students forgot and there is so much going on I can understand!!) - we raised about $28 in our class and about $255 in the school. Every little counts for the children of Haiti. Thanks for your contributions.

Spelling unit 15 prep for tomorrow's test

socials time for completing the projects (title pages, bibliographies, illustrations and forgotten sections!!, printing, word processing and maps) or SRA reading lab or personal reading time,

French sentence structure game 'arrangez-vous' using groups of students to form sentences with different French words which form a sentence (also reviews English structure and parts of speech) sample: Les filles jouent au basketball. The girls (plural) play basketball. Noun determiner, noun, verb and adjectival noun.

Math tried a circle assignment in the Math text book with compasses and realized that many need some practice using them properly!! Tried with string (disaster) - need to follow this one up tomorrow. FSA e-reading session at computer lab.
DEAR time took a bit of encouragement (nagging!!)
Set up and watched a A&E Egypt video as an introduction to our class work on Egypt about the Egyptian pyramids and the processes of mummification as big business in ancient Egypt while some students madly ("blood, sweat and tears" was how one student put it) tried to finish and hand in their projects before the end of the day. The video was a little too long for the afternoon so we cut it short and did a little personal planning (very little) to follow up the positive uses of peer pressure that we all witnessed today.
Dismissal at 3pm - had to chat seriously to a couple of students who are having difficulty from taking their behaviour and rections OTT (over the top), The good thing is they do recognize it after the fact and apologize which is appreciated BUT think about it first is my advice. (Yeah, yeah. Waaah Wah Waaah, Charlie Brown's teacher) :)
See them all tomorrow for more fun and excitement at a classroom near you.
Mrs. J.