Mental Monday

Hello folks- according to my calendar the full moon was on Saturday, Jan. 3oth- go figure- no kidding- that explains everything!!!

I have been waking up early and thinking about all the things that need to be done to make camp happen this year. We will have to hit the ground running in March. The ideas that I have had so far for fundraising are: selling frozen cookies and pies, Regal spring catalogue orders, bottle drive and a garage sale. If anyone has any other ideas, I am open to hearing them. I would like to call a parent meeting first thing in March and will send out a parent newsletter soon to find a suitable evening.

We also have intermediate tickets for the paralympic sledge hockey at UBC for March 19th- it is a pro-d day for the school but teachers are volunteering to go with the students for this once in a lifetime event. We hope that there will be interest among parents too.

Homework
spelling unit 16
late socials projects (3)
Reminder: Olympic fun in the halls tomorrow we do the next couple of events for our Squamoc Olympic family group sessions- dress in red and white

General Day
return unit 15 prep spelling unit 16 for Thursday

did a discussion to writing session today to give some practice for test-taking. The persuasive short write will be completed on Wednesday. The students had some great insight into the themes of the current movie phenomenon Avatar. Very interesting.

Music with Mrs. McPhee

Looked at what is needed to write a satisfactory conclusion (lots of kids write "The End" or "thank-you for reading") We decided to 1. refer to the topic given 2. re-state their position and 3. leave the reader with a thought about the topic or their position on it (but not any new information)

French "arrangez-vous" sentence structure follow up to a class lesson last Thursday in which words are put into correct order to make sense in French (and English-same structure)

DEAR reading time - good today (a few late back from lunch time due to playing in the back field)

Personal Planning : PUBERTY
P=peer pressure- last two weeks, we examined what it is and how we can learn to live with it
U = understanding.
We examined and tried some 'role-play' using the reactions that might result in peer group situations if a person was to be overly aggressive, passive or assertive. The students were keen to act and they seemed to get it well enough at the start but I need to review actor/ audience protocol. The tendency for many acting is to become physical (hit, slap etc) so I need to sort that out too before we try more. Tomorrow we'll do an 'inventory' which suggests which of these three reactions is in their personality. The idea is to help them recognize behaviours and help them learn to become more assertive with their peers.

We finished the day with computers and again had them spend some time looking at the information and research available on kidshealth.org (teen page) before they had some free time.

Back to class for dismissal.
See everyone tomorrow. Remember the olympics and I'll remember to send home the family newsletter!!
Mrs. J.