Tuesday Feb 2, 2010

Hard to believe it is only 11 days to go until the world arrives!!!
From the helicopters to the proliferation of busses around town things are beginning to happen and I guess the torch ceremony on Thursday will seal the deal so to speak!! Remember to get here early Friday if you want to cheer the torch on as it passes by on Buckley before 9am.

Homework
no new but there are still some projects missing
spelling unit 16 test Thursday

General Day
we started with family groups and had some Olympic fun of our own in the halls as we completed another two events. My group did the speed skating and skeleton events today- speeding down the hall in work socks isn't as easy as it sounds ans some students had all the moves of the speed skaters going on. The skeleton was a complete upper body workout as the students propelled their body weight using arms only down the hall and back. Too funny :)

Needless to say we needed a bit of quiet time after that just to settle into class. I took 10 minutes to preview our day ahead and gave the next 15minutes before recess to some reading or organization time (the students chose)

FSA- sometimes I think I've taught a concept and then I see the kids at work and I want to pull my hair out!!! The students completed the two math problems from this years exam and while the topics were familiar to them, there were a lot of furrowed brows. At the end of the time though most seemed to have managed and did a decent job :)

Physical Education- TOC Ms. Borsoff took the students for a couple of cooperative games just to get a rest from the basketball!! Seemed to go well.

Dear reading time - students according to the afternoon notes went very well- good job guys and gals

Science -Chapter 8 review - text review- fill in the blanks with the main ideas

I had an inventory style quiz for students to check what kind of reactions (passive, aggressive or assertive) to peer situations they would chose but there was no time to complete it so we'll try again tomorrow if we have the time and the students are interested.

Seemed to be a good afternoon.
More tomorrow.

The boys' basketball team hosted Valleycliffe at home today and were on the other side of the big loss. They came second :) I was impressed that they did not give up and were sportsmanlike right to the end. Good job boys and just remember, Michael Jordan once said that he learned more from the games he lost. See you all Wednesday.
Mrs. J.

P.S. Just wanted to share a little anecdote- when I first started teaching in Vancouver in 1982, I taught a student who had moved to B.C. from Greece- he was funny and smart and full of life. Just recently, I received an e-mail thanking me for being his teacher!! He is now a teacher at a research facility in Athens and is a biologist who has a 12 year old son!!!Cool huh! He still calls me Miss Leahy- too funny.
That's what keeps me teaching.