Wednesday June 9th

Blog is later tonight - didn't have any time after school.

Homework
Novel - complete reasing to participate in the lit circle group questions.
overdue assignments
UBC forms, Don Ross forms

General Day

housekeeping!!
The students came into a new seating plan which was in part created by the students themselves with a few tweaks- I took some time at the top of the day to address any unhappiness with the new seating arrangement.
I really don't mind spending an extra 10 minutes to ensure there are no students who feel uncomfortable where they sit- it only took about 10 minutes for it all to be settled to everyone's satisfaction :)

I changed around the schedule today too starting with personal planning- following up our Changes in Puberty lesson from yesterday(Puberty 101). Every time I teach the unit I think I come to a new undestanding of the miracle of hormones in our bodies- it really is amazing the role played by hormones and the intricacy of the 'domino' effect' that is set in place is incredible.

We moved onto Math next and completed the m&m's (mean, median and mode)practice worksheet - providing answers and asistance for those who needed it. A unit booklet was distributed for students to complete and display their expertise with finding these statistical values in problems which are 'real life' i.e. planning a school dance, deciding to plant a garden and looking at test scores.

Before lunch we were entertained by another Mythology skit Modern Day Hercules AKA The 12 labours of Freckles cleverly created by Gerwin and Matt. It was entirely a parody of the original story of Hercules' tasks and set in the style of the on-line video game called World of Warcraft. They each took turns on the microphone and did a fabulous job. We all enjoyed their creativity and laughed at the twist of the tasks.

DEAR time was again rather difficult to settle but students are working on a variety of assignments and jobs- a few scrambling madly to get the mythological work completed before the Friday 'deadline' - that is our 5th 'deadline' but I have to say I have been very impressed with all the work that has been presented- so, it has been worth waiting for...

Socials
We're on the road from Olympia to Epidaurus and onto Mycenae in our virtual tour of Ancient Greece (there was a very embarrassing slide with Mrs. J. wearing pink spandex shorts!! (it was 1993- my excuse?) I thought it was cool- not so much in 2010. The students got a good laugh and almost missed the importance of what was featured in the slide besides their style-challenged teacher...it was the sacred area in Olympia where they still light the Olympic flame in an elaborate ceremony.
When I was travelling through Greece the one place which I really felt the presence (a rush) of the ancient world was Olympia. I tried to expalin the feeling of being part of histroy to the students but they were still wondering why I was wearing pink spandex!!

Art
poster, colouring and/or dream houses time - students who had completed the projects had a chance to create some colour designs in geometric pre-prepared design- it is quite amazing how many different ways their are to create mood and feeling with colour.

to finish the day we had another mythological performance, The Today Show, which was very well done by Navdeep, Raj and Surinder. Once again we were very well entertained by their clever rendition of an interview with Zeus and his son Hercules. They were well prepared and the questions asked were very genuine mythologically. Raj 'Carson', the interviewer was funny when he asked Hercules if he had named all his sons himself and kept asking Zeus if he could make him a god- I guess you had to be there- it doesn't really translate on the Blog as well. We enjoyed their work. I won't know what to do when all the mythology 'drama' is over!

Dismissal - already? Good grief... time seems to be speeding up
See everyone tomorrow. Thursday already...
Mrs. J.