Late Monday September 20th

A quick one!
Boy it's been a busy Monday with an after school meeting at Don Ross for instrument rental and then the second half of a soccer game for my son tonight!!! I'm pretty much just home!! I won't tell you what were having for dinner (Shhhh)
My intention is to get the Blog written after school most nights and not be so late.
After school tonight I rearranged the class seating so your children will be in an arrangement that they had some input into. It might make it easier to move around the classroom!!

Homework
nothing new
students who missed work last week will be assisted tomorrow (Tuesday recess) if the work is not completed yet.
still looking for 2 Parent-contact forms and a couple of Term 1 Goal Sheets
Scholastic Book fair is up and running as of today
Thursday this week is our Pot Luck

General Day

• The students wrote a journal entry using the lyrics to a popular artist (Nelly Frutado) - her song 'Afraid' is about how many young people are afraid to be who they are because they are so worried about what their friends will say about them. Interesting comments from the students about why this is.
• Math- we discussed the different strategies for math problem solving- students need to be able to take the time to read the whole problem before they can be really clear about what plan might be the right one for a given problem. We used the textbook today to look at three problems and 7 different strategies for attacking the numerical part of the story problem.
• In Language Arts, we read into the second chapter of the novel The Giver after having a class brainstrom about what they considered should be part of their ideal society (utopia). I also provided all students with a spelling list and a practise worksheet. All spelling tests will be on Thursday mornings and will be 12 words.

It was interesting that at this point there was some resistance from a few students who think they can opt out of the class expectations. All students will be expected to embrace the same instruction and the assignments will be level-based (differentiated). I have a modified unit for the novel and I have the story on CD audio for those who are finding the reading difficult. I want to ensure every student's success and to that end they all have to make the best effort they are capable of making.

• DEAR time - drop everything and read- students are managing to get into books and are realizing that the opportunity to read independently is actually worthwhile (Hurrah :)) My goal is to be able to read with them at this time instead of having to be interrupted (I don't enjoy being the reading police!!)
• French- a review worksheet on some basic vocabulary (Comment ca va?) took a bit longet than it had to - hopefully the students will soon embrace the instruction as it will set them up for the expectations of the grade eight course.
• Personal Planning- I handed out the daily schedule- our timetable is in its preliminary stages and may need to be tweaked. I may switch French to the morning if I find it is not working in the afternoon hours!! We also shared the results of our Class Charter activity which we did together on Friday... the students have one last consideration which is to discuss how we will work together to keep the majority of students feeling the way they wanted to feel in our class community : safe, happy and excited to learn.
• We finished the day in the gym with a class game called circle dodgeball- we didn;t have much time left today so we will continue with the game tomorrow. Hopefully we will all get batter at half hour gym classes- there is a bit of time wasting happening right now but I think we can plan to be more efficient as we settle into the new schedule.

There are a couple of students who were away last week who missed the initial set up if binders- I will be working one-one with those students at recess break tomorrow as I am on duty in the morning.
Leave me a comment about the Blog or ask me to e-mail you if you have concerns about your child.

Enjoy what's left of the evening!!
Mrs. J.