I always find it difficult when there has been a break!!
Okay- so- let's start with tonight's homework which was last week's homework that I was hoping would be completed over the long weekend. Today was difficult for the students to settle back in to routines and I was a bit disappointed that approx. 5 students of 27 handed in some work that they needed to complete. The rest had all sorts of excuses and stories and elaborate plans to bring it tomorrow!!!!
Enough with the stories and let's get busy actually attempting the work- I know for a fact that a couple have left their work behind again as I found it in the class cloakroom when I did my after school check. It nearly made it to the right place but not quite!!
Tonight's Homework
New
Spelling Unit 6 Friday Oct 29th (due to an extra long DARE presentation on Thursday!)
Redo of Unit 4 - missed last week- is Tuesday Oct 26th (3 students who missed Unit 5 will write today too)
Redo of Unit 5 - last week's test will be Wednesday Oct 27th
Extra Night (overdue)
Novel work on images that come to mind for Ch 11-15 is due tomorrow
Math work for exponents and divisibility rules is overdue.
Students also need to hand in the assignments that are posted in the class whether they are completed or not.
This week- the haunted houses for French are to be completed and labelled by Friday
Reminder that the second parent evening is this Wednesday Oct 27th. I look forward to seeing you there if you can make it. Please let me know if you are unable to so I can send home the information that I have been sharing on assessment, websites and recommended reads.
General Day
First in-day today weather related!
Started with a recognition of the fact that one of our classmates is going to be BIG brother today! Congratulations BIG brother. We are excited for you.
Spelling return 5 and prep Unit 6 using syllabic break down, identifying the spelling rules and recognizing schwas (indistinguishable vowels) like 'calendar' for example (the final 'a' does not necessarily have an 'a' sound when the word is spoken. We worked on a double puzzle for the unit wors and to my embarrassment, I had spelled 'disposal' incorrectly so every student gets a free let on the word 'disposal' on the unit test. They were pumped!!
This weekend I took the time to consider our areas of assessment and the related reporting outcomes for Term 1 and completed the report card template. Every student received a preliminary copy to refer to as we work through the next couple of weeks!! We looked closely today at the areas that we were concerned with in the schedule (Language Arts, Math, French and Phys. Ed.).
As we go through the week we will cover all the learning outcomes of assessment for the curricular areas. I have suggested to the students that they should be able to tell me where they are with their learning this term and not be surprised by the report card in November!!
Math- it was too bad so few students tried the work for square roots as I had expected. However, I used today to really focus on how to break down and think about the more abstract aspects of shape and space- for example the problems were about squares but it was interesting how many students can look or imagine a pyramid and only see triangles. Huh! We went through the 4 problems together and once they were broken into 'bits' I heard a lot of 'oh yeah now I get it' but there were probably just as many students who were really having difficulty NOT with the math as much as with the overly social behaviour and many struggled to focus on the task and had to be reminded to write the solutions from the board onto their worksheet.
I was quite frustrated by lunch time because trying to keep everyone on task was like the game of 'whack-a-mole' with the added distraction of noisy conversation.
Anyway- thank goodness for lunch!! even if it was in-class :)
DEAR time was rather unsettled but is generally being used well. Thank you to my Gr 5 buddy reader's for Mrs. Parker who give up their Monday time for a very worthy cause. I want to encourage the students to use their independent reading time to actually READ. Just the act of doing DEAR at the same time every day is said to actually be building procedural memory and will eventually be something that the brain expects after lunch (not sure how that will work at high school but they are still expected to read independently near the end of the day before fourth.
French- yes, BIG sigh, as expected I have had to remind the students that the Haunted Houses are a French project and as such need to - well- include some French??? lol
The houses are great - now to add the French!! Today students received a booklet with project related words and a Halloween Mot Croisee (crossword) and Cherchez les Mots (wordsearch).
Personal Planning I used the time for persoanl planning today to try getting the students to organize their desks, binders and homework, to wrtite in their planners and actually get the necessary work into their binders- I used 20 minutes for this worthwhile venture. Some still were unable to complete the process and take the work home (I found some in the cloakroom after school- the nearly there but not quite!!)
Phys. Ed One of the learning outcomes we are struggling with is the ability to move independently of others an maintain personal space for activites. The students are expected to be able to move as per instructions in a limited space (gym). We played a couple of old favourites Four Corners and Silent ball. Many students who are otherwise good athletes are struggling to follow basic rules and safety procedures!!
We will continue to work on these areas.
Dimissal 3pm
Shhhh!!
(I was relieved!)
It was a challenge today :)
FYI If you are interested...Pro-D day Friday, I was able to look more closely at the assessment for learning materials that I will be (or have been) sharing with you at the upcoming meeting. This year I would like to take apart the mark for Language Arts to have the students and I look at each of the three areas of language arts separately as they are related but so different. The areas are
- Oral Language (speaking and listening)
- Reading and Viewing (reading skills and strategies/ watching and connecting)
- Writing and Representing (writing and application of writing conventions, spelling and showing)
Peace out. Have a warm and snuggly evening.
Mrs. J.
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