Tuesday Nov 9th

I'm feeling overwhelmed with the short time there seems to be to get things accomplished and with the 'frenzy' of the end of term 'rush' that I have encouraged for late and incomplete assignments. The report cards for Term one need to be completed this weekend- no prizes for guessing what I'll be doing with the upcoming break.
We have our Remembrance Day assembly tomorrow and students on whom I counted to have an active part told me today that they did not want to be involved!! What?
 I know things will be fine but it is frustrating. Hopefully, we can use tomorrow morning to practise our speeches and poems and do a dry run through the song.

Homework
no new homework
tomorrow is the deadline for all students and all assignments that are to be included in the term 1 assessment
Head's Up: Our PAC Purdy's Christmas flyer went home today- order now for Christmas treats

General Day
We practised our readings for the assembly tomorrow. Thanks to Chloe, Lucas and Ashleigh for their effort. It is unfortunate but I will have to change the poetry 'montage' or presentation as I have had some students reluctant to take part. I shared a song by Sting called, Russians, which allowed me to provide some interesting information about our history. Did you know than in 1914 Canada's military numbered 5700 troops while Germany's military numbered 4,500,000!!!

Music- the students practised the song, Imagine, with Ms. Sorban accompanying them on piano and with harmony added by the students from HSSS. Meanwhile I worked on the Remembrance Day display board.

I returned the Math review quiz that we did yesterday. I needed to take time to review the concept of order of operations that seemed to cause some difficulty on the test. There was a problem that the students were asked to solve step by step using Bedmas that many students didn't recognize at all. Instead of trying knowing that Bedmas operations would be useful, they left it blank. Test writing rule # 101 NEVER LEAVE AN AREA BLANK because even a little bit of numerical working might be enough to get one or two marks of effort. Test writing skills are an area that I don't think I have covered as well as I could. Plan for the next pre-test/ test is to specifically  model and teach the skills of test writing.

French (switched to a morning trial) The French vocabulary and phrase that I put on the board EVERY day were the source of today's activity. Bonjour, c'est le neuf novembre. Il pleut. etc. I asked the students to translate the French words on the board onto a slip of paper so I could get an accurate idea of how many are really having short term memory issues! Interesting translations!!!

Finished the morning with a Remembrance Day related vocabulary activity.

DEAR time was good once we settled- definitely some students more hyper after a break than before!! I don't understand that yet! Any ideas?

Science (due to missing Thurs and Fri this week) Eyewitness DVD on Natural Disasters- connecting to our socials and science units on how and why some ancient civilizations disappear only to be reduced to artifacts and remains and how natural ecosystems can be disrupted forcing animals to either adapt or perish.
Due to P.Ed. time we did not have enough time to complete this but the student were doing a T-chart note taking activity.

P.Ed. started well- finished poorly. I have reached the end of my patience with students who decide they don't like the 'rules' so they decide to sit out because they are not 'having fun'.....really....enough said. I will be starting basketball skills early in Term2- basketball and a dance unit should keep us busy. A local fitness trainer had agreed to give us some time on Monday- I just have to book her. No more group games for a while and a moratorium on dodge ball related games!!

Back in class- tried to complete the DVD- didn't have time between pack up and Dismissal bell. There are only ten minutes left on it!!
Lots of visitors and requests after school- parents, phone calls and students who leave things to the last minute to ask me to provide things for them. Busy, busy, busy....

Tomorrow please remember a small donation for the poppy fund and practise those readings for our dress rehearsal tomorrow.
Have a nice evening,
Mrs. J.