It's an in-day- so as I have a few moments (10:30am) and a fitness class right after school , I am going to do the Blog today in sections. I'll see how much time that saves me after school!!
Homework
Just the spelling unit for tonight- unit 8 test tomorrow (hard to beleive it is Thursday already!)
General Day
We started the day with a quick review of the eight parts of speech using a vocabulary activity- we need to build vocabulary and this activity uses a recognition of nouns and a word bank to correspond to definitions and complete a word puzzle. Students did a pretty good job for the most part- it is interesting how much difficulty they have with recognizing corresponding vocabulary for given definition. Dictionaries were used to provide 'student language' answers to the 'provide a definition' section of the worksheet.
We had an interesting discussion about the definition of the colour khaki!!
I found the same difficulties were experienced yesterday when we were trying to define our graphing vocabulary for mathematics. These exercises really expand the students' higher order thinking skills.
Sustained silent writing- after a check of the web-pre-writing plans that were set for homework (5 students did not have it done!) , we discussed the activity and today for 10 minutes the students took their plans and transferred them into writing. It was an amazing experience for us in my opinion- the students had pencil to paper for a whole 10 minutes (you could have heard a pin drop). Once we were finsihed writing- I asked the students to share with each other and I was impressed at how proud and excited they were about their work and how complimentary they were of each others efforts. All good stuff. A couple of budding authors got the writing bug and actually had a hard time stopping the flow of ideas. One said it was the most he had written for years!!!!! :) SO cool.
A couple of snack time yogurt explosions shattered the calm and we were into clean up mode!!!!
MATH: We did a couple more cheesy riddles using ordered pairs for 'clues' and corrected together the math worksheet from yesterday. One thing I find frustrating is that when I go over answers the number of students who do not correct their work (or put the correct answers in) despite the instruction being given a number of times- I've tried switching papers and given many personal invitations but trying to get a group to do the same thing at the same time is a challenge that I have no consistent solution for as yet!!
At computers today I was impressed with how well the students worked on their first drafts of their story ending from the pre-write plans and 'free write' time this morning. I was fortunate to have Mrs. Peace a volunteer high school tech teacher from the UK here today to teach the students some tricks and techniques for presenting good quality word processing documents including headers &and footers, consistent font and print size, use the tool bar for spacing and centred titles. These are little things that make a huge difference to presentation of work.
DEAR time was a challenge today!!! However, the majority of students seemed to appreciate the reading time.
Band proposal - presented and discussed- letter home with all students. The students had some interesting questions that I didn't have all the answers for today but I am sure that with a music session tomorrow they can ask Mrs. Sorban once they have had a chance to talk to you. In short the idea of starting to offer a band program at Squamish Elementary for gr 5-7 students is proposed and a pricing guide for instruments is on the flip side of the letter- ask your son or daughter for the letter and the details.
Tried to get some organization of papers and desks done before computers- it is time to 'clean out' the Term 1 work from binders.
Continuation of computer time to complete the story endings was next on our afternoon agenda. Many managed to complete and print their first computer draft. Now the work really begins!!
Phys Ed. Had a review of the main passes for basketball - chest, bounce and overhead- some interesting ball skills!! Managed a quick 3-3 quarter court mini-scrimmage. Ended with every student doing the 'ladders' in-out drill for fitness. Good busy session- some students have real issues just staying still long enough to receive a pass!!
dismissal bell always seems to happen faster than I expect!!
Have a good evening. See you all tomorrow.
Mrs. J.
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