Monday February 7th

Spring is in the air already!! Nice week to be on duty in the morning :)

Monday was a very strange kind of day in class- 'vibrating' students- not all good vibrations but energy to spare and social chatter was the norm- I think I spent more time today counting down into our attention sequence than actually teaching! 5...4...3...2...1...Oops that didn't work 4...3...2...1... okay I'll try that again 3...2...1... thank-you. Great, now I have evryone on the same page the phone goes or the firebell rings.... you know one of those Mondays!!!

Homework
Unit 17 spelling activity (only collected 14 in class today)
Ch 7 science review (most are completed just some vocab searches)
Math- algebra worksheet- those who didn't complete the last couple of pages of the booklet are asked (AGAIN) to make their best effort to complete the math practice. I also distributed a math challenge worksheet this morning and would appreciate any practice that students undertake on their own.
Have asked students to think about their creative story that we discussed today. Know where it will be set and what characters will be featured :)
Lucas remember your UBC permission please :)

General Day
Started by returning Unit 16 results of last spelling test and distributed Unit 17 activity after prepping and discussion the 12 words for the next unit. Spell test will be Friday this week as we will be at UBC this Thursday.

Ch 23 of Word Nerd in which the group from the scrabble tournament go out for dinner and Ambrose is as 'happy as he ever remembers' until on the way home (just as they try to get Ambrose back before his mom gets home) they run into Cosmo's former 'friend' and his two goons and a nasty fight takes place. They are all being detained by the RCMP when Ambrose mom arrives home to witness the whole surreal scene. Can you imagine coming home to see your son being held in handcuffs by the police just outside your front door?

Math- corrected and reviewed page 2 of the Writing Algebraic equations booklet # 5-7. Have asked the students to make the effort to do the remaining examples on their own for review tomorrow. There is very little I can do when students don't make the effort to practice the skills- I had difficulty in class today getting some to pay attention to the instruction in the first place!!
We did 6 multiple choice answer probelem from various skills areas in math today and corrected them- average mark approx. 4/6 :)
I also handed out a challenge worksheet for practice for those who have already completed the booklet.

Creative Writing- we discussed the story graph idea of the elements of a short story anmd I showed them how to brainstrom and use a web structure to plan a story from setting to ending by using the web to answer questions about specific story parts like the setting, characters, conflict, rising action. crisis, climax and falling action to the conclusion. I have asked the students to think about where they would like their stories to take place and who their characters will be. More time will be spent on the creative stories tomorrow.

DEAR time was pretty good today.

Art - as promised I scheduled a bit more art time for the art projects. We were just getting things settled and underway when the fire bell went.It was unexpected.but we did the whole fire drill as we should. Thank goodness it was a lovely sunny, warm afternoon.

We were scheduled to have Phys. Ed. so instead of spending 15 minutes in the gym we stayed outside in the sun after we got the all safe signal and played a game called 'Who started the motion?' We remained outside until 2:55pm and then came in to get our packs and clean up.

3pm dismissal
boy's basketball in ther gym after school

Week ahead: Wednesday FSA section #4, Thursday UBC fiieldtrip to Chan Centre, Friday spelling test Unit 17.
Have a great evening.
Mrs. J.