Thursday February 17th

Strange mix of sun and cloud and sleet and snow!!!!
The boy's basketball team are on their way to Whistler tonight so drive safe and good luck for the game :)

Homework
no new homework :)
no school tomorrow Feb 18th Pro-D

General Day
Started with a chapter of  our class novel read aloud, DGC, and the author has introduced Amanda properly and guess who her boyfriend is...yep...Cosmo, so the author is writing in familiar characters but it is not enough yet for the students to buy in!! We are at Chapter six and have decided one or two more chapters to decide if it is one we will finish in class or independently. The students began to wonder if Ambrose might be written in as they think he and Violet might be perfect for one another; so, maybe they are building interest after all!!

I read while the students studied for the Unit 18 spelling test. Still have a number of spelling unit activities not turned in!!

Spelling test Unit 18

Vote for our grad hoodie design- we will determine colour Monday as things got so busy that we did not have time to get it all decided today.

Band class

SRA reading lab time- as mentioned earlier this week we are nearly finished with the independent reading work so I am encouraging students who have made slow progress to really make an effort and use their silent reading time over the next week to boost their progress level as it will be reported on in the term 2 report card.

I now only have one student who needs to complete the FSA as I managed to use some time while the majority of the class was busy with SRA lab reading to set up those who were missing sections (students who have been away) to catch up. So, the FSA assessments for 2011 are pretty much wrapped up.... Yeah.

DEAR time better today :) It is such a calm and sane way to begin the afternoon :)

Follow up to the personal planning statements yesterday- we looked at and discussed three of the statements that the boys and girls voted nearly polar opposite on - it was interesting but I'm afraid some students have real difficulty listening to each other and the number of call outs and dramatic comments were detrimental to a really good discussion class- it is too bad because I really think if some of the most vocal (who could be expressing their discomfort with the issues) just gave the listening thing a chance, they might be able to actually hear and understand what their peers are saying, feeling and experiencing. There is a great deal of defensive and silly comments which make any discussion difficult to manage.
Here is a taster of the topics and you will see the controversial nature of the discussion...
I need to go back to the drawing board on how to manage such discussion classes in the future as asking htem to take turns talking/listening is not working. Any ideas out there?
Topics 
#5 men make good secretatiries and nurses (boys agreed/girls disagreed)
#!0 in any relationship the man should have the final say (girls disagreed/ boys agreed)
# 12 girls should help pay for dates (boys strongly disagreed/ the girls agreed depending on what the date was or how many dates they had been on :)

Boys left for Whistler in the snow/sleet!!

That left behind half the class for the last 40 minutes- some did art while others wanted to continue discussion- we tried and we did get some semblance of good 'different gender perspective' discussion started but even with half of the class out , we were unable to maintain an effective discussion format without some students becoming very disruptive and silly.

We packed up and tidied up trying to get rid of some lunch containers that are growing their own penicillin!!! Interestingly enough - no takers- if any parents are upset that containers aren't getting home after a certain amount of claim time they are being discarded for health and safety purposes!!!

I handed out Hot Lunch forms to students who didn't get them last day and reminded them about the pro-d day tomorrow.
3pm dismissal

Have a good long weekend everyone.
I'll report on my math workshop later this week or early next week. I'm looking forward to hearing Dr. Art Hister our keynote address tomorrow.
Mrs. J.