Thursday March 10th

Had a meeting after school so Blog is a bit later than usual!

No Homework
and good thing too- today 8 students were unaccounted for due to illness. I want everyone to simply get better if there is even a 'good' time to be ill, this week is the best choice!! We are preparing for term 3 cleaning out the term 2 work and doing some review :)
I think everyone needs Spring Break (hope it is more like spring weather though!)

General Day
Today's 'current affair' for discussion was a report about five years old (2006) which explained the results of a survey of Canadian adolescents regarding their beliefs and understandings about sexual development and the ability to talk to parents- very interesting. We had a really good discussion about culture and how things are different for different students. The results of our discussion were varied but it gives me great insight for a future meeting with parents who may be interested in a meeting to discuss the upcoming Adolescent Health unit I will be undertaking in Term 3 after spring break.

Band class

We spent about 20 minutes working on the outline of the new video game project and how the students would like to be assessed. Once that was agreed to, the students got into their groups to continue their video game concepts and levels. Some groups were pretty decimated though as so many students were away but the students were able to pull together some kind of progress despite the missing team mates.

DEAR time - well done

I shared with the students their subject grades for the upcoming report card. I printed this term's grades with last term's grades for a comparison of what had changed (or not) since term 1. Many students in this class are working hard. I encourage them to talk with me about their grades if they are shocked or think something is not correct. The majority of the students seemed to be satisfied that the marks were fair. A couple wanted to see their marks and that was fine.

It is such a double edged sword having to 'grade' progress- I never know if I am encouraging or shutting further progress down for certain individuals. A former principal said to me many years ago that a term's report card should contain NNN= no new news! Grade seven students do know when they have worked hard and have earned their grades. It shouldn't be a surprise.
However, there are a few students who really do not have a clear grasp of their learning progress or process and are always disappointed because they think they are performing 'better' than they are (performing). And, maybe they can do better but the current term is complete so I need to encourage them to plan for improvement next term. It's complicated.

The students asked for more time on their video game projects which does have an art component so after we spent about a half hour cleaning out the Term 2 binders to make room for next term's work, the students worked in their vidoe project teams until about 2:30pm when they were DONE! :) Still, I have seen some good progress in some and satisfactory progress in others- but it was all progress so that's good!

At the end of the day we worked in partners and/or groups of three to complete a Wordles worksheet at the end of the day- I was pleaseantly surprised that they had enough braincells left to figure out the word puzzles. Great job- we'll review the answers tonorrow.

I have a guest visitor tomorrow- Nick H. is a videographer who will help the students put their video ideas into a short commercial presentation :)

3pm dismissal came so fast!
Have a good night. If you are at home sick- here's a big hug ((((( hug)))))) get well soon :)
Mrs. J.