Wednesday March 9th

6 students were away today!! Lots of students coming down ill! 2 went home yesterday.

Where did the day go?

No Homework
popcorn sale tomorrow
Grad hoodie form and payment due Friday
Purdy's orders by March 18th if interested

General Day
Today's current affair story was the children of Uganda and the plight of their nightly trips as 'night commuters' eight miles to the city of Gulu from their village just to stay safe from the clutches of the LRA (Ugandan army) who raid their homes in the night and take the children prisoners forcing them to be either child-soldiers or sex-slaves. The students were saddened by the story but learned about the international organization called Medicins sans frontiers (Doctors without borders) and how Canadian doctors among others are reaching out to help in these war torn nations.

Next we met in our Video Project groups and did some brainstorming and planning- I was VERY impressed by how creative and engaged the students were - there are some amazing ideas. We'll have more time for it tomorrow.

Today we read the first chapter from the two books that were voted for Term 3 novel study. I have Tuck Everlasting on CD so there is another resource for weaker readers as the writing is a bit more complex than some grade seven novels. The other book was a bigger hit it seems with the boys who immediately were drawn into the surly and 'delinquent' behaviour of Jake Semple- one of the main characters. 10 students chose to read Tuck Everlasting and 14 chose Surviving the Applewhites.
We reviewed the story structure graph and the students understand that the novel study will consist of three main components comprehension of each plot section, creative interpretation of the novel's events and message(s) and a personal written response for every 5 chapters.


DEAR time was great (I think they were fed up listening to me all day!!)
I shared the students spelling unit mark with them today. No complaints were heard or registered :)

Science we completed Ch 8 section 2 reading the text. It was about hydrothermal vents and the extremophile organisms that never see the sunlight- if you have never seen these crazy life forms you should check them out.

Science continued on-line
We went to the computer lab and did the Ch8 Unit 2 quiz on-line, checked out images of the organisms which exist by the hydrothermal vents and went to Canada Resources website to check out the latest earthquake activity. Not much free time today!

Phys Ed Basketball 5 on 5 playdowns
 so difficult in a half hour class but we tried a play schedule that I set up yesterday- a round robin but a whole team was missing so I had to alter the teams and the structure (the best laid plans...)
anyway we managed 4 x 6 minute  games today and we'll play the rest Friday morning.

3pm dismissal

The girls had a basketball games against Mamquam after school. They lost a close game for the last game of the season but played well as a team. We're proud of your effort girls :)
See everyone tomorrow. I'm tired!
Mrs. J.