Monday April 18th

Sunshine- yeah!! Still chilly but SO nice to see sunshine.
Happy 51st anniversary to my parents :)

Homework first
everyone has an extra night for the math test as it didn't happen today- we had an assembly for a performance instead- study the Friday review sheet- (P.S. there will be no circle geometry questions)

Novel study- keep up the personal progress on the novel study work- some students are now at the Ch 11-15 work (most are Ch 6-10) do an activity or two at home

The weekend
Busy one for sports and exercise!
I learned this weekend that no matter how much I have learned there is always a learning curve involved in mastery! I curled in a Club Winner's competition in Richmond (Dominion Club Championships) this weekend and while I was honoured to be a part of this higher level of competition, I am humbled by the fact that there is so much more that I can learn to improve my game. We were in a pool which consisted of previous champions and the first team we played actually went on to win the gold medal. It was a great experience and I hope the next time (if there is to be a next time) I can curl much better. I am even thinking of doing a summer curling camp!! I am sore today as I haven't been on the ice curling since mid-March.
Our community hosted SoccerFest this weekend and the Vancouver Sun Run went ahead in downtown Vancouver. Apparently 55 thousand plus runners took part. Pretty amazing.

General Day
Went over the TOC notes from Friday and congratulated the students on having a decent Friday. I always like to share visiting teacher's impressions with our class.

The students had a chance to explain to me the results of the Bacteria growing experiment which took place on Friday with the Biology 11 students from HSSS- apparently the hand sanitizing wipes had a better effect than either handwashing or the liquid sanitizer. Handwashing came in a poor third and my sample - testing handwashing -was better than the before sample but still had a lot of bacteria growing in the after sample. Eewwww! They really seemed to enjoy it. They learned how to count bacteria colonies and percentage the growth or decline to provide quantitative data for the experiment. Good stuff. Thanks to the girls from Biology 11 and their teacher Ms. Flynn.

For language arts we did a pronoun worksheet about subject and object pronouns and choosing the correct form of pronoun for specific sentences. There is always some confusion when two subjects appear in a sentence so we learned the trick about dealing with only one to 'test' the correctness i.e.
Both Tom and (I, me) went to the track meet. Ans. = 'Tom and I'  is correct because you wouldn't say "me went to the meet"

Novel time for work and ensuring students had the next set of activities was next on our morning agenda. Time to work independently- some needed reminding about the independent part!

After recess we had an assembly from a visiting group of aboriginal cultural performers. For our age level it was a little primary-oriented but the students did their best to be a good audience although I have never had a class say to me they would have rather have had the math test!!! It was an interactive telling of some aboriginal stories and it showcased the regalia of the Bella Coola native villages. Interesting but more suited to the K-grade 4 students than the grade 6/7 age level.

DEAR time - I am still encouraging use of this time for students who are struggling to get the novel work done. There were a couple of students today who needed help getting organized so we did a bit of 'desk-diving' - it is a hazardous undertaking and one no one prepares new teachers for this venture in university- you just never know what might be lurking in the desks!!! I won't go into too many details but let's just say some mothers will be missing their plastic containers because there were some penicillan samples that once used to be lunch growing quite readily in the darkest recesses of student desks. Double Eewwwww.

Socials Ancient Greece- we are 'going' on a virtual tour of Greece using one of the EF Tour programs for a cultural 9 day trip around the tourist sites and archaeological areas of importance from Athens to Delphi and into the Peloponnese - to Olympia, Epidaurus and Mycenae and via the Corinth Canal back to Athens.

I actually made this trip with a high school class during Spring Break in 1994 so I have many artifacts, money (before the Euro), pictures and slides that can give visuals.

The students' assignment will be to create a travel journal of this virtual trip and enhance their notes with research on-line. A certain part of it will be creative imagination but it should be an interesting way to learn and study ancient Greece. Today we brainstormed what we would need for documentation and currency, clothing and footwear, toiletries and miscellaneous items like cameras and i-pods, hats and travel necessities that can double as comfort items (like a good travel pillow). I used the Frommer's Travel Guide to Greece to guide their thinking. It was interesting listening to things that they thought they needed (skateboards, X-box 360 with video games and pets didn't make the cut!!)
Tomorrow we will start our adventure virtually going from Vancouver airport to Toronto for a direct flight from there to Athens overnight- wish me luck! Day 1 will be (was) spent travelling.

Phys Ed. took us a while to get organized but we did manage to get 2 rounds of floor hockey into the 20 minutes we had left in Phys. Ed. It was just okay- the fire seems to have gone out of the floor hockey mania or maybe they are just tired.

3pm Dismissal
Have a nice evening everyone- more fun tomorrow. Remember it is a short week as we get the Easter long weekend starting this Friday.
Mrs. J.