Monday April 4th

Interesting start to the week...weather same old drizzle- it's April (in like a lion out like a lamb?)

Homework
Sentence combining assignment is to be handed in tomorrow if it was not completed today
Novel read chapters 6-10 after finishing up the Ch 1-5 activities
Remember instruments for Band concert tomorrow (with guests from Carson Graham secondary in North Vancouver) AND Ms. Sorben has asked everyone to wear a BLACK shirt tomorrow
Reminders to...
return intention regarding Thursday April 7th meeting with the director, Maureen Palmer
send in Term 2 report card confirmation OR reflection sheets???
Look for reports sent home today from Ms. Kurki if your child has an IEP

Heads Up tomorrow there will ba a school newsletter sent home

General Day
Started the day with a journal entry about our weekend especially as the Lion's Club travelling carnival was in town Thursday to Sunday last week. I asked the students to write about their experience at the carnival and if they thought it was good value for their money. I look forward to reading their entries. :)

 For Language Arts we continued with the sentence combining exercise (introduced last week) in which we take a number of repetitive and simple sentences about a topic and we Change Add Rearrange and Edit (CARE) the information to whittle down 14 simple sentences to a good, coherent paragraph of three to five sentences. The students are getting experience writing complex sentences that focus specifically on ONE topic.

Extra band practice for everyone as the concert is tomorrow at 10am. I look forward to the students showcasing their learning. They are excited and Ms. Sorban is very happy with their progress and hard work.

Math: Geometry
Today's focus was on the angle relationships created when a transversal line intersects parallel lines. We looked at the 'shapes' created by alternate (Z), corresponding (F), opposite (X), internal and external angles (C). We did some note taking before looking at the booklet of practice assignments. The really neat thing about these angles (formed by parallel lines) is that it becomes very easy to determine the size of angles created without having to use a protractor as the rules are constant.

I spent part of my lunch hour setting up the apparatus and powder mixtures into petrie dishes. Thanks Tamara with the help counting the safety glasses and organizing the eye droppers and stir sticks on the trolley. Much appreciated.

After lunch we tackled our first group experiment for Science.
Intention of Lab. to practice sharing the responsibilities for an observation of the reactions of 5 mystery powders to water, vinegar and iodine droppped separately. To infer from results what the powders might be. [Questions for the lab. will be tackled tomorrow]
We set up the experiment areas with plastic covers for the desks, we did a class wide safety precautions talk regarding iodine and the team safety coordinators distributed safety glasses. Next the team resources coordinators gathered all the materials from the trolley and I dispensed the iodine in glass eye droppers.
We went over the procedure and began the Mystery Powders experiment.
Procedures were repeated with vinegar and then water. I was kind of busy running around from group to group as I wanted to clean the iodine mixtures myself but it was neat to listen to the focused chatter and interest in what was happening during the experiment:) That's what it's all about.
All went realtively well and I was impressed at how they generally handled the materials and were engaged in the recording of the qualitative (observational) data.
Only one accidental drop of iodine touched a student's hand and he went straight to the sink and used warm water and used soap immediately so it was caught before it became problematic.
Only one team was a little silly with the second phase of the experiment and mixed all the powders together which pretty much ruins any accurate data! There's always one in every bunch!

By 2pm the students brains were full so we will discuss the data and observations tomorrow and infer what the 5 mystery powders were. I'll report on the results tomorrow.
Clean up coordinators did a pretty good job- I spent some time after school as I can be a bit fussy about clean apparatus for the next time. The students became a little loud and chatty during the clean up phase but all in all I am happy with our first Lab. Session. Ask your son or daughter if they enjoyed the process.

DEAR time was from 2:10 -2:35 and the students settled quite well- I think I will continue with the different afternoon structure and see if it helps our general afternoon focus. Reading records will be issued for April tomorrow (I forgot!)

Physical Education finished our day- we played a version of dodge ball called 'snitch' - it was pretty wild but I think they enjoyed something different. Again, it is still taking a good ten minutes to get everyone settled into teams and ready to play (there's always someone that doesn't think things are fair even although I try to 'mix it up' differently every time!!). I have stopped taking it personally and now I ask "What is your suggestion for making it 'fair'?" and I usually find that works but it takes time :)
3pm Dismissal
Have a nice evening
I'm off to watch my son's soccer game.
Mrs. J.