TGIF last Friday of September!

Hard to believe that October is just around the corner!

Busy but productive Friday...

Homework and Reminders
Nothing new
Have asked students who are not yet completed the French posters to do them over the weekend
other than that...
reminders
Assembly Monday morning 9am
Bring Band instruments Monday

General Day
Everyone settled into the new seating arrangement with a few minor switches (yeah- finally everyone is willing to try this one until mid- October at the minimum)

I finally distributed the daily schedule to the students and discussed the reason why science and socials appear together - FYI there are many connections between the skills and content of both subjects and I prefer to have the ability to aske students to complete or see the connections and complete one concept to a conclusion rather than having them wrap up a half finished assignment and move onto something else just because the timetable says Science (or Socials). Requirements for each subject will be met but we may use a week for a science and the next week for socials.

Today we used a Venn Diagram and class discussion to look at what connect these subjects and how one affects the other. Every year there are students who get a little upset that science needs math knowledge and that research and experiments can change what we understand about our past and can impact our present. It is a BIG IDEA that we are trying to grapple with but the discussion took off after a few examples in class.

Hands-On activity (intent: to have the student see connections between the subjects of socials and science)- animal skeletons- group work- each group toured 6 different stations to analyze and examine the skeletel remains of two 'unknown' animals. We shared observations after the rounds and made predictions about what we were looking at based on our general knowlegde of anatomy and bones. The students enjoyed the activity to the point some asked if they could take pictures of the pieces! We recognized: vertebrae, ribs, skull, jaw, and leg bones.
Question : What skills did we need for this activity? How can this be both a science and a socials activity?

Next we went to the lab to go on-line and see if we could identify from the group work and discussion what our animals were. The website- 'animal skeletons' actually has pieces for sale for schools and the students managed to identify that we had a black bear skull and jaw, ribs and legs and whale vertebrae and jaw.

Math 7
End of unit quiz- Rounding numbers and place value
Completed the Divisibility rules at work activity
Nothing new today and no homework :)

We took advantage of the fact it hadn't started to rain and we practiced our Earthquake Drill and evacuation of the building.

Silent reading after a bit of 'housekeeping'.

Personal Planning- end of the month clear out of desks and bins- all homeless papers need to find a home and anything cluttering desks returns to class bins (catch-alls). Move bins closer to new seating location and check if there are any MIA class library books and or assignments.
I find this helps to keep students on top of organization. I do this kind of get-organized activity at the end of the month. You'd be surprised at what seems to take seed and grow in student's desks (maybe not!!)

Art: a selection of activities as some students have finished and others are being meticulous (or ponderous!)

• complete the French poster for weather phrases (L'affiche: les mois et la meteo)
• begin a poster on a remembrance Day theme (not necessarily for competition but that is also a possibility)
• continue with your Manga creations (Japanese animee)

3pm again before we turned around- Where does the time go?

clean up, review the homework and reminders for next week. Check and check!
Have a fabulous weekend everyone.
See you next week.
Mrs. J.