Friday December 9th

It was a bit of an anomaly today that I ended up with only 10 students in class from 1pm until 2:30pm. They were all amazingly busy and productive of course for everybody else :)

I enjoy having a group of students this year who are reliable and 'wanted' by everyone else but sometimes it can be a bit much. However, Fridays are one of those days that (especially at this time of year) the older students are in demand for general assistance and some one-to-one with the younger students. There are an amazing number of activities going on and the great thing is that my students are willing and able to assist and provide the support requested. It is not like it happens every day so please don't think I am complaining about having 10 students for the majority of the afternoon:) !!!
Be careful what you wish for, right?

This morning, students in my class assisted the grade fours with Gingerbread houses, Mr. Elliot with hardware for the computer lab and Ms. Sorban with a primary class for music. This afternoon 14 went out to perform for the seniors and two were out with mentors. One left early to catch a ferry and that left me 9 or 10!!
The ten of us left in class, chose to watch a movie which had a bit of a fictional take on the science issues we have been considering. It is called The Day After Tomorrow. The premise is about the effects of global warming and although the science and Global Warming theories are all squeezed into one big 'storm cell' and the science is OTT (over the top) the students still seemed interested enough to enjoy it (bad acting and all!). They especially 'guffawed' at the surge of people (in the movie) moving out of North America and asking permission to enter and reside in Mexico- now there's a 'vive la difference' for you !

Luckily the students returning at 2:30pm from their band performance managed to settle down to either some reading, colouring or watching the end of the movie. It was a different afternoon to say the least. Apparently all, went well with the afternoon band visit and the seniors enjoyed the performance.

I am taking the opportunity to begin this post as it creeps closer to the end of the school afternoon. Of course whenever I do that, there is always the chance that students think I am not quite not as vigilant as I ought to be and then things get more unsettled so I have to be careful to keep one eye here and the other roaming the room. Have you seen the commercial where the dad is only using one eye to see his son's picture of the dinosaur? Yep, that's me!

Homework
Nothing new
Reminders
Skiing Wednesday next week (Dec 14th)
Band Concert Friday Dec 16th

General Day
Began the morning with a reading placement test which lasted a whole six minutes. In the new year we will be undertaking a personal reading program to track and improve personal reading levels. The results were very interesting. I have six different level placements (very informal).
I try to encourage students to focus on the level which they complete the program and not the starting level. I do not share grade level equivalents with them until they actually have shown improvement and can be proud of their progress.

Next we took time for a group Jeopardy quiz- students who create Frances Rain (Term 1 novel) jeopardy games had the opportunity today to run their questions with their peers and I. The questions were very different and really observant of the book down to small details that I flunked and lost $$$ on- like who the novel was dedicated to and what chapter the father left etc. I was duly impressed. One interesting twist on the game was the Mystery Jeopardy- the topic was a mystery as was how much money the question was worth. Good stuff,

At 10 am we spent 30 minutes science time at the computer lab working on those power point presentations for the virtual pet project.

Math
Today is our problem solving session.
Today's problem was based on the skill of finding percentages and graphing them into a circle graph (pie). Some problems have multiple steps and this was one that required students to

• determine the percentage of profit from four different activites at a fun fair by adding the total and calculating what (fraction) part of the activity (say the Bake Sale) was of the total
• once the percentage is determined, accurately splitting the pie graph into sections to visually show the percentage of profit
• ensuring the total added up top 100%
• adding, dividing, multiplying, changing fractions into percent, graphing and checking

I also did a brief vocabulary check with them about the vocabulary of Algebra just to see what general knowledge there is about the main parts of an expression: varaibles, numerical coefficients, equations, like terms and solutions. Just let's say that it was the wrong day to try it- they kind of sort of recognized the words but we have some work to do!!
Grade 7 assistance half hour! 11:30-12
Geozua helped Mr Elliot
Auntumn, Manisha , Simi and Roshni assisted the grade fours
 Isaac, Nicole, Gabriel, Marrissa, Gurpreet, Amrit, Cassidy and Jarod
13 out left me with 12 (some were absent) and we played some card games, checkers, dominoes and a dice game called Stratedice.

The band performance students left the school at about 1:05pm after attendance

Movie vote either, Eight Below or, the Day after Tomorrow. The latter won the vote. Some students who said they weren't interested in watching it quietly were 'sucked' in by the action! :) and watched it anyway.

Silent reading for about ten minutes although some took more time while we were setting up the movie. Some worked on their French food activity filling their fridges (they are looking rather good and full).

Band students returned about 2:30pm
We didn't quite complete the movie (probably half an hour left) I'll see if they are into it on Monday afternoon. Sometimes the weekend in the middle is too long a hiatus and they don't really care but I booked it anyway just in case!

Have a great weekend everyone. It is really hard to believe that next week is the last before the Christmas vacation.
See you Monday.
Mrs. J.