Wednesday, January 25th

Happy Robert (Rabbie) Burn's Day
The Scottish farmer turned poet whose life we still celebrate today in Scotland and around the world where Scots may congregate to eat and haggis and drink a 'neat' malt Scotch (21 year old, of course). Yes, Scotch is the 'tipple' and Scottish people do not usually respond to being called Scotch although I understand the easy mistake!! :) My husband's long standing joke is that all Scottish 'cooking' is based on a 'dare'! Hardy har, har!
Good haggis can be very tasty. I have it once a year in kinship and celebration and I am happy to share but , we Scots are, just as happy to keep it to ourselves. lol

Today was a better day together in class but there is still a lot of pent up energy and some concerning behaviour. As a class community we are making an effort to draw attention to it and address the issues altogether.

Homework
Spelling List #6 for tomorrow
Math 6 complete the Unit 6 worksheet from class today Drawing triangles
Math 7 no homework from today's class

General Day
Did a Rabbie Burns introduction today instead of daily French (we did do the date and the day en francais)

Spelling study

complete ch 23 Word Nerd

Writing: complete the literary paragraph for The River

Math 7
Grad Hoodie decisions (font, colour and whether they want to purchase this year)- vote tomorrow
Finding the nth (variable) value of a number pattern- pre- algebra
Computer practice 11:30-noon

silent reading
Spelling list #5 redo

Personal Planning
Introduction to 'risk' assessment and making safe personal decisions in various situations.
The 'game' we played is called How's the weather?
Use the word 'risk and my students' ears perk up for all the wrong reasons so this game uses the weather as a metaphor for their feelings (sunny= comfortable and warm/cloudy periods=possible discomfort/ stormy= definitely discomfortable/tornado= extremely uncomfortable)
The students receive 'clouds' with situations that they have to place in what they consider the appropriate weather or comfort/discomfort rating in their opinion.
For example "lying to your parents" which category of weather does that belong and why? What might the potential risks of lying to your parents be?
What about, "getting into a car with someone you don't know"? This one is interesting because if I call it 'hitchhiking' the students don't bat an eye but when we look at what they are actually risking, I can actually see the connections and synapses being made. Their brains do work :)

This activity forces students to discuss and face their thinking head on and once we get over the bravado of "I'm so bad" silliness, the students can see or at least think about some situations and how they might be able to handle them and make the best decision for themselves.
We just managed to get it started today. I think they were engaged- maybe ask them what they thought as some of the situations are a little beyond their experience currently but I believe when it comes to safety and good decisions just a little push out of their comfort zone might be beneficial. If you have any concerns or questions regarding this activity please don't hesitate to ask or call :)

Physical education- much better
Basketball- no YELLING today :) Just a lot of running and team work as it should be. Great job and I must say I am seeing less running away from the ball and more participation. YEAH!
Sarah, you go girl :)

back in class we finished up the Personal Planning activity placing the leftover 'clouds' that I had and trying to reason what the best placement would be. The students have now placed their 'clouds' where they think they belong and in the following days we will look at a few a day and decide if we have the right 'risk assessment for the situations.

Ch 24 Word Nerd- finished the day in the middle of the chapter.
Ambrose has just won the Best Newcomer Award at the scrabble tournament winning 6 of his 8 games.
Things are about to turn ugly though- stay tuned!

Dismissal after reminder about tomorrow's spelling test

Have a good night. I am embarrassed to tell you I completely forgot it was Wednesday night and I missed the staff fitness class in the gym!! I am feeling the burn and it's not my muscles- mea culpa
Hope you have a memorable evening.
I am going home to a haggis dinner and if there's any left over I will dare my students to try it tomorrow!! I'll keep you posted.
Mrs. J.