Thursday, March 8th

Good to be back doing what I love...

Homework
nothing new as we are coming to Spring Break
if I can convince my students to try another novel over the break I will let you know tomorrow as I 'sowed that seed' in their minds today
Reminders
tomorrow morning we have a Science presentation in the gym at 9:30am

General Day
We postponed this week's spelling list and will do it after the Break (not enough time to analyse, study and use the words before testing them) Unit 12 on hold.

We completed the last SRA program reading activities today- some students wanted to hand their books in tomorrow as I have suggested that they can use the reading periods (silent reading) today and tomorrow if they would like to complete another couple of activities.
A progress review on the SRA reading program this term will include an individual overview of what reading level your child started at and how many activities were completed at which level. Information will be e-mailed to you. It is not our intention to continue with the SRA program unless individual students (or parents request) want to continue to complete the activities on their independent reading time.

Literature Circles
As planned, we met in four Literature circles today and discussed the reading and story line of the four novels set about a month ago
Surviving the Applewhites, The Giver, Milkweed and Woodsong
All story lines were quite different; however, using the story graph each group was able to discuss the highlights and the low-lights (especially in the case of the Applewhites  for which the reading was not  completed by anyone in the group). Discussion was guided by the students themselves and included general 'stuff' about the characters, setting, conflict, crisis, climax, conclusion and other writer techniques such as foreshadowing, cliffhanger endings to chapters, use of description and figurative language and unexpected turns of events.
It was noisy but I think productive and I was able to get around to join each group for 5-10minutes.
Our next venture is to decide on an activity either independently or with a group partner to write an epilogue or provide a summary of some type. The boys of the Woodsong literature circle voted for example to look into what it takes to prepare for a race such as the Iditerod and possibly research a power point. Good stuff.

Math 7
I know you might think this a little unfair after three days off but I did go through with our previous plan to complete the Algebra unit (Chapter 11) today with a review quiz. The students did not grumble or complain because I think they agree they would rather do it now than in two weeks after a spring break. I gave them the first half hour of the class to study up on the content and basically gave them the outline (contents) of the quiz so they would know what to 'study'. The second half of the class was completing the quiz. Some students requested extra time which was granted during today's silent reading session.

Silent reading
math quiz completion, SRA activities, Lit circle novel completion for those still reading (yes, there were a few) and independent reading of their choice.

French
Quelle heure est-il?
What time is it?
unit (booklet) on telling time using the 'old school' quarter past/half past and the digital method using numbers up to 60.

Physical Education
split gym: basketball, floor hockey and stretches (bounces) on the stage area.
I'd forgotten how difficult it is to have eyes in the back of my head. There were a couple of unsportsmanlike incidents that I missed and had to address after the fact. I hate that!

Back in class we worked further on the French time telling booklet. The students were tired but the day went far too quickly.
Dismissal.

Thanks everyone- a productive and busy day's classes. Looking forward to our Friday.
Mrs. J.