Friday, April 27th

Seriously, without Fridays I would have to totally reconsider what I do for a living- as Fridays go this was an emotional roller-coaster of a day...but it is Friday and we will all enjoy our weekend (even as I complete report cards for weekend #2)!!

The report card debacle has turned out very different depending on what district one happens to teach or send their students to school in B.C. I'm sure you don't care one way or the other as long as you get some kind of assessment update. My reports will be into the office on May 2nd and will be ready for distribution to your children on Monday May 7th. There all sorts of formats. I'm sticking to the format you are most familiar with at least for this year.

It is impossible to fit in assessment and writing of report cards when we are in classes on teaching duties 9-3pm.  There are many things a teacher has to do to prep, plan and be ready for class(es) that can't be accommodated 9-3pm. The politics of late have made me very aware of all the extra time and effort that I know I put into this job. I have also found the students very needy of late and even a quiet time has been fraught with questions, concerns or silliness and least of all the quiet determination that we all seemed to have in spades at the beginning of the year.

Homework
Band- instrument practice of the three songs for the performance at Monday's assembly: Rainbow Rock, Bandissimo and La bamba- playing the songs through a couple of times each day over the weekend will help Monday's sound
Biography Posters- finish them this weekend due Monday
French L'armoire activity- complete and hand in as is Monday- we need to get a move on
Reminders
Monday assembly
Oh good lord, and a letter for camp Monday- I won't forget!

General Day
Spelling test for Unit #4

Science Lab- Mystery Powders
A lab that asks students to use the scientific method to make educated qualitative guesses as to the identification of 5 different powders by observing the reaction to water, vinegar and iodine (test for starch)
The safety preparation, set up and distribution of the materials in the class setting took longer than I thought but by recess we had successfully completed the lab (but not the data observation and analyses). I thought it telling that I over heard a couple asking if they thought that one of the 'powders' was cocaine but I assured them that on a school budget I had not been able to afford to buy cocaine! lol
Now that would be an interesting experiment don't you think?

During recess clean up was a proirity because students were coming back to eat snacks at the same desks and soon after would be preparing to switch classes for math!!
I don't want to sound like a martyr but I stayed in and did the clean up myself becuse the students both needed the break and I needed to ensure the petrie dishes of various blackened messes and iodine laden powders were properly disposed of. And, yes, I do realize that I did not give them the chance to prove they could do it themselves but I was able to rest easy by snack eating time.

Math 7
We worked through a Grade eight statistics activity about a coach having to make a decision about which golfer to chose for the last spot on the golf team. We had some interesting discussions about statistics over general overall ability. Was it fair to base such a decision on one tournament? Who was the best golfer? How did we determine that golfer was the best? Would a coach ignore the ststs and go with a 'hunch'? Was Luongo a "hunch' or a solid stats backed option?etc.
These real life examples of how gut wrenching it is to be accepted or rejected on the back of numbers are important for students to understand how statistics can be played out in our every day world. Wasn't it Winston Churchill who made the comment , "lies, lies and damned statistcs"?
Everyone was surprised when the Alberta polls were so very wrong (not something that interests my students but there is another example) in the recent election.
The second half of class allowed student to decide their survey questions for their own statistical data which they will create results for once they have asked their sample population.

Silent reading (not great, so not long!)

Science Mystery Powders Lab part 2
If I don't strike while the 'iron is hot' I may as well not have done the lab at all- so we worked at a booklet handout and questions to analyze the data gathered this morning and consider the identification of the powders- the student managed to get 3 out of 5 accurate
sugar, baking powder, plaster of paris, baking soda and corn startch
They were right with the baking powder and soda and the corn starch :)

Art time- some began a new activity called 'deconstruction' as others completed their projects still on-going. I also allowed time for the activities that need to be completed asap like the biography poster and the French wardrobe activity. Next week is May already and we need to get moving on to new concepts and ideas.

I treid to show 15 minutes of the next Civilization series but Friday afternoon at the day's end is really not conducive to new information and then they'd probably have little recollection on Monday so I abandoned the idea and provided some more supposed to be quiet work or reading time but that really didn't work either!!!!
I got myself a little cranky asking them to realize that they were still talking ...like I said, "Yeah, for Friday"!!

Dismissal was not far behind my cranky pants review of homework for Monday.
Have a good weekend. I'll be fine on Monday.