TGIF Friday April 20th

What a crazy end to the week! Topsy, turvy was right...

This afternoon my students whined and wheedled about playing a game of 'capture the flag" outside and the weather was lovely. I set them a challenge and they met it (they kept 'shushing' each other) so I gave in and set it up for 2:20-2:50pm which would leave us time to get back to class for an organized end to the day. I even had a couple of high school students willing to help me out. Alas... the best laid plans...

Two (maybe three) of the students had allergic reactions to the nettles on the trail, one had an asthma attack and nothing left in her puffer and another ran out of his shoes into a muddy puddle. By the time I called the game and had accounted for all students, it was close to the day's end and sure enough when we were coming across the field, the bell rang for dismissal.

The principal had called a staff meeting and a parent was waiting to say 'hello'. Apologies to my parent visitor honestly our Fridays are not usually so frantic as today's seemed to be.

Homework
Nothing new
Biography posters still in progress however need another section completed (you do have three days this weekend)
Reminders
no school Monday

General Day
paragraph write this morning - I have to attach a writing sample to the high school forms for all grade sevens and I had the grade six tell me about their experience this year in our split class. I am looking forward to reading them.

Science: chemicals in daily use beauty/body products. I had a match up worksheet which I created from some samples from home (shampoo, body lotion, perfume, liquid soap, sunscreen and eyelid make-up). The students tried to match up their clues and the ingredients with the products. They managed about 50%
It is so crazy how many chemicals are in the things we use every day AND research has proven some ingredients and products are harmful to both the environment and our overall health interfering with our endocrine system (see personal planning) and causing illness or severe reactions.

We took our investigation further to the computer session and the students chose different products they used to check out their safety ratings and ingredients on the Environmental Working Group website.
The biggest surprise was Head and Shoulders. Check it out.
For students who needed there was also time for completing stories or finding information for their bography poster.

Math we used our recent test results to find, calculate and analyse the data of the results. Mean, mode, median and range and then I threw in the % pass/fail rate.
For practice we worked on the same calculations for other data on a resource worksheet. I provided answers but need to re-visit which students might need even more time for this although most seem to 'get it'.
11:30-12 Ms. Sorban volunteer with primary class time and/or
games: connect four, checkers, board games etc.
Think I need to teach some different games for variety as I am finding boredom from some who have less focus than others!!

Silent reading
provided the May Scholastic flyer
Any April orders are due next week

Socials activity (partners)
Greek timeline. A list of Greek events dating from 3000-146BCE are listed on a worksheet. With a partner students had to put them into order of the most ancient to the least ancient. Five ages of Ancient Greek civilzationwere considered: Bronze Age, Dark Age, Archaic Period, Classical Period and the Hellenistic Age.

Personal Planning
We watched the you tube version of the Dove Campaign for Beauty commercial [there is one for boys and for girls] that shows how the model who shows up in the studio for a photo shoot is made up and made over and photo shopped to look like a brand new more perfect and beautuful version of herself/himself. My intention is to get the students thinking about how influential commercial media is in how we think of ourselves and others in terms of looks. I found it really interesting that one of the boys commented that the male model was 'fat' (?) before they photoshopped his abs and chest and simply erased his 'imperfections'.
I have more work to do in this department methinks!

Capture the Flag
Remind me not to ....or at least to leave more time for a sane end to the day. I don't understand what it is about that game that they love but I guess we are so lucky to have the ability to go into our back yard and run around in the woods (well, most of us allergies and reactions to plants notwithstanding!!)
Thanks to Lucas and Rowan's teen mentor for joining us.

Have a good weekend. Gotta go get some report cards done apparently!
Mrs. J.