If anyone asked I'd have to suggest that Tuesday is the fastest day of the week generally- it isn't a Monday or Friday but Tuesday in which the routine is such that when we have an assembly or other 'event' the day seems to get eaten up much more quickly than others!! I'm not even sure that makes any sense to anyone except me!
Two former students who are now in Grade 8 at DRS (Justis and Lexie) visited after school. It was a treat for me to have a visit from them and have a mature conversation about what they are doing and how they are getting on. They seem so grown up and so much calmer than I remember and we were able to share a couple for laughs about last year's class. I managed to get caught up with all their gossip (good stuff of course).
Homework
Spelling Unit 6 test Thursday
Biography posters (need to be completed at home now)
French wardrobes!!
Math 7 test Thursday practice on the IXL or Mathlinks 7 website probability (Ch.5) and data management (Ch.12)
Reminders
Grad hoodies have arrived and were distributed to those students who have pre-paid. Please let us know if there is any financial difficulty and we can make arrangements to help :)
Grade 7 parents were sent home a letter from the Ministry of Education about a parent satisfaction survey to be completed on-line
Hot Lunch orders due tomorrow
Camp forms Thursday
The new seating arrangement caused a few upsets today which were completely unintentional on my part but I should have seen them coming! A couple of agreed to switches were made and everyone settled down and seemed to be fine by the afternoon. Change is difficult.
I told the students that solutions and not just complaints would be gladly accepted and considered and that seemed to help. Thank-you for the solution(s).
General Day
Spelling practice Unit 6 and activity with there, their and they're
Language Arts group questions for the original mythology story read by the group. There are 5 groups and five stories: Jason, Perseus, Theseus, Pegasus and Prometheus. Once the chosen questions were written on a poster sized paper and the expected answers were agreed to, the groups switched mythology stories and read them to answer the peer questions.
Managed to complete one switch this morning before it was time to go tune up bases and instruments for the visit from DRS advanced band which has 14 members from our grade seven band class last year!
11-12 fabulous combined concert with the grade eights and the grade 6/7 Squamish El. band classes. Mr. Thompson brought his grade eight advanced band and they played for us as well as joining with us in a couple of songs that sounded great with the back up of both bands (Pirates of the Caribbean and La Bamba). Each band played some pieces for the other- it was very entertaining and made us very proud of the musical talent in our midst. It was especially rewarding to see and hear the musical progress of our former students and a bit disconcerting to see how tall they have grown- I couldn't even get my arms around Angus for a hug! Thank-you to Raiden for that big unexpected bear hug!!
Silent reading was really not silent or reading! I had two boys help bring the box of hoodies up and Jenny and Kelli helped me 'deliver' the correct sizes, match the hoodies up with the orders (receipt of delivery) and store the rest with their appropriate orders for pick up when paid for.
Thank for the help girls (and boys)
Personal Planning
Relationships and current 'trends' according to a survey from a couple of yeas ago (Mcreary Study of adolescent health 2008) Link attached below
www.mcs.bc.ca
We are gently (I am gently) encouraging them to think about and maybe feel comfortable enough to discuss the issues and pressures on young men and women to 'couple up' or 'hook up' and the notion that you don't need to be in a committed relationship if you can be (have) 'friends with benefits' (the majority of students understood what that meant) and one even joked that you can even be 'enemies with benefits' which I think and hope was a joke. A fact about this age level is they will say they know something even if they are not too sure or have no idea so I am first ensuring without being overtly intrusive that we are all talking about the same thing. I need a bit more time for this one. It was an interesting class and I try to keep it light.
Phys. Ed. One half of the class wanted a basketball game the other half played a class game in the gym. We should have gone out but it looked busy on the back field and besides the weird weather, I worry that many students do not have the appropriate footwear for a still wet underfoot grass field. No flip flops for running please!!!!
Back in class, we packed up and prepped for the end of the day. We were supposed to continue with Personal Planning but I really didn't have the heart to finish the day with the information from a heath survey. I suggested You Tube Greek hero and Odysseus was suggested but what won out was going outside to grab some fresh air and 'hang' in the yard for ten minutes. Well, I don't do it every day ....
Have a good night.
Mrs. J.
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