...here's a Friday summary
Homework
I like to try to keep the weekends free of NEW homework - that means that the week's work that didn't get completed can be caught up on over the weekend.
This weekend I asked that if they had not completed a current events Q&A activity in class Friday that they complete it for Monday- there are 8 questions and the majority of students maybe had 3 or 4 questions remaining.
- Disater Debris answer questions 1-8 in complete sentences
- I did not send any new math 7 homework (except for a couple of students who have been away this week)
- I need the parent communication forms from: Aiden, Derek, Ray, Dylan, Eric, Bailey M., Casper and Helena
supplies and $$ for planners asap
Tom Lee music company will be here Sept 24th
Verification forms just need to be signed and returned if your information hasn't changed
Frday mornings will begin with a Band class although currently for Band to begin the instruments have to be in hand (after September 24th) meanwhile if you have an instrument at home get back into the practice routine- be a star when Band classes begin :)
daily French today was interactive- as I pulled popsicle stick (random names) to translate the French that we have been doing every morning
Greeting
day and date
weather
Social Studies:
For social studies this year local, provincial, national and international current affairs issues will be discussed and researched. I find the discussion process takes a few weeks to get off the ground. Some students know about these issues, some don't and some have an idea about them but are not really clear on what the fuss is all about. In this age of global village I believe students need to be informed and be able to form an opinion- we are no longer limited to jst our little corner of the world but need to develop a global perspective.
Disater Debris is a reading and question answering activity (who? what? why? where?)
about the trash chrned up and lifted out to sea from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last March.
Math 7 hand in the divisibility rules worksheet set for homework- you probably would not be surprised at some of the excuse for it being incomplete- training the students about my 'system' for work in Math 7 will take a bit of effort on both our parts!
Let's see, excuses in no particiular order: I had soccer, I didn't know what to do (we had completed over half together in class!), I left it at school/home/the bus, I can't find it and my favourite, my mom didn't know what to do!
Anyway, we'll get it together soon...
Today we went step by step over the division worksheet- I ask that as we review the sample activities that the student check their own answers (yes, I have already looked them over and made some observations about their individual work but I do not assess or provide 'marks' for homework. Homework is practice - time for making an effort, trying and possible getting it incorrect- in class we will always go over the procedure together).
I expect students to correct their own errors and COPY the accurate working if they were unable to do it or got it incorrect- I believe this helps to make them more responsible for their own learning.
[It is, in my opinion the same as tracking words when someone is reading! Another skill that needs to be directly taught.]
Today was difficult for a few students who seemed to be zoning out during class (tired?) and being self-distracted (doodling) and socializing (engaging classmates, giggling) as opposed to actually being engaged or paying attention to the instruction. It is one things to talk about 'engaging students' as a teacher responsibility but entirely another when we look at it in terms of the responsibility of the learner to actually respond to the effort being made to engage him or her. Rights and reponsibilites work both ways.
We also tried the TPS (think, pair, share) activity for trying on some general word problems- the aMath 7 brochure sent home might help you follow what I am referring to in classes.
Did I mention that I LOVE teaching math? Really, it is my favourite class currently (give me a few weeks and I'll get over it)
silent reading
Just to follw up on the introduction to our science units this year, I shared a 10 minute video that was created by Sunita Willaims (astronaut) called Blue Beauty. It is an amazing selection of the photographs she took from outer space of earth. So we did a bit of a global look at the shape of and placement of countries of our world using our classroom map (that I swear is haunted becuse it keeps rolling up by itself) and the perspective of the pictures from space. If I can get my head around how to, I will post it here for you to see it too.
novel Dragon Keeper Chapter three (it was a long one but I do hope that reading into the rising action of the story will get all students on board. For now, I have abandoned the reading game with the popsicle sticks until I can figure out a way to have students take part without making them uncomfortable.
On Fridays I will incorporate a "catch up" time in which students can chose to complete any activity that they have not finshed yet (or that they need help with). It gives me and the students a chance to 'catch up' with them and provide a bit of an extra instruction or extra organizational time. Sometimes things get busy and we forget things that need to be followed up. The activites will be from the week's work so today the students had the choice of
- working on Disater Debris (a few completed it in class)
- French title page
- any Math work you are incomplete
- Art project (some asked to take it home) and/or
- reading, organizing supplies into class bins or flipping through the text books that were just issued
Just for this week we finshed our day in the computer lab but becuse the schedule was temporary and some teachers were operating on a different schedule (we have been negotiating and organizing for 16 divisions to share the space) two classes ended up there at the same time. I was about to return to the class when the teacher said let's just buddy them up. It was a lot of bodies especially with the visiting former students but I was very proud that the students all shared the screens and games together and no one was upset. This is Squamish Elemetary school- rock, paper scissors- we work things out together. Such a nice end to the day to see the early and late intermediates working so amicably together.
So our first full week is under our belt.
Have a fabulous weekend. I hear that the weather will hold for soccer this Saturday- see you at the fields!
Mrs. J.
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