Monday Feb 18th

I'm still here in the classroom- today was a quick and productive day but, boy, some days I need more time with the students...

Nice to meet Lucy's mom- thanks for visiting us and hanging out at lunch :)

Thank-you to Mrs. Paxton who gifted me a beautiful eagle puppet for my birthday which we are going to have a naming ceremony for in the near future. I already have a bank of name suggestions from the students although I'm not sure I want him (or her) to be called 'Baldy'.
 I was very honoured to have an eagle puppet of my own (something I'd never thought to buy for myself) and it means so much metaphorically. He will soar over us in class and be all knowing and all seeing- in literature it is called an omniscient character. I need one of those in my life!

Thanks also to Kim Benson (SFU) who is doing a volunteer afternoon in our classroom on Mondays and whom I am putting to great use as you will see from our science lab this afternoon.

Homework
Spelling test for the b/e vocabulary words (about 10 students who missed or needed a redo)
complete the science lab write up if not done in class (most completed and handed it in) Ravisher and Hannah Mac still need to get the summary activity
Journal paragraph write still have four to get yet- if you could live anywhere other than North America which country would you choose to become a citizen of and why?

Reminders
camp forms asap
fitness and basketball Tuesday gym class
Numeracy section FSA grdes seven math time Tuesday
Purdy's fundraising by Wednesday
guest speaker Wed morning
spirit day on Friday (Tropical Day)

Our Day...

daily French

SRA reading lab- music today was classic Rennaisance - Motzart and Beethoven
Lots of progress being made and I am trying to encourage others who are a bit behind due to ilness etc. to work hard to complete more cards and maybe even improve a level.

journal write: see topic above- research has shown that if students practice thinking and answering questions (what if...?) creatively, that the activity forces their PFC (pre-frontal cortex) into action in thinking 'out of the box' (creatively) and expressing their thinking usually in written or verbal form. This is one way to practice developing executive functions. Today the students chose countries 'all over the map' and for many different reasons from the Bahamas to New Zealand. After the writing comes the sharing (no chatting before hand).
It was fun and we found that one deciding factor was relatives or family (and family roots). Interesting.

Math 7 FSA catch up for those who missed the session last week.
The rest of us focused on patterns in problem solving using some of the practice FSA multiple choice and working in a Think-Pair-Share format. We did an intersting experiment- we timed how long it took us to solve 5 multiple choice on our own and then switched papers and marked each others (no explanations given until after).
1 min per question is recommended.
Those who fiinished in 3 minutes scored approx. 1 or 2 out of a possible 5 (about 6 students) those who finished in 4-5 minutes (5 students) scored about three of a possible 5 and those who took a bit longer had mixed results some did better and got 4 out of five correct others did poorly and got 1 out of a possible five.
It showed that the bell curve for the majority was in effect of 19 who were in class 11 scored 3 or above.The message? I guess don't rush- it is not a race but don't take too long either because sometimes multiple choice questions are designed to mess with your mind! Slow and steady wins the race- right?
Anyway, it was a fun way to provide some test taking advice!

Silent reading
Literacy group with Ms. Masterson

Hydrophobic Sand Science Lab
(thanks to my trusty assistant and clean up lady, Kim, I couldn't have done it without you)
Students worked through 4 stations completing the observation chart.
1. the 'growing rocks' (they flopped- didn't work as well as expected!) may have had the chemical combination that was meant to grow the rocks too long! sodium silicate
2. fine sand and soil sand - what happens when mixed with water?
3. hydrophobic sand properties - what happens when treated sand is mixed with water?
4. the tank- experimenting with hydrophobic sand in the water tank- what is not quite normal about this sand in water.

Final demo- how hydrophobic sand 'gathers' oil and bonds to it allowing the water to be free of oily substance (I used mineral oil).
Also, what breaks the hydrophobic bond? Dish detergent.

Students then completed a summary of learning from the lab- many seem to have enjoyed it.

What did you think would happen (hypothesis)?
What did happen?
What did you observe?
What worked as expected?
What was different?

Honestly, that took us until the end of the day. It was basically time to pack up, remind them about homework and it was 3pm + I intend to follow up with a few short videos tomorrow as the students had lots of questions that we ran out of time for answering.

Then, the clean up- yes, that took a while but I did get help and the lab was worth it when I look at the students' lab summaries. The students love hands-on science but without a specified lab it is a challenge to set up the classroom. I have become more organized over the years but it is still a great deal of organization. I planned the stations on Sunday and created the worksheets for the feedback, set up the stations today at lunch and during silent reading and even then getting all my student 'ducks in a row' was a challenge but it worked out fine and I think they learned about the properties of hydrophilic sand versus hydrophobic sand. Ask them - see if they can tell you about what they learned.
I was very grateful to have an extra adult or two in class Yvonne came to help in class and, of course, Kim managed very well in making the rotations work smoothly.

Have a good night. I've still got tomorrow to plan !!!
Mrs. J