Wednesday, Feb 13th

Hang onto your hat!

We had the most productive morning and the most bizarre afternoon. I can sure see the burgeoning differences between the boys' and the girls' both physically and mentally that are due in part to hormones and in other part to personalities. Read on and perhaps what I am referring to will become clear! (or not!)

Homework
Spelling - trying a change in the test day to see if that makes any difference on results. Students who have to complete the b/c vocabulary list will be tested Monday Feb 18th and the d/e vocabulary will be tested Tuesday Feb 19th
French- study/review the arrangez-vous activity for tomorrow Thursday (due to a workshop 1-2pm it will be in the morning)
I have tried to encourage students who have still not handed in a socials project to hand in what they have done but ther are still 6 with no research (Dawson, Koghan, Malaya, Casper, Aidan and Eduardo)!! Term 2 assessment needs to be completed by the end of February!

Reminders
camp fundraising meeting here tonight 7pm
camp forms due Thursday (have 11 so far- not enough to confirm the camp booking)
Purdy's PAC fundraiser due Feb 15th
$2 for school dance tomorrow (unfortunately a last minute change to the time of the dance 1-1:45pm means that my students will be unable to attend as they are booked for the Aquarium workshop.)
hoodies ASAP (thanks, Ray)
FSA getting closer to being all caught up and completed (due Feb 22nd)
Honour Band field trip this Friday

Our day...

Daily French- students did a good job of 'filling in the blanks' of the morning message in French (day, date, month, weather and time)

Spelling returned last week's results (forgot yesterday) and set about working on this week's vocabulary list pf d/e vocabulary words (22) using a spelling word search activity
today our classical music was Bach and Vivaldi
I have been pleasantly surprised that the students are asking for the music when we do our morning language activites but do not tell anyone they seem to be enjoying it because they will not admit to that!

Band class with Ms. Sorban

Math 7
Review of number concepts like prime number factorization, GCF, LCM, Ratio, uncertainty, evaluation and writing expressions to solve for a variable.

I spoke today about what self-regulation might look like to some of the students (sorry, but mainly boys) who were having issues with each other and therefore allowing social disruption to keep them off task and in a negative state of mind playing 'one-up-manship' verbal bantering. Completely off task- could not repeat the directions or really focus on the task. This is an example of the executive function regulated by the pre-frontal cortex that students need to be aware and able to redirect themselves (self-regulate). Practice and awareness of what self-regulation looks like as well as consistency on my part to redirect is key. It is exhausting but if learning is to take place for all students then it is a necessity of expectation.

While we did this in class, the students who had a section of the FSA assessment to catch up worked in the lab under supervision. I now have 4 to complete instead of 9 :) getting closer :)

Silent Reading - pretty good - a couple struggling and pretending to do what they were expected to do- so they won't be sitting together during this time any longer.

Physical Education
Okay- today the students begged to play a game - wanted dodge ball- fine - I set the ground rules and if those rules were violated, no more dodgeball- it took 5 minutes and I had to call and end to dodge ball!
Next, I decided to split the class half for a coooperative game and the other half basketball. Mostly grade sixes chose the game and guess what- they played hard, enjoyed themsleves and no one was upset or injured.
The basketball 5 on 5 (mostly grade seven and the more competitive grade six boys) was a nightmare- one nose bleed, one accidental basketball to the head (bounced off the wall and the student had her head down and didn't see it coming) one trip and a push meant another student went down hard. That was it. I called the session and we returned to class before someone else became more badly injured.
We had to discuss the gym session together once we had all clamed down.

What we decided as a class- any more over the top competitiveness and that student (or students) will sit out of the session. He or she will get a skipping rope to get some exercise on the stage area.
Phys Ed is meant to be fun, inclusive and a chance to get some much needed exercise and learn to play together. Calm down, we are not  conducting the Olympic trials!

Art
introduced students to a couple of new ideas for art projects in the coming weeks. One is a partner project using the stories of Greek Mythology and the images or depictions of the gods and monsters of Greek mythology. The other is a crafty 'glue' activity which uses white glue to trace the lines of a drawing and once it is painted over with acrylic paint, it produces a raised effect to the final image.

To finish the day, I tired (really tried) to read Chapter 4 of our class novel but two announcements, one phone call (for a student in another class, and one visit to my door later meant that I didn't get through the chapter before the bell signalled the day's end! There is always tomorrow :)

Anyhoo, see you tonight if you are attending the meeting. If not have a great evening...
Mrs. J.