Monday, October 7th

Can you say rainy Monday? Yep, lots of pent up energy but we had a pretty good productive start to our week :)

Reminders and home practice
Band class first thing remember instruments and music please
Math 7 complete the classwork for operations with decimals pp. 49-51- applying skills to words problems
Thursday Oct 10th Unit 2 spelling test
Oct 24th this month for any one wishing to order from the Scholastic catalogues (no obligation to purchase anything)
Coraline book to movie club books are now in please remember $5 and pick up your copy at the library
congratulations to Erik W. on a division win this weekend at disc golf

Our day

Phys Ed
fitness and cooparative game- lots of creaky bodies but most particiapted better than last week - I am putting them through their paces and hope I am encouraging them to exercise different muscle groups
tried the dance music again- lots of work needed but better movement this week - maybe I need to teach a line dance!!

Language Arts return spelling unit 1
general results:
of 22 who did the test
6 students 12/12 (100%)
3 students = 10/11
2 students = 8/9
2 students = 7
1 student = 6/12 (50%)
------------------------
7 less than 6
4 of them scoring 3/12

Not stellar- is this a studying issue or a poor word/sound recognition issue? I can't tell yet; actually, it is difficult to get to the bottom of some of the spelling problems until I have seen the results for a couple of weeks. Some students will learn better habits and improve their results others may need an alternative list to study from. More to come...ask you child for their spelling result (just let me know of you would like that information in an e-mail)!!

prep spelling Unit 2 using a 'double puzzle' of the list words and solving a hidden message
work through the 12 words for this week and look at the letter/sound combinations- including the part of speech difference between advice (n) and advise(v)

Study strategy that I suggest
1. target 3 or 4 words each day to 'test' yourself
2. complete the unit activity (in class)
3. study all words Wednesday night at home
4. if it is helpful use a word study sheet- just ask for one

Math 7
return quiz 3 on rounding numbers
general results: of 19 students 17 managed to score 50% or more and 2 need more work on recognizing the place value
On rounding numbers recognition:
Not Meeting 2
Minimally meeting 1
fully meeting 12
exceding 4

Again- what can a student do to improve their results?
1. prep for Friday quizzes by reviewing the content from the week in class
2. complete the work and practice in class and at home (especially if a class is missed- it is sometimes difficult for me to remember who was away or left half way or went hunting for a week!?)
3. make the best effort possible to learn from your challenges or errors (follow class instruction and correction of examples)

Some students still need help with the recognition of the place value being rounded to in a given example.
Today we returned to the MathLinks text pp49-51 application of skills with decimal numbers in word problems.

Read to self
October Scholastic catalogues out
Birthday to Sukhreet- she receives a birthday coupon for a book up to $5 from the catalogue
record reading time (I want to make students accountable for the time they spend each day- today some used reading time for completing work at the zIntermediate drop in 1-1:30pm a good use of time in my opinion)

still way too many students floating in and out to the washroom- timing is eveything

If the World was a Village
The story started last week for social studies. Our 100 people village had some frightening statistics regarding sharing of economic and food wealth
tried some limited discussion of the concepts the book is making on a global level.
The students were not sure about the 1% movement (another time perhaps)! Don't want to start a riot!

Science: text and partner work
students worked together in Ch 1 Unit 1 of the grade 6 science text and the grade seven science text respectively.
biotic and abiotic (living and non-living and some cloze questions asking for details embedded in text. Good job. Thanks to Mrs. Wolfe for her help in class this afternoon :)
was impressed with the productive attitude and work ethic of everyone - great job this afternoon. Proud of you

Rock Candy experiment to come this Friday- shared and showed using About.com chemistry section on the class overhead what it entails to create rock candy. We will try Friday morning so it has a long weekend to 'set' (hoping it works better than last year!)

Planner time

just opened my mouth to read Word Nerd and the dismissal bell rang- better to leave them wanting more!!

Have a good evening
Mrs. J.