Tuesday April 29th

No new reminders

Our day
Band class

The Ugly History of Apartheid
Question #8
Was the anti- apartheid movement successful? Explain.

This was an inferential question so the answer was not able to be read in the lines of the article. It had to be carefully considered and the facts and evidence weighed before creating a written response.

Lesson intention: how to answer two sided questions - how to balance the facts and write a brief but accurate answer.
We had a discussion about the successes and failures of the anti- apartheid movement and considered that to answer a question about this topic becomes complicated because it can be answered both negatively and positively. A balanced answer is a delicate consideration of both sides of the topic.
I was impressed with the students' understanding of history, how they used the article to back up their thoughts and how easily they managed to provide examples for a profound response.

Completed the activity booklet for the history of apartheid - today we considered the meaning of making 'inference' from reported facts - one of the most important factors of being able to make accurate inferences is to be able to connect the facts in a given article or report to general knowledge about the world.

Introduced the Mastering Vocabulary unit (which will take the place of spelling for the remaining months) with the following word
pneumoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanosis

You would be blown away by how the students managed to break the word into smaller chunks (of Latin origin words and find definitions for some and making sense of the rest to successfully determine the word meant black lung disease.
Are you impressed yet?

Subtracting fractions
Math 7 the art of subtracting mixed numbers with unlike denominators
The concept of 'borrowing' a whole to make a subtraction possible is a challenging concept for some brains to grapple with but we used a step by step procedure to work through the practice examples.

Read to self

Computer lab session following up some of the links for the apartheid unit
History channel, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and crimesofwar.org

We  ended the day in the sunshine a little DPA and fresh air

Have a great evening
Mrs. J.