Reminders
If interested in popcorn tomorrow please remember a dollar
Band class tomorrow - remember instruments
Laura (Biennale) will be here tomorrow after noon to set up the list for the potluck on May 15th and show us the progress of the silkscreening of our work
Students who have not yet returned dietary information for the camp kitchen will be considered 'regular' diet for meals and snacks
2pm tomorrow afternoon we have a guest motivational speaker
If interested in ordering hot lunch for May please return the order form by this Friday
Our day
Physical education
Set up the badminton nets in the gym this morning - thanks to Mr. Parker and the students who helped me with the tying of the knots and the moving of the poles- those poles are heavy!!
I was impressed with the cooperation and the review of the badminton skills today. Everyone appeared to be engaged and having some fun exercise.
Socials - current affairs
"Nelson Mandela - the liberator"
Back in class we began the second part of the socials activity on Nelson Mandela. It was a reading activity and a summarizing chart asked the students to consider three events from the early days of Mr. Mandela's life, the apartheid years and the post imprisonment years to his recent death.
Once they had this information the directions were to chose their top three from the nine events and explain why they considered those three events to be the most inspiring or interesting in Mr.
Mandela's life and legacy.
We need some more time for this but we made a great start .
Math 7
I have to be honest that I do not understand why some of the boys have recently been pointedly mean to each other. I have no recourse except to separate them from each other!!
Sometimes math, being after morning recess, means the students tend to bring their social issues into class with them. It is baseball season - there are a few spats apparently.
Today we looked at a visual spatial activity using nets for three dimensional figures and began to consider the methods for determining the volume and the surface area of those figures as well as consider how they would look from different viewpoints.
Challenging class not because of the math but the behaviour of a few students!
Read to self
New reading record distributed - there are 9 hours of reading this month
I am always encouraged when my students ask for the sequels of the books that they have been introduced to :) Several students enjoyed the novel The Dragon Keepsr so much that they have requested the next two books by the author.
Science lab afternoon.
Density exploration
In pairs the students mixed some saline water and colored with food coloring 4 other cups of fluid including cold water (plain), glycerin and rubbing alcohol.
We made a class hypothesis about which of the fluid was the most dense and which would float, sink or mix.
The experiment had them pour the different fluids into the large test tubes to see if they could layer the fluids separately. We tested the hypothesis.
Yes, we had spills and some had difficulty following the instructions not to fill the test tubes too full (we had mixed, on purpose, more than needed!!). The exuberant use of the food colouring always surprises me!! Why use a drop or two if we can squeeze out much more than we need and then get it on the desk tops and our hands and maybe a couple of articles of clothing.
Thanks to Mrs. Bruce for her handy and willing clean up skills - it had to be the red food colouring that spilled - it looked like someone had been cut badly. The good news is we all survived another
science lab. The learning from it was discussed verbally but we still need to follow up with a more formal worksheet.
The intention: to understand that density affects liquid placement - a liquid that floats on top of another is lighter - less dense than a heavier more dense liquid that sinks.
I left them with the question: why would understanding this be important? How can we use this understanding in our world today.
It was getting too,late I the afternoon for more follow up.
Once lab clean up was completed, we used the last ten minutes of class time to play a requested game of Thunbs Up seven Up - an oldie but classic game that the kids always request.
Monday is now officially under our collective belts!!
Have a good evening
Mrs. J.
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