Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Welcome back. The above photo is an image taken from the TDSB Choices booklet which introduces Grade 8 students to secondary school.  A number of the students going into Grade 9 will be taking courses at the Applied Level next year but most of the students will be starting out by taking courses at the Locally Developed level which will assist them in the transition to Grade 9.  Along with this course, there is the GLE (Learning Strategies) course they will take to develop their Learning Skills.  These are the skills outlined on the first page of the report card and, in my opinion, really essential for the success in school.

I am getting off topic.  I posted this chart because I wanted the students to recognize that they can take a course at the Locally Developed level and then transition to the Applied level and have options open for both college and university.  Information about the specifics of the courses available at the secondary level in the TDSB can be seen at:  http://www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/programs/course_descriptions_secondary_school/docs/36%20-%2037%20-%20Course%20Types.pdf

The school had a lockdown drill today.
The students had a double period of Music with Mr. Chung.

The afternoon involved resuming the regular routines of doing cursive writing along with working on the next section of the Strength Based Resilience project.  This section concerned thinking shortcuts and encouraging the students to become aware of some of the thinking they do that might undermine their ability to be resilent.  I will post a few photos and comment briefly about each one.  For homework, the students had to do the first 4 example on page 8 of their student workbook.

Jumping to conclusions can be dangerous if you are not aware of the full picture!

Usually when there are challenges or difficult situations, there are many factors which cause it.

Tunnel vision prevents us from seeing things on the outside.  It sometimes causes us to jump to conclusions.

When we focus  on the things we struggle with (MAGNIFY) and ignore our talents, we are not able to celebrate our improvements or showcase the talents we have.

  
HOMEWORK:  Complete the first 4 Thinking Shortcut samples in the SBR workbook.