Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Here are a few random images from around the school I wanted to post.

Spring afternoon

Humber Jazz concert: May, 2012

Nick taking in the Jazz

Tracking Chart

The last photo is important.  This is a chart that is up in the class as a visual reminder for students of the work they need to complete.  In addition to using the agenda, this chart provides students with at-a-glance ability to figure out what they have and have not done. 

I would like the students to get in the habit of asking other classmates what they missed rather than me.  This encourages a sense of ownership and satisfaction for the other students who have completed their work and being asked for help and guidance.  It also develops, I hope, a sense of responsibility and accountability for the person who needs to catch up on something they did not do.

I have used this method for over 10 years and found it very useful.  Students cannot use the excuse that they did not know what to do because it is listed on the chart.  I also encourage them to ask others in the class about the work, in case they are confused.

One note that was erased from my earlier post today concerned the film and work on our mini-unit on the Titanic.  We are watching James Cameron's epic film as a bit of a back drop to the comprehension work we are doing.  Today, each member of the class read a short portion from the article handed out last week.  In terms of the possible writing we will be doing, I had the students write down 15 words that were related to the article.  The template looks something like this:

 The exercise comes out of The Canadian Reader publication from Montreal.

Once I take a look at the selected words, the students will work in pairs to decide the top 15 words that will go on a sheet and then proceed to cut them out to create a timeline of events related to the sinking of the ship.  After that, they will work on writing a summary of the events, according to their timeline.

In Math, the students are working on learning about probability.  From a few nights ago, the students had to think of examples of things that ranged from "impossible" to "certainly" might happen.

More accurately, I think the range of options should have been the ones I had the students record in their notebooks today, along with the percentages of events occurring. 

I have downloaded some excellent, interactive lessons to use with the SMARTBoard for this unit.  We will explore those more tomorrow and some games that can be found on the computer.  If you would like to get a head start, take a look at this link with many online games http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/ExpProbability/

HOMEWORK:  Introductory Probability sheet #1-10 both sides.  Half of the questions are already done.  Here is a sample of one of the questions, correctly done:

 This will be reviewed with everyone tomorrow.