Friday, June 17, 2011

The last of the presenters did their Show and Tell today.  Here are a few of the images:

The students are also embarking on their last mini unit in Math for the school year.  It concerns mean, median, and mode.  Sometimes they are collectively known under the word "average", but we are learning that each of the terms have different meanings.  Here is a photo from one of the hands-on review exercises we did before doing some work from the textbook.

The ability for the students to move the Post-it notes around allows them to see how the average for Lia's scores can remain the same even if she scores are high on one test and lower in another.  For the purposes of the class, I would like them to see that "average" simply refers to data being levelled out.

In this case, Lia's average score on all four tests is 6/10.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The year is close to over, but there is still so much work to do!
This morning, we had our Bixi bike comprehension quiz and it has not been marked.  I do have several items to return tomorrow and you may ask your son or daughter, sister or brother about them and how they did.

The Grade 8s continued to do some research in Science for a small project they are working on.  The Grade 7s will be exploring some structures and designing some buildings to withstand some tests of mass on them. 
Both the Grade 7s and 8s are participating in a " Show and Tell" exercise, meant to encourage speaking and presentation skills.  Here are some photos of the objects that were presented today:

The balance of the class will present either on Thursday or Friday.  I will be absent in the morning while I attend a workshop regarding a pilot project that Room 52 will be taking part in for the 2011-2012 school year on supporting resiliency in students with Learning Disabilities.
Homework:  Students who are presenting their Show and Tell needed to practice their presentation skills

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

This has been a very busy time of year and I have not posted for a few days.  At this time of year, a lot of learning is being consolidated in preparation for the completion of the report cards.

The Grade 8s are currently working on an in class Science project on the human body and the Grade 7s have been doing some work related to structures and mechanisms.  They will be building some structures over the next few days and I will be posting some photos as they get further into their work.

After an extensive review, the Grade 7s had their final Geography test on absolute location.  I modified the test and did a review of the last test.  It is my aim that none of the students fail and I will find out as soon as I mark them. Similarly in Math, the students reviewed a study sheet I prepared and sent home on Friday for a test this afternoon.  As soon as those results are know, I will inform the students.

The students are always informed, in advance, of major quizzes and tests and reviews are always done to ensure that the students are not given forms of evaluation or assessment without being aware of what they have to do.

The Show and Tell, scheduled to begin today has been moved tomorrow due to an unforeseen complication in the class involving the iPhone and iTouch devices used for the University of Toronto study of the myVoice app from iTunes. 


The Bixi bike comprehension quiz will take place tomorrow morning.  I shortened the article that I posted last week.  The quiz will include multiple choice questions and short answer questions. 

Thursday, June 9, 2011

The final Grade 7 Algebra test will take place tomorrow after a review in the morning.

We spent a fair bit of time this morning looking at the Bixie bike article and the review questions from the pretest.  A number of students did not complete the homework and this is a bit of a concern.  Please make sure to check the agenda to see if homework has been written down and if it has been brought home.  The final test will be on Monday.  It was originally scheduled for Friday, but due to the number of times the students are on rotary, it has been moved to Monday.  Please remind your son or daughter, sister or brother to review the article for Monday's test.

We finally completed Worse Than Boys.  Tomorrow morning, a journal question will be asked to see how the students felt about the book.  Ask them about it!

The Grade 8s completed their Algebra test while the Grade 7s completed a Geography test.  A lot of work was accomplished today, but it was very, very, hot in the room.  The students have shown tremendous discipline in being able to stay so focused.

Wenesday, June 8, 2011

Until the end of the school year, we will continue to read quietly in the morning. If students wish to bring a morning snack to eat, they will be allowed to.  I strongly encourage them to bring water bottles (preferably not plastic) to keep hydrated during these hot days.

I took the group of 3 Grade 8 students to review the Algebra Pretest that I marked.  The final test will be on Thursday. The Grade 7s underwent two reviews of Longitude and Latitude to prepare for Thursday's quiz.

The class spent a large part of the day looking at the issue of inferring.  We used a graphic organizer and series of photographs to record facts and then infer from them.  We did two examples, before the students were broken into groups to work on other photos.  Here is the first photo and our recorded observations:

There were two photos I forgot to upload to the blog from yesterday's movement exercise.  Here they are:

Homework:  Grade 8 Algebra Final
                    Bixie Bike Pretest comprehension questions for 7s and 8s
                    Grade 7 Geography quiz

Monday, June 6, 2011

The Snack Program has ended for the 2010-2011 school year.


Here is the link for the article on the Bixi bike service in Toronto http://teachkidsnews.com/2011/05/29/bixi-comes-to-toronto-and-ottawa/.  There will be a Reading Comprehension test on this article on Wednesday.  We will review some strategies for answering comprehension questions on Tuesday.

The morning raced by quickly.  We got into some Drama and Dance work by having the students perform a movement that expressed a feeling they had about their weekend.  This was an attempt to change the Community Circle exercise into a more active one.  Rather than using words, we used our bodies to express something that happened over the weekend.  Here are a few photos from the exercise:

The Grade 8s had their Math Pretest this morning.  It will not be graded, but the "test" will be used to see what areas of improvement are needed before the final test on Wednesday.  The Grade 7s will have their Pretest in the afternoon.

The students were out on rotary for most of the afternoon.  They were in Library today and you might have noticed that I have added the school library web link on the blog.  Ms. Wills has done an excellent job of integrating all strands of the curriculum into her Library program for the students.  All of her assignments have been taken into consideration as I begin to compile and prepare to write the June report cards.

There is no homework tonight.  A Geography test will happen this week after a review of the Pretest from last week.

Friday, June 3, 2011

It is hard to believe that it is June and the end of school is, I believe, 18 days away.
The snack program ended today and will not begin until the new school year.  Maria Machado, our class EA, played a very important role in ensuring that students at AMG had their snacks on time and the intense job of keeping track of the administration of the program.

The Grade 7s are preparing to do some work in Science on Structures and Mechanisms.  They will be doing some designing and I will be sure to add the images to the blog.  We viewed a Bill Nye the Science Guy video today as a way to talk about the unit of study.

The students in both Grade 7 and 8 were spoken to about the importance of being focused and on task for the final few weeks of school.  There was an assembly this morning where a number of teachers and the Vice Principal spoke to the students.

We are close to completing our class novel, Worse than Boys and I am glad to see that both the boys and girls are engaged so enthusiastically with the book.  It has generated a lot of discussion and critical thought.  I thought we might be able to read one more book before the end of the year, but time is running out.

In Art class we worked with charcoal and produced some fine pieces of work (not to mention, dirty hands).  Here is a selection of items from our class:

The last image is of the homework tracking chart.  An X indicates an uncompleted assignment (or one not handed in) and a :) face indicates a piece of work successfully submitted.  A "smiley" face is no guarantee of a particular grade.

As for homework this weekend, the Math "pre tests" scheduled for today have been postponed until Monday.  These tests were going to be for the Grade 7s and 8s.

Wednesday, June 1

I apologize for not posting yesterday. 

In addition to our usual routines of reading and having Snack, we spent some time yesterday reading a new Reading Comprehension article on the Bixie bike rental service in Toronto.

We listened to the article using a "PDF Aloud" program and I read it.  We took a look at the Bixie website and saw some of the locations you could rent the bikes from.  The Bixie site is located at https://toronto.bixi.com/ .  We followed this up by completing a Reading Response in class and I was impressed that a number of students scored Level 3 (B) responses.  I think this had to do with the conversation and viewing we did about the topic before we wrote the responses.  We will follow up on this article by having a more detailed comprehension assignment in the coming days.

Some progress has been made in the area of understanding Longitude and Latitude.  I took a look at the homework some of the students attempted and took note of the mistakes and created a lesson to address these problems.  Here is an image from some work in the board:

There will be a short quiz on these concepts on Thursday morning.

The balance of the afternoon was taken up with the Jump Rope For Heart activity.  The students from Room 52 had a lot of fun and I have posted some of the photos from this afternoon's activities:

There was no homework tonight aside from the Grade 7s studying for the Geography quiz on Thursday morning.