Thursday, May 22, 2014

Before reviewing the "paragraph puzzle" type exercise with the class, I noticed something when I was looking at the finished products.  Most of the students thought that the mixed up sentence strips were part of one big paragraph.  In fact, they are from two separate paragraphs.

After seeing my error, the groups when back to work to come up with the new format.

Old format of 1 paragraph versus correct 2 paragraph format.

I came up with another small group exercise relating to paragraphing.  We'll see if we get to it today.  If not, we'll do it tomorrow.

Each of the groups in Grade 7 had an opportunity to look at the different leveled responses for the Playground Design assignment we did.  Each group was provided with detailed feedback on what they did correctly and where they need to improve the next time around.  In order the give the feedback, I had to make sure that I could do the work.  So, I modeled one page for the class:

Theses two photos are from the Grade 8s taking up their Integer homework.  Where the answers are incorrect, we make the corrections.  I forgot to correct Trine's work and now see that her answer is incorrect.  I will use this as a point of review for tomorrow's class.  There was a double-sided sheet with problem solving questions relating to the adding and subtracting of Integers.
 

 

I am a bit disappointed that many of the Grade 7s have not been attempting to do their homework or put in a sincere effort relating to our unit on Algebra.  This is a challenging unit and new for a lot of students.  But difficulty and challenge are a part of life and need to be faced.  I am proud of the small group number of students who have made the leap to stretch themselves, review their work and learn something new.