New Math for Grade 7, Hot Dog Lunch on Friday, Chicken Soup Lunch on January 15th, organizing our materials, Grade 8 Math test, and concluding T

As we begin to close in on doing some work at Grade level in Math, we will be doing a review (or an introduction, perhaps) of area.  To begin with, we will be doing a couple of investigations:

After the students decide which rectangle is larger, they will have to support their answers.  To help them, I proposed an example:

Here are the students at work.

Here is some of the initial work posted up.  A few students need to complete this.  We will be doing another exercise, that is very similar, and then moving on to looking at pencil and paper work for developing our understanding of area.

The Grade 8s also had their final Math test.  Here is what it looked like:

There is a Parent Council Hot Dog and juice box lunch this Friday.  The cost is $2.50.

On Thursday, January 15th, there will be a Chicken Noodle Vegetable soup available for $3.00 (more details to follow).

One thing I believe that is really important is the organizing of the desks, so we spent some time with this before the classes began to make sure we had these key things in the desk:

If the students needed a new notebook, it was provided for them.

The film, Pleasantville concluded today.  Towards the end, there was a reference made to characters who were "coloured."

Feeling characters

sign from the film

The banning of "colored" people that was referenced in the film goes back to the days of segregation in many parts of the world, particularly in the United States, South Africa, some regions of Canada, and other parts of the world.

Here is a sign that you may have seen back in the day when racism was much more overt (out in the open):

This particular sign is from Montgomery, Alabama.
Very sad.