Dance

I love Fridays because that is the day we meet with the rest of the juniors and take a look at dance. Every Friday, all 5 junior classes pile into our room and open their minds to the world of dance. We've watched some hip hop, a tango, a few modern pieces, and today we watched this ballet. The students were mightily impressed with the athleticism of the dancing and we teachers are mightily impressed with how the students have been responding. Every week them comment on such interesting things.

Next week will be busy. We have a new math unit on measurement coming up. We are going to try and wrap up electricity soon. There is a family breakfast, morning runs, writing, gym, art, School of Rock, and so on.

We are also going to be painting our scenery. Next Thursday, we will be working to paint all of our pieces to prepare for our Haunted Circus. We are looking for random animal costumes, clown costumes, large cardboard boxes, and volunteers. If you can come and help us paint, please drop me a line. We are looking for people to come and help on Thursday at 10:20 utnil 12:00.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. See you on Monday!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

We have had a productive few days here in 310.


In math, we have had a successful first look at division. I taught them a new method that I like to call Candy Division. So far, most of the students have found success with it. You can see an example here.


In Literacy, Will read a new book called "The Incredible Book Eating Boy". The three words we discussed before reading it were metaphor, voracious, and gluttonous. It's a great book with equally interesting art. We will be doing more work with this book and comparing it to "Thank You Mr. Falker, Thank You".


Students started their letter writing this week. I am looking forward to reading their letters this weekend. After this week, I will assign each student a day where they will have to hand their letters in from now on.


Our Field Day is scheduled for this Friday. As of right now, I only have one volunteer who has to leave our trip early. This is not enough for us to go. Can anyone else volunteer to come? It is calling for rain on Friday and we will make the call on wether or not we are going by the end of the school day tomorrow.


Picture Day is tomorrow. Please get all dolled up!





ps The ticket to get into the classroom tomorrow is a handdrawn picture of a stick person doing the chicken dance.

Hot Diggity!

Shhhh

Shhhh...don't tell anyone. The code for Tuesday morning is:

The turkey flew over the angry chicken before they danced to Led Zeppelin.

See you Tuesday morning. Happy Thanksgiving.

Challenge

If a=$0.01, b=$0.02, c=$0.03, d=$0.04, etc...

The students were challenged to find the cost of certain words today like triumph and beguiling. They were also asked to find a word that costs exactly $0.99 but no one has found one yet.
So far, Sage has found the most expensive word: uncharacteristically which she says costs $1.79. Can you find a more expensive one? Please comment if you can.

We are also still looking for answers to our triangle problem. One parent emailed me an aswer of 57 but there are many more than that!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

In math today we learned about the different strategies that students use when doing mental math. We had a bit of a catch up period in Literacy, met up with Natalie who did some music with us, and had a wicked workout in gym with the sliders. You must also ask the students about The Chicken Dance. Students also had the chance to participate in The Student Vote. A great day today 310. Thank you.

Chicken Dance?
The Chicken Dance?

Catch up period in Literacy

Right Brain/Left Brain Art

Monday, October 3, 2011

Last week, Will taught his first full day. His lessons were highly engaging. He started off with the math problem you see above. The verdict is still out as to what the final answer is. What do you think?

He taught a very useful lesson on Google searching techniques and showed the students "A Google A Day". If you don't know it, Google it and check it out.

Finally, he did a very interesting lesson on unlocking the power of your right brain. The kids were fascinated with the process and the results were great.

Awesome job Will!

Our week started off with a great surge of energy. After our run, Catherine's dad Steve graciously came in to talk about electricity. The students were highly engaged and we got into some great discussions and made some interesting observations. Ask the students about the different light bulbs and how one is better than the other. Thank you for coming in Steve.

We are finishing our work with "Thank You Mr. Falker, Thank You". For the past two language lessons, students have bravely volunteered to sit on the "Hot Seat" as a character from the story. Their job was to play the role of that character. The rest of us asked the character "thick" versus "thin" questions. This is a powerful activity and students learned a lot about the motivations of characters. They are now answering this response question:

Words have power. Explain who you think used their words to triumph. Include specific examples from the text.

Please continue to reach me via email if you have any questions or concerns. tiiu.tsao@ocdsb.ca