Tuesday, 23 October

Today we began with a French lesson.  I chose an immersion format but used a text book to give structure to the meaning of the words.  We had lots of repetition and started to build on our vocabulary:
girl, boy, table, ruler, eraser, door and window.  We also did attendance in French and counted to 29.  We finished with a review of the salutations that we learned in the past.  Afterwords, we used the link at the bottom of yesterday's post to consider the advantages of studying another language.

I also gave the first real lesson associated with our poetry assignment for Remembrance Day.  We learned to consider the imagery in the poem when deciding on the piece's tone.  We also discussed the difference between the poet and the speaker.  Finally, I modeled the reading of the first two "sections."

After recess we continued preparing for our unit pre-test in math.  I was pleased with the focus and stick-with-it-ness that I saw.  As students finished, they moved on to individual work.  Anyone not finished their study package was asked to do so for homework.  
REMEMBER: tomorrow you have a math unit pre-test.

After lunch we established the routine for the socials presentations that we did last Thursday.  I gave out rubrics so the students could do a self evaluation to accompany my assessment (on a similar rubric).   Seven students chose to give their short presentations today.  Although they had the choice to sit at their desks, all chose to deliver from the front of the room.    In terms of content, I noted that most had weak or missing conclusions.  In terms of delivery, some sounded a bit rushed.  Nevertheless, I thought that all who spoke today did well.
The remainder of the class will be required to give their presentations tomorrow.  See last Thursday's blog post if you need the web sit link.

We also finished our viewing of the film, Flowers for Algernon.  We moved from there to a lengthy discussion on empathy and bullying.  Our discussion ended with consideration of the ways we as a class could actively stop bullying in our school community. We will use the novel Crash to help us continue that discussion later.

Tomorrow we have art at 09:40: I hope you have all had a chance to make it to Wood's for art supplies.

The school nurse has asked that tomorrow be considered the deadline for grade 6 immunization forms.