Math 7 Exams

The math 7 exam marks will be shown to students today.  Most of the marks are fairly low.  Ask about the marks.  Today in class marks 70% and below will be going over the content again.  The other students will be making spinner games using their knowledge of circles.  

19 More Days!

It sure seems like everything is a bit of a whirlwind at school right now: Track, SMACKdown last week, a flurry of other things, and then to top it it off, I was away on Monday. The good news is that we are still working away and I don't plan on being away again this year.

A message for students is that when you miss a class, be it for an illness or track, it is your responsibility to catch up on the work. I will give you as much help as you need to catch up, but expecting the whole class to wait for you to catch up is out of the question. I can help before school, lunch time, after school, or even during class, but not at the start of class when I need to get the new lesson started. And yes, I may go fast through some content, but if I know that you are putting in a strong effort in class, I am willing to slow down, but if you are just goofing off I will continue to plug along at a rapid pace. There is no shortage of material that we could cover!

Another note is that Monday, June 1 is supposed to be Town Cleanup. If the weather is poor it will probably be moved, but that is when it is planned for. The SCC is providing a lunch afterwards.

Grade 7
Math 7 - Circles exam on Thursday and then we will be starting Integers. The integers unit will be challenge for some students, but I am excited to do it because I have been impressed by the class's math skills so far.

Social 7 - We had our Current Events Quiz today. It went fairly well. Talk to your kids about North Korea; it is a huge news story right now and the kids are knowledgable on the situation. There will be a Personal and Social Identity Exam on Wednesday, June 3.

Science 7 - Just finishing electricity. Electricity quiz on Friday and then an Exam on Energy that covers the Light, Sound, and Electrical Energy chapters. The exam will be Thursday, June 4. This exam will not be based on memorization, but instead will require students to apply and evaluate using their knowledge. I look forward to seeing how they do. Following that exam we will be doing a short unit on Ecosystems.

ELA 7 - Right now we are working on Ad Campaigns. We looked at different ads/messages and discussed what makes a strong message. The students are applying that knowledge to create an ad campaign on a way that Watson School could be improved. Maybe if some of them are great the ideas will take off! A lot of groups would really love a cafeteria.


Grade 8/9
Social 8/9 - On Monday, June 1 we will be having a Current Events Quiz. Apart from current events we are learning about Canadian Government and the history of Canadian government. At this level we really only do a brief overview, but hopefully the students will be knowledgable on how government and elections in Canada work. We could be into an election again before the year is out and it would be great for the students to be able to follow it with some interest.

Science 8/9 - We are working our way through this unit on ecosystems. I am still getting used to the 3 days on, 3 days off that I have with these science and social classes. We are still looking at symbiosis. For a look at some symbiotic relationships and some pictures of different organisms living together go to: http://www.ms-starship.com/sciencenew/symbiosis.htm. We will be looking at how scientists estimate population of different organisms in an area next week.

Math 9
Next test is coming next week. It will likely be Thursday, June 4. The exam will cover Polynomial Terminology, Adding, Subtracting, Multiplying, and Dividing Polynomials. It should be pretty straightforward, but we have had a lot of absences with track, suspensions, and so on, so before the exam all students will need to make sure that they have caught up. There are a few hand-in assignments this chapter that I will be marking before the exam which should give students an idea of where they are at. This time I will also assign the review for mandatory completion to encourage more studying; I am really hoping to not have a need for rewrites this time. After this chapter, we will look a bit at Factoring Polynomials. It is basically just undoing what we have done is this chapter - working the questions backwards.

Talk to you again soon!

Spring Fever?

Some students just returned to class from a VERY long weekend.  This is a reminder that we still have more than a month of academic learning time.  We will complete just as much in the next month as we would complete in March or November or any other month.  And by the way, congrats to those who advanced in Track and Field.  Keep up the good work.  

A lot of students are getting to class late, especially in the grade 8 and 9 classes.  I know admin. is dealing with this through suspensions, but I say just get to class!  For a class like Social that we only have 3 times a cycle being 10 minutes late really kills our time to accomplish anything.  

I have good news that most students have been getting the hang of turning in work.  I still have quite a few assignments floating out there in the ether, but I am still signing you up for Homework Club until I receive it completed.  

Grade 7

Math 7 - circles exam next Thursday.  Students will have started the review this Friday so they can spend time reviewing at home as well.  This unit has been hit and miss.  I think everyone has a basic understanding, but it is key to really know the difference between the different formulas and how to draw a circle graph for the exam.  Practice will be needed before Thursday.

Soc. 7 - some students need to hand in their Timeline/Family Tree still.  This was due the first week I was here.  Also there is the Social Justice club posters out there too.  When we have three days off from Social we need to make sure that we don't forget about the assignments.  We will be having a current events quiz next week (Wednesday) and a Personal and Social Identity Exam on around June 2nd.  

Sci. 7 - we are near wrapping up electricity.  There will be a chapter quiz soon and then as promised a larger exam on all three energy chapters.  Those are Light, Sound, and Electrical Energy.  

ELA 7 -things are going well.  We are going to do an Advertising Campaign project over the next few days.  

Grade 8/9

Most assignments are turned in.  Good work!  

Social 8/9 - current events quiz will be June 1st.  Otherwise we are just plugging along in the citizenship unit.  We just looked at the different types of governments around the world.  We will be looking a bit into politics and learning quite a bit about our democracy.  The goal of the unit is to guide students to becoming informed and active citizens.

Science 8/9 - We will be looking at adaptations in animals and plants.  We will then lead into sybiotic relationships between animals.  These are relationships like those between a parasite and a host.  Not all relationships are bad, though.  I think some of them are pretty cool.  We will watch a few videos throughout this to make it a bit more exciting.

Math 9

I have been having a blast using the Algebra Tiles.  The students seem to find them fun too.  There will a hand-in assignment next week which should give us all a gauge as to how well the students are picking up the skills.  With so many absences it is hard to say right now how well we are doing.

Another note is that the students who took the opportunity to rewrite their last exam should be done now.  The good news is that everybody improved his/her mark, but unfortunately many of them are not a drastic improvement.  I am a bit frustrated by this process as I had a student ask me minutes before the rewrite, "Can we do it tomorrow instead because like nobody is ready or had time to study."  First of all, the exam was 8 days earlier, I would hope in that time frame you had time to study and if not you probably don't deserve the chance to rewrite the exam.  It creates much more work for the teacher to administer the tutorial and create the new exam, and if you don't take it seriously you will lose the opportunity.  

Thanks for checking in.  I hope you have a great week or weekend (whenever you check this).

Expecting Lots

As I said when I arrived, I will be expecting lots, and I am holding up my end of the bargain.  Assignments will not be forgotten about with me.  I keep good records and I will hound you and send you to homework club at noon until I get the work!  Get used to it!  Students that keep up with their assignments will not have any issues with me, but I am not going to let you fall through the cracks by completing no work.  Work ethic is important to me.

Grade 7

Not a whole lot of news.  We got back our Science quizzes from last week and found that most of our scores were fairly low.  I have restructured our lessons to try and make more knowledge stick for more than a couple of hours.  I hope that we can see an improvement in this next chapter.  

In Math we are still working on circles and will have an exam in a bit more than a week.  

Math, Social, and Science will all have exams within the next two weeks.

Grade 8/9

Don't forget about the North Korea questions (Social).  Make sure to finish them by next Wednesday's class.  

In science we are looking at adaptation and succession.  These are very interesting topics surrounding why certain plants and animals thrive in certain habitats and cannot survive in others.

Math 9

Oh Math 9.  Oh oh oh.  This is Math.  For those that struggled to be successful on the exam you need to pick it up.  Marks were pretty poor for a lot of students, but there are no good excuses when you had a review that was extremely similar to the exam.  Next time you will be required to finish it; I assumed that completing a review was a logical step in studying!  I don't mean to be snarky, but I am experienced and knowledgable in math and I believe that this is an environment that anyone who puts forth an effort will experience success in.  That doesn't mean it is going to be easy, but it does mean that I will provide you with infinite assistance and encouragement as long as you are trying too.

Today we started Polynomials.  Much of the content is a repeat of the previous chapter.  We will be using Algebra Tiles in class which are a pretty cool hands-on approach to algebra.  Here is a link to an online version of Alge Tiles  http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_189_g_2_t_2.html .  

May 12

Things this week are going pretty good so far.  I had a number of students that I asked to stay in for half of noon due to poor behaviour on Monday, but things are looking up.  

Also I have a long list of missing assignments in all grades, especially grade 7.  If those assignments aren't in by Wednesday the students will be spending noon in the Homework/Detention room.  I clearly went over who this includes and what work is overdue.  

Grade 7

Overall, our math exam last week went great!  This week we are working on circles and on Monday the students discovered the amazing number that is pi.  I think almost everyone was amazed at how every circle imaginable has a value of 3.14... if you divide the circumference by the diameter.

Our Science quiz last Friday did not go as well as math, but it wasn't terrible.  I am trying to tweak the structure of the science classes to make them as productive and meaningful as they can be.  I am more used to high school science and I find grade 7 is a lot more basic theory than upper grades and it is harder to make it really interesting, but I am working on it!  We are now learning about electricity.  There will be a short quiz on Thursday just to see what we remember from Monday (this has not been mentioned at school).

ELA is going well.  On Wednesday we are doing Role Plays based on a story we read.

Social has no new news.  The Timeline/Family Tree assignment still needs to be turned in by a lot of students.  Last week students researched a social justice/charity.  I hope they learned a bit about how we can help others in need.  We are also going to be looking at some current events, such as the flooding in Winnipeg last month.

Grade 8/9

Science has been off for a while (we have it 3 days and then don't for 3 days).  We are still looking at the Water Cycle.  We will then be looking at Food Webs.

Social has us continuing our look at Citizenship and the history of citizenship in Canada.  The fact that Canadian citizenship was established in 1947 as a memorial for our soldiers is very interesting!

We will also be looking at some current events in this class.

Math 9

Exam on Wednesday!  I am excited to see how well the class can do on the exam.  The students should be completing their review and having parents sign it for a bonus mark.  

After the exam we will be starting Polynomials.  I am going to try teaching it using Algebra Tiles, which are a hands-on visual way of introducing the topic.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Feel free to leave a comment if you read this.  

Coming Up

Things have been going pretty good so far, but a lot of students are "forgetting" about homework.  This a trend that needs to stop and this website is designed to assist with that.

Below is a look at some things we have coming up:

Grade 7

Math 7 - starting unit on circles.  No exam for a while!

Soc. 7 - researching a charity or social justice organization.

Sci. 7 - starting a short chapter on Electricity.

ELA 7 - starting up spelling tests!  We have our first on Monday, May 11.  

Grade 8/9 - way too many incomplete assignments!!!

Soc. 8/9 - not much going on right now in terms of projects.  Learning about citizenship.

Sci. 8/9  - completing an illustration on the Water Cycle.  Due. Wed., May 13 Extended until May 14

Math 9

Exponents Exam on Tuesday, May 12.  There will be a review handed out on the Friday before.  This is a tough section, but practise makes perfect.

Any comments or questions don't hesitate to contact me.

First Week

Things have gone well this first week.  Thanks to everyone for the friendly gestures.

Next week has the following assignments and exams/quizzes:

Grade 7 

Math Chapter 7 Exam Thursday, May 7

Science Chapter 8 Quiz Friday, May 8

Social Timeline/Family Tree Project Wednesday, May 6

ELA Goalie Mask Design Wednesday, May 6

~ I know this looks like a lot, but I am giving lots of class time!

Grade 8/9

Social Canadian Symbols Collage Tuesday, May 5

Math 9

There will be an exam near May 12.  It is not set in stone yet, but that is an approximate idea.