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!