Thursday 13 December 2012

December 13

English 9:  Students have 5 responses to hand before the holidays. Please ask to see the Literature Circle Assignment sheet.  Anyone who hasn't finished reading at least one novel yet should finish one over the holidays to be ready for the final projects in January.

English 8:  Students are working on their Greek myth "What? So What?" brochures (please ask them to see pink assignment sheet) which is due the last class before the holidays: December 20 for block C2 and December 21 for block B1.

French 9:  We have begun the food unit and are enjoying the new resources the French department has purchased.  Students have a quiz on the first 10 vocabulary words Monday and have a sheet with those words to study.

Drama 9:  This week we were focussing on adding slapstick to our play.

Thursday 6 December 2012

December 6

Today is my grandma's 100th birthday. I wish us all a life so long and full of learning.
Today is also the anniversary of the Montreal massacre and I remember those young girls, all about my age, murdered for wanting an education.
I have been very sick this week but have only ended up missing one and one half days and am grateful for the competent T.O.C.s who filled in for me without missing a beat.

English 8:  This week we read the last myth in our little booklet, "Psyche." We will now wrap up the unit and start our final project, "What? So What?" which will be due before the Christmas break. Block B1 will start Friday and block C2 will start Monday.

English 9:  Thank you, Ms. Clarke, for the two C.C. Humphries book prizes donated to our class today! This week students learned a simplified version of Bloom's taxonomy of thinking called "99 cents worth of questions" and have started composing questions of different complexity levels about their novels and answering them. They are working on their third response for homework, due Monday. Next week they will focus their questions on Character and write a character response.

French 9:  This week we have focussed on review for our clothing unit test, tomorrow: Friday, December 7. All clothing written projects should now be handed in. Most are on the wall. Next week, we will begin vocabulary for the food unit. Please get your child to read the French labels on food in your kitchen.

Drama 9:  I have missed two Drama classes this week due to sickness but progress on our play continues. In addition, I have asked students to prepare tableaux of "Jack in the Beanstalk" to make sure everyone knows the storyline inside and out.  They will perform these tomorrow, Friday.