January 31th 2012

What we did


Today, in Ms Lees humanity class, we had silent reading for about 15 minutes.  For the silent reading, we read 'There will be wolves'.  Then, Ms Lees solved some problems that was happening with the blog.  The problems were mostly not being able to post, Ms Lees can't see our blog stuff and  some people weren't following Ms Lees yet.   Then, we had some interruption with the fruit program.  Fruit program is a program to make us eat more healthy fruit and today we ate a pear.  Then, we started to discuss about the novel questions in groups of 3s.   However, if you weren't finished, you had to finish it when everyone else was having a discussion. 

Why we did it


I think Ms Lees made us do the silent reading because she was busy at lunch time with leo club, and she had to have her lunch.  She fixed the problem with the blogs because some people couldn't post and it was a problem.  We discussed about the novel question because by discussing, we can get better at oral communication.  Also, a lot of people had different answers, so we told each other what we got.  We got into groups of 3s and used chips because we didn't want one person dominate the discussion.

Connections/Reflections


I think discussion about novel question was great because I think it is useful in many ways.  For example, you became the president of United States.  You sometimes have to discuss with other senates and if you are a good communicator, you will do what you want to do not what other people make you to do.   Also, I think silent reading would help us a lot because it makes you to concentrate, so I think you can concentrate better when you do other activities like playing a soccer game. 

Homework&Tips


Read Chapter 3 for novel 'There will be wolves' and those of you that didn't finish the novel questions, finish them.  Also, if you need extra help, Flex is normally on Thursdays.

What we did:

Today in Ms.Lees humanities class we went to the library to review our learning blogs. We also looked back at some goals we set from January,to see of we had achieved them. After we set some goals for the upcoming month.Some of our goals included: posting regularly,and being more detailed on our responses.

Learning intention:

I think Ms.Lees wanted us to reflect on our goals from January to see how far we have come since then. She also wanted us to review our learning blogs because it was important to see how much better our posts have become since the start of the blogs. Ms.Lees also wanted us to peer evaluate because it will be a useful skill in the future.

Connections/Reflections:

I think that it was good that we reviewed our blogs today together as a group because we worked together and explained what each person needed to work on more. I think that peer evaluating will help all of us in the future because we learned what teachers look for in our work and got help/advice from others that are working on the same assignment as you.
Homework Tips:

We will be presenting our novel webs tomorrow and if you have not finished your "there will be wolves" questions they are due tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 18th

What did we do?

Ms. Lees had trouble with the geography test so she asked us to help. Unfortunately the people who marked it did not total the mark up. They seem to not know that there was an answer key prepared for them either because they marked one of them. Since they might not have marked some tests with the key, there might be some incorrect markings. To make sure it was all correct, Ms. Lees read out the answers and helped us mark it. We also got to look at our test after everyone was done calculating the mark. Because we spent almost the whole block marking the tests, Ms. Lees said she'll extend the due date of our concept maps to the end of block one on Friday. At the end of class, Ms. Lees tried to show us a video, but ran out of time, so she posted the video on the blog instead.

Why did we do this?

We marked the geography test because it would only take one block to mark it if the whole class marked two each, while it would take Ms. Lees hours to mark all of them by herself. We could check if the mark was totaled up correctly by taking a look at our own tests. Ms. Lees wanted us to see the video she was planning to show us because she wanted us to compare it with Wednesday's class.

Connection/Reflection

Calculating scores could be connected to math, and marking the test would be good practice now if you want to become a teacher or similar jobs later on. I think it was difficult to correct both tests at the same time because I often forget that I have two tests to mark. I felt relieved after Ms. Lees told us that we had one more block to finish up our concept maps.

Homework & Tips

Plan out your pictures so you won't waste time on Friday.

Wednesday, January 11th

What We Did Today

We had a substitute teacher today, since Ms Lees had an appointment. The teacher showed us a plan for the morning, on the overhead written by Ms Lees.

For the first block, we got in our novel groups and worked on our webs. We discussed about the headings we could have, about the middle ages. For example, some headings could be food, clothing, religion, etc. Then each group member got assigned one or a few headings and was supposed to takes notes on it according to the novel. If you finished early, you could start thinking about the pictures and the web layout.

We had about 20 more minutes to finish our webs after break. After that the teacher handed out some editing checklist and rubric. We were to find a partner and trade our paragraphs that we wrote before for him/her to proofread. We were to fill out a checklist and highlight a rubric for each paragraph of our partner's. When the paragraphs are are edited and ranked by our partner, we have to do a good copy of them either written neatly in pen or printed in Arial font, size 12.

Why Did We Do This?

We discussed about the web headings with our novel group to work on our communication skills. We should learn to give ideas while also listening to other people's opinions. We are making webs based on our novels because our historical novels include a lot of information about the middle ages. By making a web, we can not only learn about the middle ages, but also learn to organize information and illustrate it.

By letting someone else proofread your paragraphs can decrease the errors in spelling, grammar, and other issues. Reading it out loud helps you to understand it better and also easier to find mistakes in sentences. Editing someone else's work can allow you to see what others are good at and to learn from them.

Connections/Reflections

I think making webs together with our group members was much easier if I was doing it on my own. My group members thought of many different headings and ideas that I didn't think of. This way we can gather more information in less time and work. Making webs would help me later on if I wanted to organize something in a easy way. I could use communication skills almost everywhere, anytime. Better communicating skills means less confusion from others.

Having someone proofread my writing would prevent a lot of errors being made in my good copy. I can't notice some errors even when I read it over and over again. Being able to write good paragraphs means being able to write good essays. Being able to write good essays means that the rest of your life will be much more easier, because you will need to write essays all through school and even work if it involves presenting information.

Homework

- Do a good copy of your paragraphs, either typed out or written in pen.

Tips

- Bring in winter clothing for "Warm and Fuzzy Drive".

William is doing the next post.

Learning log Dec 10

What we did today

Today we did the Geography Challenge for the whole first block. It consisted of 90 questions and was marked out of 100 (10 questions gave 2 marks). It was very hard to do because we didn't even learn most of the info on the test (i'll be calling the Geography Challenge a test from now on) and most of the questions were based on prior knowledge or guessing.

Why we did it

We wrote the geography challenge to help with our geography skills and to decide who got the highest marks in our class because the school will take the 25 students with the highest marks in the entire school to a bigger tournament-type thing.

Connections/Reflections

In my opinion I believe think that the geography challenge was very hard compared to most tests we'll eventually have, since we couldn't exactly study for it and the fact that there were 90 questions of questions that made most of us guess the answers because we had nothing to study.

Homework

No actual homework except finish your social studies textbook notes, finish reading your books if you hadn't already and remember to go to Thursday's flex if you need to

Learning Log-Jan 9

What we did today

For the first part of the day we discussed things coming up such as geography challenge being tomorrow, and explanations on our course selection for gr.9 and how it'll have more options than grade 8 course selection and other things. After doing some geography challenge rounds on European countries, festivals, and remarkable wind formations, we started looking at our novel projects and about how we read it more for learning social studies than English (such as learning about traditions, clothing etc. of the time), and expectations and criteria for the "concept maps" such having good information, organization and co-operation.

Why we did It

We discussed geography challenge so we'd all be ready for the fact that its tomorrow and we need to be focused in order to finish all the questions. We talked about the course selection because sometime this week, the counselors will be coming to our class to discuss about it and so we could learn more things about course selection if we were confused. We went over the concept map, mainly to learn what an actual concept map is and expectations for them since we would have to be working on them soon.

Connections/Reflections

I think that being able to choose our courses for next year would be an excellent way to prepare for later in our life when deciding what job you want, since choosing your courses and choosing a job are very similar in ways such as, don't do it if your just doing it to be with a friend, and to choose what would benefit you the most. I feel that they geography challenge might improve our geography skills so we can use them later in our lives and dont get lost planning a trip to Disneyland or any where else you might have to go that you are unfamiliar with.

Homework

I don't believe there is homework today but go to flex on thursday if you need the help or are stuck on homework and if you for some reason didn't Dinah reading your novel, than you should finish reading it

Learning log Jan 4

What we did

Today we started the day by practicing the Geography Challenge in which we answered 30 hard questions about geographical history etc. After that we re-watched a video about the middle ages and the three various periods of the middle ages (early, high and late) while taking notes at the same time. After the break, we all went to the library to go and work on our various blogs, by discussing criteria and expectations for the blogs. For the rest of the block we were discussing the quality of blog posts of the fellow blogers in our blog groups by grading them on a scale of 1-5, 1 being the worst, and 5 being the best.

Why We did it

We practiced our Geography Challenge to prepare for the upcoming official Geography Challenge and to increase our overall speed in finishing them, since there will be many questions. We watched the video to learn about the middle ages and to finish it because we didn't the last time we watched it.
We spent a whole hour working on our blogging skills to improve them and to asses weak points to improve on and to decide who's good at posting and who's not so good.

My reflections/connections

I believe that by taking notes on the middle ages video, we would have improved our note taking skills, since we were watching a video instead of reading a book we would have to deal with taking notes and listening for more things to take notes on at the same time, so we should have improved. When doing our blog work on the second block I believe we improved our blog writing by looking for parts that are bad in the blog and improving on them, the blogging skills can be further used to help with essays you may write in the future or if you grow up to have a formal blog of your own.

Homework

Finish reading your novels, you have until Monday to finish

What we did : Today in humanities class we discussed key events and what we have done/worked on so far this year. We also talked about some upcoming events like the fuzzy drive (you can donate and clothing,slippers,socks etc. but only clean items). Also Ms.Lees' told us today that we will be having a geography challenge next week on Tuesday. After we were done discussing the upcoming events we were asked to draw a graph based on our: behavoir, understanding, and effort so far this year. We were also expected to write a few sentences on the back of our graphs explaing them and writing down a goal for January.


Learning Intention: I think that the reason that we discussed earlier events this year during class today is because Ms. Lees' wanted us to reflect on everything that has happened so far this year and to review the stuff we have already learned. We talked about upcoming events because it is important to know what is going on around the school and it is important to get involed and help out in any way possible for example the "Warm and Fuzzy Drive" by donating our clothes to people that are less fortunate is a good way to help society. The reason we did our graphs today is because Ms.Lees' wanted us to reflect on our behavoir/effort/understanding of what we have done so far this year. Ms.Lees' wanted us to write a few sentences and a goal on the back of our graphs because it is important and helpful to set reasonable goals in life.

Connections/Reflections: I think that what we did today was good for all of us because it is important to look back and see how far we have come since then. For example at the beggining of the year my plot diagrams and character webs were not very good they could be quite poor sometimes; however now my work had improved a lot and i am more confident in my work than i was before. Personally i think that it is good to set goals because it gets you motivated to get up and make yourself proud. I think that it is important that we learn how to pick a good goal while we are in school because this is a skill we can use in our lives as we get older and into the higher grades; no matter what path we all take this will help us to be inspired and not to give up.

Homework/Tips: remember that there is a warm and fuzzy drive going on this week and next week the winning class gets an ice cream party, also the geography challenge is next week. Also we must be finished reading our novels before next monday, even if you already have read your book it is always good to refresh your memory. Dont forget we will be doing webs about the novels soon and there will not be a mid term for humanities just a year end test.

John will be doing the next post.