This Week At School

I know, I know... I didn't post this last week (so forgive me if I talk about 2 weeks in this post... you'll never know anyways).

-  We started fractions in MATH and we've been playing with different manipulatives to help with learning them (and I must say we are doing pretty good with fractions so far).
-  We started Rocks and Minerals in SCIENCE.  Lesson one involves them mining a cookie.  They used a toothpick to do this and if they broke their toothpick and wanted a new one they had to buy a new one off of me with something that they mined out of their cookie.  I'm not sure if anyone broke their toothpick... no one bought a new one from me though.  We also talked about destroying their cookie and how that represented the land around the mine.  Would the people that lived there be happy if you blew it up into pieces?  Let me tell you... some of the pretend people living around those cookies would not be happy with them.
-  I took a personal day and it was wonderful.
-  In French we are moving on to learning about school supplies and other objects in the classroom.  I feel like I maybe should have done this first.  Ah well.
-  In Health the kids are making comics about stressful situations and positive ways to make the character feel better.  Most of their comics are about salads and bananas beating other fruits and vegetables up.
-  We had our last student share for "Star of the Cycle". I can't believe it nearly took us all year to get through everyone!  We decided that we would turn that time into show and tell for 3 people and then afterwards we would go for a walk outside (we also went for a "rock walk" for science and I had them run a lap after finding their rocks... this may have been where they got the idea).
-  One of my grade 8 classes earned a celebration for filling up a cup with marbles.  They chose to play some beach volleyball/play in the playground.  Then we sat outside and read for a bit and worked on some poetry.  It was a really great class and I'm impressed with how well behaved (and able to listen and follow instructions) most of them were!

The kids made fraction flip books with the substitute.  Later we will add in decimals for the fractions as well.

They also made Mother's Day candles with the substitute

Dutch Tulip Fields

we've been writing a bunch of poems in grade 8.  I find that if  we write at least part of one together they understand what I'm looking for... so every day weird poems end up on my board.

Remember this.... I feel like this deserves a post of its own... I mean look at my eyes!