Week of October 18-22, 2010

Thursday HW
Keep working on sections of the Science Diversity project.  The elements of the project are explained in detail in each student's Diversity booklet on page 19.  Today we painted the Dear World letter sheet and had time to write a rough and/or good copy of it in class.  Complete summary, reflection and new headline for the News Journal from today.  Take into account the feedback I provided in your previous marked work.  Photo retake day is on November 12.  Stratford actor visit tomorrow, in advance of our trip next Wednesday.

Wednesday HW
Science Project is due October 28.  I distributed additional sheets and bristol board in class yesterday for good copies.  Formal letter practice in semi-block style.  Complete a good copy of your letter in pen and on lined paper.  We had 30 minutes to peer and self edit today using dictionaries, thesauruses and COPS sheets.  We also reviewed the purpose of each of the four paragraphs in the letter and reinforced the semi-block style.  Math HW book pages 20 and 21.  Skip the game on page 21 as we will play it in class tomorrow.  Photo retake day is on November 12.  The class worked very well today -- great focus and attention.
 
Tuesday HW
Science Project is due October 28.  I have additional sheets and bristol board available in class for good copies.  Formal letter practice in semi-block style.  Complete a letter in rough draft form in your Writing notebook from the list of choices in the Writing Sense text we looked at today.  We had 20 minutes to select a topic and brainsorm ideas in class.  A fair number of students did not complete the News Journal work from last night or omittted the Reflection portion.

Monday HW
Keep taking notes for Science Project.  We are looking at formal and friendly letters tomorrow in class to help prepare those genres for the project.  Complete Friday's and Monday's News Journals.  We spent most of a period working on Friday's journal, focussing primarily on Summary creation which is an area our class needs to work on, and most kids finished that.  We spent about 20 minutes working on Monday's journal at the end of Language so the kids should have a very good start on this homework.  Math HW book pages 18-19.  Catch up on any class work you have missed if you have been absent or out of school recently. 
Today's homework club was well attended once again with 17 students of 35 in attendance.  We worked one to one on things such as homework catch-up, inverse operations in math, computer research for the project and CASI.  Bravo!