Week of April 11 to 15, 2011

Thursday HW
1.  Camp Wahanowin forms and fees due on April 21.
2.  Math quiz on Unit 7 Lessons 3 and 4 on Monday April 18.
3.  Electricity materials available now for 10 dollars cash.  We start to build on Monday morning.
Much better homework completion was on display again this morning.  Well done!  As well, I also found dramatic improvement in research note taking for the First Nations PowerPoint yesterday in the computer lab.  Students received another paired period to work on computer research today.  We will have one more school research opportunity before we start to create the presentations using PowerPoint.  Students should consult other sources, including books, if they feel they need more information in any category over the weekend and tonight.

Wednesday HW
1.  Camp Wahanowin forms and fees due on April 21.
2.  Math quiz on Unit 7 Lessons 3 and 4 on Monday April 18.
3.  Persuasive paragraph 4.0:  the mini essay.  Finish the last two body paragraphs and the conclusion using the model I started for you.
4.  Page 3 of the "Tales:  Heroes, Deeds and Wonders" booklet.  This is a rough set of sketches for a larger cartoon representation of an Iroquois creation myth assignment.
Items 3 and 4 were initiated and worked on in class for an additional 20 minutes each.  Today's homework check was much better.  Only 2 of 26 students had not finished the six short persuasive activities for Persuasive Paragraph 3.0.  Let's keep up the good work!

Tuesday HW
1.  Camp Wahanowin forms and fees due on April 21.
2.  Math HW book pages 102-103
3.  Math Quiz on Unit 7 Lessons 3 and 4 on Monday April 18.
4.  Research for your First Nations PowerPoint presentation.  We have had some class time already in the Lab and with the Macbooks in class to fill in these organizers.  After a few more periods, students will use the organizers to complete their Powerpoints.  Internet use will be unavailable at that point in the interests of completing the presentation.
Persuasive writing activities continue.  During today's homework check 13 students of 29 had not completed some or all of the Thesis planner assigned as homework last night.  I'm hoping to see improvement in that rate as the year comes to a close.

Monday HW
1.  Camp Wahanowin forms and feees due on April 21.
2.  Math Unit Seven quiz on lessons 1 and 2 tomorrow.  The topic is Transformations.
3. Math HW book pages 102-103 for Wednesday.
4.  Persuasive Writing 2.0:  Make thesis statements out of topics.  We spent some time today on the idea and formation of a thesis statement.  I am encouraging the students to do two things  -- avoid simple "mad/bad/sad/nice" types of opinions and avoid making simple statements about the topic.  An example is the smoking topic.  A statement is "Smoking kills you", which is factual.  A thesis in a similar vein might be "The costs of smoking are greater than the price on the package."  The better the thesis the easier it is to write and evelop arguments.  We are working toward a five paragraph persuasive essay with a progression of skills.