It felt like a very long week, but it was a good week.
Report cards were finished on the weekend, and we had our parent-teacher conferences on Thursday. I have many more students passing this term, which makes me feel better. I have been working hard to find alternative ways of presenting the material to the students and it has really been helping. For example: the text showed them a word problem on building a bookshelf with 3/4" plywood, so high and so wide, and how far apart would the shelves be? Well, we first dissected the problem for important information, then drew a sketch on the board, and I gave the students 3/4" masking tape to mimic the "plywood" and had them "build" the bookcase right on the desktops. It worked very well. Another example: we were working on the radius, diameter, and circumference of circles. So first we just drew circles. Then we drew circles to a set radius on teh compass, and drew the radius on the circles. We labelled them and measured them. Then we did the same thing for diameter. Listed the measurements on teh board and found a pattern, namely that diameter was 2x the radius. Next, we took string and placed it around the outside of all of our circles, and measured it. We found another pattern, in that the string was always aroung 3.13-3.15 x larger than the diameter, so we "discovered" pi. The students had it down without a single struggle to memorize anything. Well done, sez meself!
Friday afternoon, the grade 7's and I went sliding. With the snow melting fast, it may have been our last time. I had a ball, and so did they. I went down a number of times until I wiped out and pulled a muscle in my back. Luckily, I was on a snow-covered hill, so I could "ice" it right away, LOL! Then we went back to teh class for hot chocolate, apples, and homemade oatmeal-banana-chocolate chip cake. Yummmmm!
Friday night I sold tickets for Bingo, then raced over to the Crib Club for my weekly card game. I lost only one game, but I was skunked, so I was not in teh money. Sigh....
Well, it has been beautiful weather, and gorgeous Northern Lights nightly, and I think that it would not be a hardship to stay another year or two. Let's see what contract I get offered in June...
TTFN!
