A blustery Saturday morning in St. Philip's

As promised, here is a bit more info on what we have to look forward to in the upcoming weeks. There will no doubt be time lost to Christmas Shenanigans (concerts, activities, etc.) over the next while, but I have some high hopes about what we might be able to get done in the meantime. Book Reports, Reading Journals, Words of The Week and Math Review will continue as usual, and we will be moving into a few new projects as well.

I hope to do a fun project in the next couple of weeks, that will have students going on a Scavenger Hunt in the Library, Computer Lab, classroom, and a few websites. I think that a next step for many students is to hone their research and communication skills, and I think this would be a good way to do it. I will also be sending home more questions in their Journal de Questions over the next couple of weeks for the same reason.

We spoke as a class on Friday about ways we can continue to improve the experience in our classroom. I let them know that I was very happy with how things are coming along, but also that I think individual students have to be more accountable for their own behaviour. As in any classroom, we tend to lose time when transitioning between activities, getting ready for class, or due to interruptions. I can see students getting frustrated when this happens, and many students voiced this opinion on Friday.

I think it was a very constructive conversation, and I will keep you up to date on how it is going. The class is very hard-working and considerate, and I think they will embrace the challenge to show this even more. Students seem to really be enjoying our current program of studies, which helps keep them engaged (and thereby on-task!) As always, I welcome suggestions of activities or projects that you think may engage your child within our curriculum. For reference, feel free to peruse the Curriculum Guides on the right sidebar of my blog.

Students' individual Art DuoTangs are coming along nicely, and quickly accumulating work. I hope to have time this week to sit down and make individualized plans with some students, in an effort to have them create works of art that harness their efforts and talent while creating a detailed, coherent final product.

Having given Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's Christmas album it's first listen of the year, I'm off to tidy and start decorating. Have a great weekend and don't hesitate to be in touch.

Enjoy some classic Christmas TV! As a side note, the picture I posted earlier in the week of a young man in a clear-cut was a photo of me when I was a treeplanting foreman years back. The picture of the snow-squashed tent in this post is from that same year.