Eleven excellent European projects are now complete and ready to be shared. Some students chose to learn from playing these games in class today while others continued to view the last disc of our Planet Earth series.
HOMEWORK: None for the weekend unless you are still missing assignments. Although many of you brought in old assignments, we have too many outstanding. Contribute to our goal of having ZERO missing by bringing in your work on Monday!
Today’s Planet Earth session focused on the future of our planet and its inhabitants. The producers and photographers who helped to create this BBC series shared insights as to the precarious balance of the plants and animals on Earth. Students discussed even little ways that they could make a difference now to help to keep our environment healthy and to slow down the destruction of natural habitats.
HOMEWORK: Please continue to bring in old assignments that you may be missing. Check the clipboard daily to keep up with your responsibilities. If you have all 8 assignments in, then you have no homework.
About half of the students were able to play their group’s learning games in class today. Tomorrow those groups will switch and play each other’s games to learn about a new European country. The remainder of the students will test their own game and begin switching on Thursday.
All but 3 of our penpal letters are ready to go. Those of you who have been absent can get these to me by email so I can get them out to the students who are waiting in Bulgaria.
HOMEWORK: No homework unless you have missing assignments. There are 23 assignments missing for all 30 students and quite a few of these are due to absences, so we are actually in pretty good shape. Let’s aim for ZERO missing assignments by this weekend!!
Penpal letters are ready to go to Bulgaria. Due to the fact that letters will be exchanged electronically, we should have our responses by the end of this week! We had several people absent today and so will wait until after tomorrow’s class to send them. The ESL classes at the American College of Sofia have 34 students and we have 30 students in our geography classes, so a few of us will get to have 2 penpals!!
European learning games started today and will continue the rest of this week.
HOMEWORK: Please get your penpal letter signed. Your parent’s signature means that you have permission to take part in our penpal project. Be sure to explain to your parents that the penpals are students in my son’s ESL class and that we will be helping them to improve their English skills. They can easily look at The American College of Sofia (in Bulgaria) online and maybe even find a picture of the 8th grade ESL class.
A few students were able to ‘test’ play their board games today; seems like the majority of the group needs one more day to finish production. We will finish up on Monday at the latest and spend the remaining days of next week playing each other’s European board games to learn about several of the 44 countries on this highly populated continent.
HOMEWORK: Please get your progress report signed and returned to me on Monday. Let’s aim for 100%!!!
European research projects continue as students work towards finishing board games. It is delightful to work with such enthusiastic learners and to observe the positive collaborative learning in the classroom. Planning, problem solving, creative thinking and the reward of a job well done are all happening with so much enthusiasm! Students hope to play these games starting next week so classmates will learn from the research done.
HOMEWORK: None, if you are not missing any assignments. If you are, get them in no later than tomorrow in order to be recorded on the upcoming progress report.
Students continued group work on their European board games in class today. Each group will have the opportunity to play other student’s games, learning about many of the 44 countries of Europe.
HOMEWORK: In complete sentences, write out 3 facts about your country that you might include in your board game project. Some ideas for these facts include:
Bordering countries population land marks capital city rivers
language spoken natural resources surrounding oceans currency
Students started writing what is hoped to be the first of many letters to a penpal in Bulgaria. The students in Bulgaria attend the American College of Sofia and will improve both their English writing and reading skills through this activity. Our first letters of introduction also included an explanation of the mini-mester courses that were enjoyed last week. We look forward to hearing back from our European pen pals once a week for the next 5 or 6 weeks as we learn about life as a young Bulgarian citizen. There will be no class tomorrow due to Green and Gold Day activities.
HOMEWORK: Spend at least 15 minutes on the sheppardsoftware.com site on the European continent. Bring a signed note in on Wednesday stating that you did so. Begin on level one and work as long as you would like to in order to master the location of the 44 countries in Europe!!
Some students voted today to watch the deserts and caving chapters of Planet Earth. Some students wanted to continues their game board European projects. Some students chose to do both! We will continue our European projects when we return to regular classes on April 16th.
HOMEWORK: Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!
Students continued working on creating game boards in class today. Students are responsible to make sure that players will learn something interesting about their country by playing the game. Students created a list of ideas that might be included in each game. These ideas included landmarks, physical features, resources, religion, identification of the flag and the capitol city, facts about history and the culture of the country. We look forward to a ‘game day’ upon our return to geography class after mini-mester.
HOMEWORK: Continue to prepare for tomorrow’s vocab quiz. You will write 4 good sentences and fill in the blank of my four sentences. There will be a word bank.
