What We Did
We started the class by trying to figure out where Shaneses' geography test went because she couldn't find it but it turned out she or somebody misplaced her test in the other classes file. If you can't find yours in our class geography test file, you should probably check the other classes file because it'll be likely to be in there. Also, remember to discuss with Ms.Lees about the time your going to come in to finish your geography test if you haven't yet. It shouldn't take you too long to finish it because we've already learnt the things. Ms.Lees told us our class is very slow on the portfolio conferences because a lot of people aren't ready which means that our portfolios aren't complete so just remember to get your portfolios organized before so she can go through yours quickly and get to everyone in the class. If you don't have some things in the portfolio, she'll mark you as INCOMPLETE. She said some people probably will need to come afterschool or before school (anytime out of class) to finish the conferences soon. Not even half of the class has been through the conference which isn't good!
Also, Ms.Lees informed us about the spelling bee coming up this Friday. Remember to study the spelling words and if you get chosen on Friday, you get to decide if you want to be brave and go to the school's spelling bee on Monday afterschool, but if you know you get really nervous talking in front of people (like me), you can just tell Ms.Lees about that and she'll get someone else to fill in for you. Just tell her on Friday after the spelling bee. Ms.Lees recommands us to go to the spelling bee on Monday afterschool (thetre) to watch because if one of the spellers can't make it, someone will have to fill in for them and if you go, you might get a chance to try.
We spent most of our class time today watching a video about the middle ages and taking notes. The video was about "History of the Middle Ages" and we had to take notes in point form about the things the people in the video said about the middle ages. We split our paper into two columns, one with "Main Ideas" on it and the other, "Details". We would write the main idea and write the details. For example, Early Middle Ages - Charles the Great -- and other facts. The video went pretty fast so we had to stop the video several times so we could get all the information down on our paper, but Ms.Lees said we will get better at taking notes as we do lots of them through the year. Ms.Lees wrote on the board today what we should avoid when we are taking notes. One of them were to avoid repetation which means repeating things. To prevent from repeating the same thing over and over, we could use abbreviations, symbols, headings, and pronouns. Also, when taking notes, we should elminate little words such as the because you don't have to look at too much grammer and sentences when writing point forms! :)
At the end of class, we practiced the spelling bee. We practiced with the grade 7 words this time and surprisingly, only a couple people were able to say the correct spelling. I made a mistake on a letter and I was pretty shocked because after, I knew right away what the actual spelling was!
Why We Did It
It's very important to take the geography test and finish it because it's like a assignment for Ms.Lees to know if we get all the geography things and to check our geography skills. If we do bad on a certain part, we'll be able to know what we need to work on and improve. It's a good way for Ms.Lees to check if we actually concentrated on our geography worksheets and actually filled them out with understanding all the concepts. It's also good to have organizing skills with the portfolios. It's a great way to look back at your own work and get Ms.Lees to explain it and go through what you've done. It's good to know what you need to work on to improve for next time. You have to get your portfolios organized in order for Ms.Lees to give you a mark/letter grade, or else you will get an INCOMPLETE mark.
It's good to get informed about the things that are coming up like the spelling bee because some people have forgotten about it and never actually practised, but by warning everyone and practising in class, they'll realize how important it is and study at home so they don't get off in the first round on Friday.
I think it's really good practice for us taking notes with the video because the people in the video speaked pretty fast. It can help us delvelop our note taking skills and help us write better notes. It's very important to write notes that you can understand because I sometimes have a hard time understanding what I wrote in my notes. By Ms.Lees telling us what we needed to avoid when we are taking notes before we actually did the assignment, we could've kept that in mind and tried to avoid the things and the more often we get practice, the more we'll improve. It's good to practice these skills because it'll be often used when we grow older. This skill will help a lot in highschool because the teachers have a lot to teach, especially in grade 12 and they can't speak too slowly and photocopy every single thing we learn because that'd be too much paper, they won't be able to speak too slowly or else, the teacher wouldn't be able to finish the whole unit in time. Also, taking notes for things could help us study for tests better because we'll know the main things we need to study for and not all the detail things. If we have to remember all the details, our heads would explode! Learning about the middle ages, also helps us learn about the history back then, and learn note taking skills and social studies at the same time. It's great because you can look back at your notes and figure out some things from it. We practised note taking skills on our PATHWAY text books before, so it was kind of like a review for some of us who already finished the note taking assignment.
Reflections/Connections
I've learned some geography things in grade 5 but we never had to take a test before so I didn't know much about geography but since we got to learn a lot about it, I was very glad and I actually didn't find the test too hard but it was a little confusing though. I hope we get to learn a lot of geography. It'd really help if we are going somewhere by car. I'll be able to read the map for my dad because my dad usually drives but my mom isn't very good at reading the signs so he always multitask at the same time which could be dangerous sometimes. I could be a great assistance! I've already got my portfolio organized and finished the conference so I don't have anything to worry about now. In fact, I got mine done last week! I got to know all the things I'm weak at and I'm going to try to speak up more in class from now on hopefully! Organizing portfolios could help a lot when I prepare a resmee for university later because I heard that it's very similar to portfolios and you gather all the things you accomplished and send it to them. Porfolios are quite confusing at first because it has to be in a certain order and all my work kind of mash all together and sometimes it's hard to find certain worksheets but as I got to the end, I was quite proud of myself that I organized it so neatly so it was really worth it! The conference with Ms.Lees went smoothly because I had all my worksheets there!
Spelling bees could help in a lot of ways like I said on my other relflection post. Knowing how to spell all the words could lead you to being a great writer and reader and could possibily be a teacher when you grow up. It's very useful because you'd seem smart in front of people and you can always help them spell things when they are having troubles. You can build up your vocabulary skills and you'd eventually have to write documents when you grow up, and it wouldn't be good if you spell easy words or any words wrong.
I thought the note taking while listening to the video was quite a bit of challenge for me because in elementry, we used to just relax and watch videos without worrying about writing notes but today, it made me write messy because I had to write it so quickly. I didn't leave too much space between the main ideas so I had trouble trying to fit all my information. Now, I know that I could warn myself next time to put lots of spaces in between. It could help in ANY subject literally. I take LOTS of notes in math and my math teacher did show us some abbreviations and symbols for some words but the problem was that after I used them, I forgot what I used the symbols for. I think I need to work on making some simple symbols so I could actually use them in my notes correctly. One of my problem when taking notes was that I put too much detail in them and I wasted a lot of time from doing that. Maybe next time, I'll try to write my notes shorter! :) After I fix all these problems, I think I'll be able to write notes perfectly and be able to use them a lot! I heard that you take a lot of notes in university especially, and once I saw in a movie people carrying laptops to write down the things the proffessers are talking about more quickly. I think that'd be a lot better than actually writing in hand because your hand will hurt. Writing good notes will help me a lot in university and especially before tests because I could study with the notes I took. Also, in clubs, almost every single time, they use point form to jot down things like ideas. I went to the Student Council meeting a couple weekes ago and they jot down the main ideas and the details in point form. I really like taking notes because you don't have to write full sentences, not care about grammer as much, and it's more effective when I read I think.
Homework
- Study Canspell (Spelling Bee is this Friday)
- If you haven't finished your pathways assignment (note-taking), come in for flex this Thursday to finish it!
- Discuss with Ms.Lees what day you're going to come in to finish your geopgraphy test if you haven't finished it yet.
- You should've finished your note-taking and QAR booklet but IF you haven't, make sure you finish it for tomorrow!
Tips
- Try to organize your portfolios and get ready because Ms.Lees have had some trouble finding everyones not organized and some things missing.
- Study the Canspell words with you parents or your siblings and get them to test you for at least 5 minutes per day. Try the grade 9 words, if you've mastered the grade 8 words already!
- If you missed a day or don't know what's for homework tomorrow, you better read the blogs!
- Get all your work done and try to finish the PATHWAYS assignment on Thursday because we won't have time to work on it class. If you're behind, be sure to catch up soon!
Guess what? We are watching a movie tomorrow in class! Yay! :)
Schedule:
Monday : Olivia
Tuesday : Alice
Wednesday ( Double Block ) : Luke
Friday : Luke
LUKE will be doing his blog tomorrow! :)
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