The Big Event! (day 3)

Ok I've caught up, I have a feeling that my blogs will come in groups like this.

The Culminating event today was very cool. The posters were beautiful and the kids were full of knowledge about phytoplankton and climate change.
One thing that I was impressed with was the parents. Many came and many were interested in what the students had done and what they had to say about what they had done - not only for their own child but others as well. I think that the opportunity to present their work (and they did a great deal of work) to an audience of their parents and peers is important. The other seventh graders, from Windsor house, came and took the role of an audience of peers. I thought that the entire event, an hour in the morning, was very successful and people from outside York house made comments to the students to the same effect.

The kids had class in the afternoon. I was able to observe a 'regular' class, the first since I arrived three days ago. They were given time to blog, Ms. M went over missing assignments, papers were returned, and preparation for tomorrows class was discussed, they are finishing up presentation during which students present a mini lesson on some issue that interested them while watching An Inconvenient Truth. Then the students had time to work on getting caught up. If they were caught up they read or practiced for their presentation.

We had a planning period last block. We talked about Speak, I'll start it in 2, maybe 3, weeks. We are going to teach literary terms before and during the reading of the novel too. I'm in the process of creating a blog space exclusively for the Speak work, I'll give you the link when it's ready.