Oct. 25

As always the day seemed to zoom by today for all of us, and it goes to show that the old saying of "Time flies when you're having fun" is true!

This morning was spent with Mrs. Duncan, our guest teacher, as I was at one of my regular Learning Leader meetings at the Career and Technology Centre.  As always, Mrs. Duncan  said the class was a pleasure to be with and was very respectful and helpful to her. It's always nice to come back to school and get such a positive note! Great job everyone!

This afternoon we had out class photos and the students were buzzing with excitement about them. We all put on our best smiles for them and we can't wait to see the proofs in a few weeks!

We finished our day with a class meeting. We have regular class meetings as a way to connect, discuss our problems, share our ideas, and ask questions. Today our theme was about how to include others and make others feel welcome.  We had a great discussion about how it feels when others exclude us, either intentionally or not.  We talked about how words, body language and tone can impact others feelings.

Some students expressed that they don't want to say no to their peers during buddy working times, but sometimes they want to work with new partners or they already have a partner. They asked how they can tell someone "no" in a way that won't hurt feelings.  This led to us new language such as "I would like to try to work with a new partner today, but let's read together tomorrow" or "I was your partner yesterday, so let's try to find new people today".  I think these small tweaks in our language helps us better understand each other and ensure we don't have hurt feelings.  These kinds of conversations will continue regularly in our classroom as a way to help students relate to one another better, communicate more effectively and ensure that we are being as inclusive as possible.