Back in school

Today was a new low for me—I only took two pictures the entire day!  We got to school this morning around 8:30 AM, a half an hour before school started.  We were warmly greeted by familiar faces around the school as we prepared for our first day.

We started in Leah’s grade 5 class, just like last year.  I remembered a lot of the students’ names, but didn’t necessarily match them with the right faces.  They were fairly forgiving when I mixed up their names and politely corrected me.  With Leah’s class we reintroduced ourselves (and introduced the guys); talked about their data, the data collection process, what they were measuring, problems they ran into along the way, and what they wanted to do with the data they collected; and then broke off into groups for an activity.  We gave each group a stack of pictures and had them group the pictures into various methods of sharing data with others: plotting graphs and charts, drawing visualizations/pictures, talking, and writing.

Ashley telling Tamie's grade 6 students about the four presentation methods.

After an hour with the grade 5s, we went into Jeena’s grade 2 class.  As I entered the room, the grade 2s shouted out a resounding “Hi Mel”.  It instantly spread a smile across my face.  We talked with the grade 2s about their temperature data and did an individual activity.  Everyone was given a map and a bunch of small photos of plants and animals.  If the plant or animal was native to Igloolik, they glued the picture in the north end of the map, otherwise (it was native to Southwestern Ontario) they glued it to the south edge of the map.

After our ten minute break we repeated the map activity with Pat’s grade 1s and the categorizing activity with Meeka’s grade 4s.  We headed back to the inn for lunch—cheddar broccoli soup with grilled cheese—which felt really good to eat (especially in comparison to chicken nuggets and poutine).  After lunch we did the categorizing activity with Tami’s grade 6s, Yvonne’s grade 7s, Keriann’s grade 4s, and Caleb’s grade 7s.  This time around it is a lot of repetition because everyone is analyzing their data regardless of the type (temperature, wind, or solar radiation).

After school I took a nap and read for a bit before eating supper and practising my pointe work.  Around 9 PM Ashley, Jonathan, Anthony, and I started to go through the students’ data and organize their observations to make the next few days run smoothly.  We finally finished around midnight!