This, That 'n' The Other

New grade 7 kid yesterday. Poor kid, his brother and sister were here last year and are very popular so right now everyone knows him as "Max and Angelina's brother". He's the "missing link": Max and Angelina don't really look alike but Ronnie looks like both of them. When you tell any of them that they groan. He was really quiet today but I'm not too worried. His siblings were at the start. Now they are...not.

First Chemistry test yesterday. Most everyone did really well. Which was partly my fault as when I was writing about the bonus on the board I was thinking "1/5" (which would have given them 2 bonus points) but put ".5" (which gave them 5). They had to write some questions down as they were watching the videos and were supposed to get 1/5th of a point for every one they had (there were 10) since I made the mistake I gave them the benefit of the points. Not next time though. The kids have been doing well so far with the videos. I have various bribes and threats in place that are working so far. Oh yeh, I don't think I told you that grade 10 was added to the class (all 3 of them). So there are 16 kids taking Chemistry this year.

Chemistry Kids: (Grade 12) Ashley, Rocky, Henry, Jerry, and Riley; (Grade 11) Max, Jesse, Steve, Joshua, Rebekah, Stacy, Esther, and Cindy; (Grade 10) Priscilla, Hailey, and Joseph

French is still fun. I have kids saying "bonjour" to me in the halls now. Their first test is today. Really just saying "Hi/Whats your name/How are you?" and a few other things.

French Kids: (2nd hour) John C, John S, Stacy, Angelina, Paul, Sophia, Heidi, Jennifer, Sally, Joanne, Joel, Qurie and Jane; (7th hour) Max, Jesse, Jerry, Philip, Esther, Joshua, Joseph, Priscilla, Hailey, Isaac, Rebekah, and Cindy

Some of the kids in Earth Science I've known (and taught) for three years. We've gotten a few new ones but they quickly adjust to the insanity that is grade 8. The class is full of personality. Maybe too full. I mean, I know Jr. High is an insane time anyway but these kids are insane no matter the age. I'm sure I will have many stories about them over the next few months. I'll go ahead and start now. Yesterday I moved some kids around and Lianne was assigned to sit with Samuel. She was unimpressed and made that fact known. Finally she said "Fine! I'll just pretend that no one is there." Samuel was unfazed and promptly sprawled on her desk. When she started fussing at him and hitting him he just said "What is wrong? No one is there." I told her she asked for it. Today they had their first test in class. They had to give examples of fallacies and these two are my favourite:

Emma, talking about hasty generalizations: "Miss Straub did not come to school today. She is never coming back. (I was there if you are wondering).

Nicole, talking about the same: "School's just started and we had a science test today. We're gonna have a science test every day." And I can hear her saying that too. Nicole's a bit of a whiner and likes to use faulty logic like that. She also has comments on her test sometimes. The one accompaning her definition of Theistic Evolution was great; "Theistic Evolution says that God created the world using evolutionary theories. Which is so wierd..."

Kids in Earth Science: Michael, Mike (thats fun lemme tell ya) Chris, Nicole, Lianne, Emma, Jennifer, Paul, Daniel, Grace and Samuel.

The Life Science kids are still getting used to being in the High School and are quite overwhelmed. But they are adjusting slowly. John drops something at least once per class and Elijah does his happy hand motion many times a day as well. The happy hand motion is when you make a fist in front of your nose and flick your index finger up at least twice. It makes no sense to me either.

Life Science kids: Elijah, John, Ronnie, Joimee, Susie, Angela, Jenny, Bessie, and Gina.