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Grade 8 Social Studies
     My only afternoon class is Grade 8 Social Studies which has 25 students who are all new to me. This was the class that I was most interested in learning more about because I had never had an opportunity to interact with them at all last semester. In similar fashion to my other classes, I also had them complete que-card questionnaires and the “Over the Line” survey. Here are their results:

     After this we actually had the recess break. The class is an hour in total but it is positioned oddly in the timetable and there is a break right in the middle. I have never had a class set up this way but I think it works well for their age level. When they returned I passed out the unit outline that I created and started introducing our unit on Ancient Greece & Rome. To get us thinking, I asked students to write down one social class that they might find in these ancient societies (military, slave, government, merchant, etc). Once every student had an example we left the classroom, and completed the snowball activity that I did with my Grade 10 class in the morning. After 30seconds I stopped them, had them sit down in the circle, read their paper and write down what they thought that social class’ role was. For example, if they picked up a paper that said military, they might write down keep other countries from invading. Once every student had a role written down we repeated the snowball activity so that they had a new paper and we returned to the classroom. As this was the end of class, I had students write their name on the paper they picked up and hand it in. I plan to return them at the beginning of our next class and use it as a writing prompt to have them reflect on what life might be like for that specific person.