Christy Garvin

Great First Week!

I hope you had a great first week of Target!  We spent a little time getting to know how everyone had grown and changed over the past year, reviewed some basic algebra skills, and started looking at our new Target standards.  We discovered this was a bigger job than we originally thought, so we will continue to unpack standards, learn about critical thinking skills and the evaluative thought process, and explore our new report card next week.  That means we will officially start our scuba unit the week of September 10th, so you will not need your scuba dictionary until that week. 

The homework section of the blog is designed to help you organize long term projects and to provide study guides for major tests and quizzes.  It will not be used to list weekly homework assignments because I want you to be responsible for listening in class, writing down your homework, and then completing it on time and to the best of your ability.  Also, you may have different homework from your classmates or other squads, depending on how wisely you used your time in class and what you were able to accomplish that day.  The only exceptions to this will be homework for the first couple weeks, when a weekly assignment requires a download from the blog, or when I need to provide you with websites or other resources to complete your work.  With that in mind, your homework for this week is to complete the problems you did not finish on the algebra review sheet and to write one page about "character."  The questions you are supposed to adress are as follows: What is character? How is it developed?  How do you know if someone has character?  Is character important-why or why not?

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to Vaughan Target and the 2012-2013 school year!  We have an exciting, action packed year planned, and I know you are going to love diving into our ocean and scuba exploration.  Our unit is officially called "Exploration and Conservation of Underwater Ecosystems," and it will focus on the science of scuba diving, coral reefs, marine biology, and many other ocean related topics.  There will be science experiments, math discoveries, some time for independent study, challenging puzzles and problem solving activities, novels, and some group and individual projects.  I promise it's going to be an awesome year, and I'm so excited you are ready to join me on this incredible learning adventure!!

So let's get started.  This first week was basically an orientation to the Target classroom and you had three homework assignments:

1) Complete the "Getting to Know You Sheet"

2) Set up your notebook with the correct subject dividers

3) Complete the mini-project "How have I changed and grown as a person since this time last year?"  Remember that you can discuss things you have learned, places you have been, or life experiences that have had an impact on you.  Hopefully, you aren't the same person you were last year; every day is an opportunity to grow, stretch, and learn new things- so how did you use last year wisely?  You may present your project orally or with any type of visual you like.

Next week, we will spend most of the day learning about and unpacking our new Target standards.  We will also examine the new Progress Report so that you know how you are being assessed, and we will do a brief algebra review to make sure everyone is ready for scuba math :)

The following week, we will actually begin the scuba unit.  You will want to make sure you have downloaded and printed the scuba dictionary at the end of this post.  We will be using it in class the first week of our scuba unit, and you will have extra work if you have to write the words on notebook paper and transfer them to the dictionary later.  With that in mind, please come to class prepared the week of September 3rd with your scuba dictionary in hand. Have a great week, and I'll look forward to seeing you again soon!

Please use the following links to download the scuba dictionary:

Download Scuba Dictionary Front Cover

Download Scuba Dictionary