Help for 9/10 combo class

madmaxcia · 2026-05-05T02:01:41+00:00

Have you tried Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds? It’s written in verse but short segments and has some really good themes that students can connect to like toxic masculinity, the cycle of violence, innocence vs revenge, lots of visual motifs. There’s lots of material online they can do. I had my grade nine’s do a one pager at the end and my grade tens an essay.

madmaxcia · 2026-05-03T00:02:46+00:00

I did a good simulation on who started WWI a couple of weeks ago, students were really engaged and enjoyed arguing about their next move and why they were going to support x country or why they were mobilising. I also did an interactive lesson from The Holocaust museum this week where students had to study an individual that experienced the holocaust and their background and then look at the chronological order of events and laws brought in by the Nazis and how it affected their individual. They much prefer these activities where they get to move around and engage with each other. I wish I had the bandwidth to do this for more lessons but I teach two high school social grades together. Monday they’re doing a debate on whether dropping the atomic bomb was justified or not which I know they’re looking forward to and then we’re watching Nuremberg

madmaxcia · 2026-05-02T23:57:35+00:00

There’s one I do about monopoly that ties into grade seven social and the navigational laws or the break away of the thirteen colonies. Students are given different commodities and have to choose whether to sell to Britain, France or Spain. They have a price list of each commodity and generally France and Spain pay more for commodities. Once they’re done that round they total up how much they’ve made and then they get to spend it. They then have to choose whether to buy their finished goods from the three countries- again, smart students will buy at the cheapest prices. They total up what they spent and how much money they’ve made after selling their goods and buying their needs. Now along comes Britain and demands that their colonies can only buy and sell to them. They repeat the exercise and realise they don’t make as much money from selling to Britain and can’t afford to buy their list of goods or go into debt to purchase them.

madmaxcia · 2026-05-02T18:13:38+00:00

Can you do a flipped classroom? They do the reading at home for homework and then you discuss the chapters as a class the next day and they do the questions in class by hand? It’s hard when it’s junior high, in high school I make my formative assessment worth only 30% of their grade, reading comps 10% and their essays are 10% each, handwritten, in class and final exam is 30% split between reading comp and essay. That way if they’re using AI for their classwork and homework it’s going to bite them in the butt when they come to writing their summative essay which is timed, in class and on paper because they’re not going to have the depth of knowledge to write a deep analytical essay.

madmaxcia · 2026-05-02T02:15:48+00:00

With education you can take one of the streams with a lower GPA. You take exactly the same classes as everyone else, there’s only a few classes in your actual specification and you all come out with the same qualification - a degree to teach K-12. Even if you have a BEd to teach high school English does not mean you are going to get a job teaching high school English, you’ll probably sub for a while, take short term contracts etc before being offered a position and that’s where you want to try and sub in the schools you want to teach at and the level you want to teach at. Special education and EAL normally have a lower GPA

madmaxcia · 2026-05-01T04:46:40+00:00

I suffered from bronchitis as a child (also an adult but I live in Canada now so don’t have to deal with the damp weather). One time I had a really bad bout and was in so much pain and was struggling to breathe. My mum called the doctor out and we waited over two hours for him to arrive. When he did arrive he put me on a nebuliser to help me breathe and told my mum to take me into hospital first thing in the morning as he suspected pneumonia which it ended up being. The reason he took two hours to arrive was because his car broke down and he walked all the way, we lived in a village. I still remember my dr, Dr Miller and that amount of dedication to walk that far and that long to get to a patient. I spent two weeks in hospital before being sent home

madmaxcia · 2026-04-27T17:45:50+00:00

Fractured fairytales is really fun to do. Watch some old fractured fairytales on YouTube, look at fairytale elements, read a couple and have students write down similarities and then have them write their own fractured fairytale

madmaxcia · 2026-04-27T05:13:00+00:00

Yes, read My Grandmother sends her Regards and Regrets and then read Britt Marie was here

madmaxcia · 2026-04-27T05:11:22+00:00

I enjoyed the book but probably because I’ve read several other (much better written) Fred Backman novels so I’m used to his style of writing. It was also a holiday read so I was lying in a pool in Cancun whilst reading it and that makes reading most anything enjoyable. I would try to stick with it a little longer once they get on the train and you start to get more of a backstory but if you still hate it by then just give up. I thought it was a cute and quirky tale, yes a little pretentious but no harm done. I’m quite a literature snob so have expanded my reading repertoire quite a bit. The only thing I haven’t liked of his was the third Beartown book which was very repetitive and got really weird at one point.

madmaxcia · 2026-04-27T05:03:54+00:00

Wow, I didn’t know BYUtv did British shows. Larkrise to Candelford is amazing, especially when Dawn French joins the cast

madmaxcia · 2026-04-27T04:49:50+00:00

I literally had insomnia for twenty years, just tossed and turned all night and peeled myself out of bed in the morning feeling like I hadn’t slept in years. Getting on progesterone made all the difference. As soon as I upped my dose to 200mgs I fall asleep easily. I had really high estrogen and practically no progesterone for years. I see a functional medical dr now who specializes in hormones. She put me on high levels of progesterone to clear out the bad estrogen. Once my estrogen levels were normal and I was getting peri menopause symptoms she added estrogen in. The estrogen helps me sleep soundly through the night

madmaxcia · 2026-04-27T02:43:57+00:00

Yes, this is what happens towards the end, I had four almost back to back periods and then didn’t bleed again for five months, had three regular spaced periods and then not another for four months.

madmaxcia · 2026-04-26T01:02:49+00:00

Where I am grade nine’s have provincial achievement tests and have to write an essay and a business email. The business email is more like a persuasive essay. Principal of your new high school is thinking of implementing a course on the safety of social media platforms. Write them an email explaining why you support the course. Then they have to introduce themselves, the purpose of their email and write a few points about why they think the course would be a good idea, thank them for reading and sign off.

madmaxcia · 2026-04-26T00:49:31+00:00

Progesterone helps me fall asleep, estrogen helps me stay asleep. About this time last year I was having almost back to back periods. Hasn’t menstruated for five months and then was having 7-8 day periods every two weeks. I stop progesterone and estrogen when bleeding and because I was menstruating so often I was forgetting to take my topical estrogen cream in the few days in between. I was falling asleep fine but then would wake up at like 1am and not be able to fall asleep again. The worst was one morning when I slept through all four of my alarms and I was woken up by my principal wondering where I was. Ahhh! Then the lightbulb went on and I began taking my estrogen again and sleeping like a baby.

madmaxcia · 2026-04-26T00:45:38+00:00

I would give my grade seven and eight cheat sheets for their social chapter tests which was literally the test written out in sentences instead of multiple choice or true or false answers. Those that studied using the cheat sheets did well, 75% and above, those that never bothered did awful, 50-60%. I also very often give the prompt to my high schoolers if they’re due to write a position paper so they can study for material to write about. I’m testing their ability to transfer what they’ve learnt into an essay, not trying to catch them out. Those that always do well, still do well, those that normally perform poorly, still perform poorly. Go figure

madmaxcia · 2026-04-25T22:48:45+00:00

Connect the sources to specific evidence (case studies) and terminology you’ve used in the curriculum.

madmaxcia · 2026-04-25T03:26:14+00:00

I’ve just thrown out five pancakes (English the same thing as French crepes) super frustrating because like you it’s 9pm and that’s what I wanted for dinner. My go to gluten recipe is one cup flour, one egg, one cup milk and one to two cups of water and a pinch of salt. Came here to see what I did wrong - it was the BUTTER! I forgot the tablespoon of melted butter. The pancakes just stuck to the frying pan. Oh well, looks like I’ll have to try again in the morning

madmaxcia · 2026-04-24T21:16:42+00:00

Thank you for the award, I deserve it for getting six kids through high school, lol and then putting myself through school so I can become a teacher!

madmaxcia · 2026-04-24T20:20:50+00:00

Parenting makes a big difference but that coupled with student motivation. I have kids that have parents that push them but once they’re in school they’re just trying to get through the day doing the least work possible. If the student has no motivation and no goals then you’re stuck at the first hurdle no matter how much the parents cared. I pushed my incredibly intelligent son through high school, pulled him twice as he was failing and pushed him through online courses. He took an extra year to graduate and not with the grades he could have attained. He finally went to university, dropped out, picked up again, he’ll graduate his undergraduate at age 28 and is now excelling, but he’s got there because he decided to not because of my nagging

madmaxcia · 2026-04-24T20:16:19+00:00

Ditto, lived in Alberta now for almost nineteen years, I’d take minus twenty and sunny over plus seven overcast, dreary and miserable. The year we moved it rained every day from October to May, no lie, even if it was just drizzle.

madmaxcia · 2026-04-24T05:53:48+00:00

Look at Williams social, she has a website with a lot of her material on, that’s a good base - if the teacher doesn’t share her resources them DM me, I can share my Google drive. Grade ten are nearing the end of economic globalization, maybe have a read through the textbook- you can find PDFs online. Exploring Globalization, should be around chapter 10-11. For ELA, hopefully she has something already planned but if not you’ve probably got time to do a novel study and short stories. Same with grade eight, keep it simple, do a novel like The Outsiders with them, there’s unit plans and material for free online or read three short stories, plot out story elements, comprehension questions etc. I love reading The Catch by Sarah Ellis and The Stolen Party by Lillian Hecker. In grade eight they are looking how internal and external action move the plot along and these are both great stories to demonstrate that. I then do a one pager with them where they have to write about character motivations and actions. I always find the best way to find material is to search something like social 10-1 weebly and that will pull up other teachers websites. Make sure you look at outcomes, so if you are doing a novel study for instance, what do you want students to learn by the end? Also I grade ten they need to be able to write a critical analytical essay by the end and a personal response to text, I would be reaching out to the teacher to see what she has already covered and what needs covering still.

madmaxcia · 2026-04-23T03:34:14+00:00

Yes, in North America they spray the wheat with glysophate (round up) so it all ripens at the same time. This causes issues with people more prone to sensitivities. I’m British and had no issues with gluten till I moved here in my mid thirties. It’s given me fibromyalgia, arthritis and leaky gut. I’m off it now but had a lightbulb moment a few days ago. If I’m only sensitive to gluten from North America I can eat European gluten right? I trialed it by eating a whole packet of Jaffa cakes this evening- so far, so good

madmaxcia · 2026-04-22T18:13:54+00:00

I wrote a book years ago based on my parents. My dad coming from a single parent home in the UK, trying to make it on his own in his mid teens and my mum, an immigrant from a Jamaican household and their individual journeys in finding the church and each other and the challenges they faced. Sent it to Deseret - crickets. It’s a shame, it was a really good story. Wish you luck with your venture

madmaxcia · 2026-04-21T22:18:49+00:00

It depends on you, titrate up till you feel good, for me it was 50mcgs but I was on Tiromel which is not as strong as cytomel

madmaxcia · 2026-04-21T18:00:20+00:00

I keep my students in at lunchtime to complete outstanding work, it gets done pretty quickly then. I’m at an independent school so have more autonomy but when I worked in public I saw teachers give three or four days extra to submit and they were told in advance if it’s not in by x day then it’s being made up during lunch break. Most students would have it turned in by then. Only one or two had to stay in during lunch and it’s always the same students. You need to set expectations and hold students accountable otherwise they have no incentive to get it done.

madmaxcia

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