Sunday, 31st of May, 2009.

In today's lesson i spent the first 10 minutes finishing up my essay. I shifted my paragraphs then i printed it out again. Once that was done, i handed it in. Then i started to work on my PowerPoint. I think that it will be a fairly easy project to do. At first i didn't understand what we had to write in our slides but now it kind of makes more sense. Today i finished my first slide about education. I worked well in the lesson. I did talk a little bit today but it wasn't that much. Since we only have 3 lessons left i really need to use my time wisely. If i spend my time fooling around i won't be able to finish it. My plan is to work on my second characteristic tomorrow and to finish it. Also i want to start on my third. On Tuesday i will finish my third characteristic so i can edit and print my PowerPoint on Thursday.

Thursday, 28th of May, 2009.

During today's class i continued writing my conclusion. Once i was done with my conclusion, i printed out my essay and started to edit all over again. This time i wasn't checking for spelling errors or anything like that, i was trying to shift around my paragraphs and find a way to make my transitions work. By the end of the class i knew where each paragraph should go and how it should be. All i need to do now is go to my actual essay and shift the paragraphs then print it out again. Since the lesson ended and we had one more extra period to work on it, i wasn't worried at all. During the next lesson i'll shift the paragraphs in the actual essay and print it out again. That won't take me more than 10 minutes. Once i finish with that, i will be able to start on my PowerPoint. I think that i have done a good job in writing this essay. Hopefully i will get a good grade on it because i really put the effort in and tried to use my time wisely.

Tuesday, 26th of May, 2009.

During today's class i didn't do much writing. I Spent almost the whole class editting. I started to edit even though i didn't quite finish my essay. I wrote part of my conclusion. I had to deduct 300 words from my essay. It was a very hard thing to do. I really had to concentrate so that i don't miss any mistake. I had to cut out some of my paragraphs. Also while i was editing i realized that my organization wasn't quite well. I need to shift some of the paragraphs around because in some parts of my essay it makes no sense. My transitions from one paragraph to another aren't that good. I really need to work hard on thursday's lesson since it is the last lesson. In that lesson i will finish writing my conclusion then i will shift some of the paragraphs and finally i will finalize everything. Hopefully i'll be ready to hand it in by thursday.

Monday, 25th of May, 2009.

During today's class i worked on my last characteristic. I also worked on my bibliography. I was on task most of the time but i would loos concentration from time to time. There was a lot of information about my third characteristic that i couldn't include because of the word limit. I wish that we could have a bigger limit. That would help a lot because i would be able to include a lot of important information that i can't include now. By the end of the lesson i finished my bibliography and writing up my third characteristic and i was ready to write my conclusion. I have exceeded the word limit. My essay is over 1700 words. I need to remove over 300 words at least so that i will be able to stay in the limits and so that i can write a conclusion. Hopefully i will do that in tomorrow's class.

Sunday, 24th of May, 2009.

In today's class i started to type up my third characteristic but i wasn't able to finish it . I used most of the class time and i tried to stay focused. I did talk every once in a while but eventually i would go back to working again . I realized that some of the information i had in my cards was unnecessary. Also there was some information that i wanted to write in my essay but i couldn't because of the word limit. Today i finished 2 out of 4 topics for my third characteristic. I think that during the time that we have spent writing this essay, i tried to use the most of it. Hopefully in tomorrows class i will finish writing my third characteristic.

Thursday, 21st of May, 2009.

Today i continued to write my essay. I was still working on my second characteristic. Since my goal for today's class was to finish my second characteristic, i reached it. I was able to do that because i tried to stay on task most of the time and i avoided fooling around. So far, everything is going well except for the amount of words. I still didn't write about my third characteristic and conclusion and i have already reached 1, 100 words. I really need to limit my words or else i will go way over the limit. Becuase of the word limit, there is a lot of information that i want to include but i can't because i have too many words. Next lesson i am planning on starting my third characterstic but i don't think i'll be able to finish it.

Tuesday, 19th of May, 2009.

In today's class, the first fifteen minutes were wasted on turning on the laptops. Once my laptop was on, i read everything i wrote before so that i can refresh my mind on what i wrote so far. So far my work is going quite well. My organization of paragraphs is very good. Each paragraph has something to do with the one before it . In today's class, i started to write my second characteristic. Religion is the characteristic that i have been having difficulties with. The Egyptians have too many gods for me to write about all of them. I need to choose the most important ones. That is very difficult because most of them are really important. They all represent something in the ancient Egyptian life. I think that I'm going to write about the god sun, the god of the underworld and the god of birth. Most of the time in class today i was working, but i did get off task once or twice. I think that i need to work a little bit faster so that i can catch up with the others. My aim for tomorrow's class is to finish writing about the gods and goddesses, worshiping in temples, and mummification.

Monday, 18th of May, 2009.

I was absent for today's class. This makes me one class behind the whole class. This means that i need to work faster so that i catch up with the others.

Thursday, 7th of May, 2009.

During the coarse of today's lesson, i continued to type up my essay. About 15 minutes was wasted because i had to go to the nurse. When i came back i started to continue typing my first characteristic. Because my arm and hand muscles were in pain, it was hard for me to type. When i would type something, my hands would start to ache a lot. This affected my work a lot because i couldn't write as much or as fast as i usually do when i type. I don't have all the time in the world so i need to use every second i have. Also i would at times talk to the people around me which put me off task. Today i realized that some things in my plan weren't in the correct order so i slightly changed things. By the end of class i was done with my first characteristic and now i have to write the last 2 and my conclusion.

Tuesday, 5th of May, 2009.

During today's class, i started to type up my essay. When i was writing my introduction, in the beginning i had difficulties. Later on when i read the sheet that Mr. Sparks handed out to us, i finally understood what to write. I just kept on writing and writing while following my plan. I worked quite well in class. I kept on typing up my essay the whole lesson. At times i would talk to the people around me. This would distract me from working but eventually i would go back to working. By the end of the lesson i was done writing my introduction and a few paragraphs about my first characteristic . So far i wrote about 370 words. I think that when i finish writing my first draft i will have too many words and that i will have to take out some things . Hopefully by the end of tomorrow's lesson i will be done with my first characteristic.

Monday, 4th of May, 2009.

Today we worked in the lab once again. I continued to work on my plan. By the end of the lesson i was done planning and now i am finally ready to write my essay. I think that this plan will help me A LOT . I found a way to connect my paragraphs. I think that the order of my essay is great. Each paragraph is connected in some way to the one after it . When i was planning i had to go through my cards to decide on what information goes where. I realized that some of the information i summarized made no sense at all to me. Some of the information seemed to be useless and unimportant. In this lesson i worked quite well. I was on task most of the time. I will hopefully start to write my essay tomorrow and i will stick to my plan.

Sunday, 3rd of May, 2009 .

In today's class, we were discussing the essay. The word limit is 1000-1500. I think that i will reach the word limit in no time . When i opened up my research folder and saw the information i had, i realized that i had more than enough information to complete this essay. Once we were done discussing the essay, we started to plan. I worked well during this lesson. I didn't waste my time talking with my classmates, instead i spent my time planning . I think that my plan is going great so far. I broke down each characteristic to main points. I think that planning my essay will help me a lot when it comes to writing it . I will continue my planning in tomorrow's lesson.

Thursday, 30th of April, 2009.

Today was our last lesson of research in the lab before we go into drafting our essay. When we got to the lab Mr. Sparks wasn't there, so Mr. Sweeny was monitoring us instead. Today i researched about Education. The way i worked today wasn't so bad. I was on task most of the time. The information i would find is the same thing over and over again. This is the only category that i can barely find information about. At first it was the most but now its the least. I did my best today and took as much information as i can. I sometimes would talk to the people next to me but eventually i would get back to work. I think that i am ready to write this essay.

Tuesday, 28th of April, 2009.

Today was a very disappointing day. Mr. Sparks gave us the grades for our journal, it was very depressing. This isn't my level, i deserve a better mark. I was having trouble opening blogger at home so i would write up my entries in a book then i would go over to my grandparents house from time to time and i would type them all up and that is where i am right now.When Mr. Sparks saw my journal, i didn't type up the entries yet. This wasn't fair at all because i know that the grade i got isn't my standard.

Ten minutes of class time was wasted because we were talking about the journals. Once those ten minutes were up, i continued my research. Again, i used brainpop. I worked quite well because i tried to stay on taks at all times and i tried to make most of the time we had left. I watched some video's while taking notes. They are quite useful. I really need to research about education. I found a few good things about it but almost all the information is the same as the information in the books. In our last lesson in the lab i will work on education and hopefully i will find excelent information.

Monday, 27th of April, 2009.

Today Mr. Sparks announced that this will be the last week of research, we will start to plan the essay next week. This was terrifying news. I think we need more time ! We should continue research and when we come back from the school trips we start to plan for our essay. Today we were allowed to research on the world wide web. I used brainpop. I researched about Egyptian Pharohs. This category falls under Government & Law and Religion because a Pharoh is the most important person in Politics and Religion. Next lesson i am planning on working on education because i seriously need information !

Sunday, 26th of April, 2009.

Today was another great day for me. I used the websites Mrs. Fletcher gave us. One of the sites had the names of most of the Egyptian gods and information about them. There were about 29 gods. I worked so so hard ! I wrote about all 29 of them. In the end, i realized that each god was connected to the other. I also discovered that gods who were brothers and sisters were also husband and wife sometimes. I was looking through my folder today and realized that i need to research more on education. Hopefully that is what i will do next lesson.

Thursday, 23rd of April, 2009.

Today i worked so hard. I used the new websites that Mrs. Fletcher gave us. They are excelet resources. Today i worked on Religion. I learned about what happens to an egyptian when he dies, especially when its an important Egyptian. I learned about mummification. Also the way i found this information is very interesting. I was playing an educational game while taking notes about it. Not only was i having fun, i was also not taking. I wrote 4 note cards. Hopfully next week i'll work as good as i did today.

Tuesday, 21 of April, 2009.

Today was a good day ! Mrs. Fletcher introduced us to some new websites we can use. It was about time this happened because i'm getting sick of Grolier and Britanica. Because of this interuption, 10 minutes of our class time was lost but for a good cause. This lesson i didn't wast my time talking to the people around me. Instead, I summarized the last paragraph about government & law that i was supposed to do yesterday.Once i was done doing that, i checked out the websites . There wasn't a lot of time left to start to work on them so i just looked around. I found a couple of good websites that i'll use next lesson.

Monday, 20th of April, 2009.

Today the lab we usually worked in was booked for another class so we had to move to another lab. In that lab i was sitting next to Al-Dana, Al-Jawhara and Shakeer. Shakeer isn't our favorite person because we always get into tiny stupid arguments but i had to deal with it. Since we didn't work in that lab before, it took the computer AGES to log on. Once it did my computer kept restarting alone so i had to move to another lab that i never worked in before also . This computer also took ages to go on. Once it was on and working there was about 7 minutes of the lesson left. Because of the delays, i only wrote 2 sentences which was dissapointing. I need to use all the time i have. Hopefully next lesson we will be working in our usual lab.

Sunday, 19th of April, 2009.

Today wasn't such a bad day. When the class first started i talked every now and then. Because my whole row was talking Mr. Sparks moved Al-Jawhara and replaced her with Abdulrahman. I think that was a good idea although i do enjoy having her sitting next to me. Now that she moved, i worked better and so did she. I wrote about 2 note cards also about government & law. This site is very useful. It contains so much information about this topic. I still have one more paragraph to summarize. Hopefully i will finish summarizing it tomorrow.

Thursday, 16 of April, 2009.

Today was one of my worst days ever. I was messing around the whole class. I couldn't stop talking. Al-Dana, Al-Jawhara and I were very noisy. This isn't my usual behavior. Because of my behavior, i didn't work very well. I wrote only 1 note card which isn't very pleasing about government & law. Although i didn't do so well today in my work, the information i found is great. I have been seeking for information about the egyptian government and law and i ended up finding what i was looking for ! Hopefully i will work better next week.

Tuesday,14 of April, 2009.

Today was the first day for us in the Multimedia lab. When we got there Mrs. Fletcher first showed us how to make a shortcut of a web page that contained online encyclopedia's and websites we had to use. To access some of these websites we need to have an account. The school has payed to sign up and has created an account that all the students can use. This web page had the user names and passwords of each of the websites . Later on, we started to look through Grolier and Britannica. Since we spent most of the time logging on [ which took about 10 minutes ] setting up the shortcut and logging on to the websites, we didn't get time to do a lot of work. I researched about the topic i didn't have a lot of information about which was government & law. Finally ! I found some really good information about it. Though i didn't really get to work, i wrote about 1 note card. Next time i will use the text i found and continue taking notes from it .

Monday,13 of April, 2009.

Today was the final day we would get in the library. I asked the other students in my class that are doing Egypt what books they recommend i should use that has good information. They gave me a couple of books. The books were excellent. They contained so much information that i didn't have time to take note of it all. The way i worked today was great ! I wrote about 4 note cards with excellent information. I think that i might have to come in the library during my own time and finish note taking from this book. I think that i will also find some pretty useful information on the internet.

Sunday, 12 of April, 2009.

Today we spent about 10 minutes in class discussing our journals and if we need more time in the library or not. We ended up deciding that we would spend the rest of this period and next period in the library. When we got there i used one of the encyclopedia's . I found information about religion, government & law, and education. My work wasn't very effective today. I didn't write a lot of information but i got some . I was on task most of the time but i sometimes talked with my friends. I need to work on government & law. I can barely find any information in the books about it. Hopefully when we go to the labs i will find information about it.

Thursday, 2 of April, 2009.

Today is the last lesson for us in the library. Only now i realised that the books have some very useful information that i may not find on the Internet. I think we need more time in the library. Again today i used the encyclopedia's and found information about all 3 characteristics. I made a few notes about each one but there is so much more information i found that i need to take notes from. Mr. Sparks said that when we get back from the holiday we will meet in his room and discuss what's going to happen next. We may get some more time in the library which i think is a great idea. Most of us didn't realise the the encyclopedia contained information we can use until recently.

Tuesday, 31 of March, 2009.

Today was the second last lesson in the library. Only today i realised that there are encyclopedia's i can use. There were so many different encyclopedia's, i didn't know which one to choose. I searched them one by one and found some really good information. The encyclopedia had things i haven't read before in the other books. I made a lot of notes about all three characteristics. I worked excellent today. Also the fact that i was sitting alone helped me to stay on task all of the time.

Monday, 30 of March, 2009.

Today was one of our last lessons in the library. I decided to use on of the Arabic books about Egypt. I tried to read the text then translate it English but it was hard for me. I didn't understand most of the words so i gave up. I took an English book instead. I worked on religion today. I found some good notes. Most of the information is repeated in all the books. I need some new information about religion. Today was a good day for me. I worked quite well and wrote about 2 note cards.

Sunday, 29 of March, 2009.

We were told that this will be the last week for us to work in the library so i had to use most of my time to finish up using the books for research. I found a really good book about education. I took my things and sat alone in a table so that i could take notes. My friends came and joined me which i knew would cause a distraction for me .I didn't work so well today because the group was talking, i couldn't help but to join in. This affected the way i worked quite a lot because i wasted my time talking instead of note-taking. I ended up writing about one note card which wasn't too bad but i could do better. Also quantity doesn't matter quite a lot, the quality does. You may have 10 note cards of garbage or 4 not cards with really good information which is better.

Thursday, 26 of March, 2009.

Today we continued to research in the library. When i was looking for a good book i found the book that i used once before but i couldn't find it again. Because i didn't work so well today i decided to sit next to someone that i wouldn't talk to. I worked very well today, in fact i worked better than i usually work. I took some good notes and by the end of the day i wrote 2 note cards about education and 1 not card about religion. I think that sitting alone or with someone i won't talk to is a good idea because when i do i work very well. From now on i will sit alone so that the quality of my work is good.

Tuesday, 24 of March, 2009.

Once again we went to the library to continue with the research. When we got there i used the book i was using last lesson. Today i decided to sit with all of my friends which wasn't such a good idea. We talked quite a lot that Mr. Sparks had to separate some of us. What he did was a good idea because i ended up working. I didn't work so well today because of the talking but i managed to do some work. I only wrote half a note card which was very disappointing for me. This isn't my usual work, i can do better. Tomorrow I'll sit alone or with someone that doesn't talk a lot so that i can work.

Monday, 23rd of March, 2009.

Today we went back to the library again to do some more research. I was planning on continuing with the same books i was using yesterday about government & law but the books were no where to be found. Instead i found another book about Pharaohs. This topic falls under 2 characteristics : Government & Law and Religion. I found some very useful information that can be used for both characteristics. I worked quite well today. I was sitting with a group of my friends but we didn't waste our time talking. We did get off task once or twice but we were working most of the time. I ended up with 2 note cards with very good information. The class time finished and i was still not done taking notes from this book. Hopefully next lesson i will continue using the same book and this time this book won't go missing.

Sunday, 22nd of March, 2009.

During class today i had a difficulty in finding good books about government & law. I have found information for all of the other characteristics except for government & law. I asked Mr. Sparks to help me find a good book about it. We had managed to find a few. I managed to find some information about the government but very little about law. I found out that religion affects the government & law because kings are known to be live representatives of the gods and they are the ones who make the laws. All of the information i found about law doesn't really answer my research questions. I think i might have to make up some new guiding questions.

Thursday, 19th of march, 2009.

Today there were 3 classes working in the library once again. When i got in, i took the books i used last time. I was planning on working on a table alone but my friends came and joined me. The noise level was too loud for me so i took my books and moved away to the table in the back corner of the library. When i was all alone i got a chance to start working. Half way through the period some grade 8 students that i know sat on the same table. They couldn't stop blabbing. It was very irritating. I thought of moving away but what's the point? Everyone i'll go i'll find people talking. I had to deal with the noise level and try to work my best. I didn't do so well today. Hopefully next week the library is quieter. Only then i'll get a chance to work better.

Tuesday, 17th of March, 2009.

Today Mr. Sparks announced that we will be working in the library for the next 2 weeks and that we should come to the library right away instead of going to his class first. When i got to the library it was much more calmer then yesterday. I found some new books to use. Today i moved from the subject education to religion. I found some really good information about this topic. Although the Egyptian religion is very complicated and some of the information made no sense at all to me . I tried my best to try and understand it. There were some new sophisticated words in the text that i couldn't understand. I had to use the glossary to find out what they were. Some of the world couldn't be found there so i used a dictionary. When i did, it made the idea behind the text clearer to me. Over all i wrote about 2 cards today.

Monday, 16th of March, 2009.

Today we worked in the library again. This time there were 3 classes working in the library which made things harder. The noise level was quite loud and hard to work in. I took the book i needed and worked in a corner alone. I tried as hard as i could to avoid any distractions. I continued using the book i used last time because it had some very useful information that i can use. I wrote another note card about education and i wrote one about religion. I didn't work so well today because of the noise level. I hope that the next lesson isn't this noisy. Its hard for me to work in a loud place. I need peace and quite in order for me to do my work very well. Also i was late to class today. My punishment was to stay during lunch time and write an essay about why i shouldn't be late. That was a terrible experience. I don't want to go through it again so next time i won't be late hopefully.

Sunday 15th of March, 2009.

Today is the first day for us to work in the library. When we got their everyone rushed to the corner with the books about Ancient Civilizations and got the books they wanted. since there were too many people, i waited patiently until people started to go away. By that time all of the good books about Egypt were taken by the other students. I found a really good book that talks about Egyptian education. I really wanted to use my time wisely so i decided to sit with just a single friend so that i don't waste my time talking. The plan worked because i ended up writing 3 note cards.

Thursday, March 12, 2009.

Today in class we were taken to the multimedia lab. In the multimedia lab Mrs. Boulanger was waiting for us. When we got there we all logged on to the computer and waited for further directions. Mrs. Boulanger asked us to turn off our screens so we don't get distracted. Once we did she taught us how to create a new widget for our wiki for our journal. We had to call the widget " My Journal ". When we were done doing that, we created a new blogger in our old one and linked it to our wiki. The blogger was called "Early Civilizations Journal - Latifa ". It was a fairly easy thing to do although some students had some difficulties. Once we were done Mr. Sparks asked us to open up our books to the past journal entries and we had to type them up.I had forgotten my book in my locker so i had to go get it. When the bell rang i was done.

Sunday 8th of March, 2009.

today Mr. Sparks was absent again for the second time. Like last time Mrs. Fletcher took over the class. she had taken us to the library. In the library the librarian taught us how to get a bibliography of a book. For the bibliography you need to know :

- The title of the book

- The author

- The date is was published

- The place it was published in

She had also showed us a website that organizes for you the bibliography. All you need to do is put in the information and it will do the rest. This website is called : www.easybib.com.
The library had organized a corner with books about the ancient civilizations for all of grade 7 . Mrs. Fletcher had taken us to that corner to look at the books . Once we took a look at them we made up our minds about what civilization to do. I chose to do Ancient Egypt.

Thursday 5th of March, 2009.

For the past few days we have been introduced to the project about Early Civilizations. I missed the first lesson because i had a football tournament but not the second. I was lost in the beginning but then i understood what was going. I was told that in the first lesson the class chose 3 characteristics about any civilization and they made up questions about them. They didn't get very far but they were asked to make up 2 questions for 2 of the characteristics at home for homework. Some students did it and others didn't. Since i wasn't informed about the homework i couldn't do it. In the second lesson when they were continuing with making up the questions i didn't know what was going on at first, but later on i joined the class and made up a question. In the third lesson Mr. Sparks wasn't there so Mrs. Fletcher took over the class. She gave us a sheet that we had to fill out. On this sheet we had to choose three characteristics and we had to make up 8 questions. The 3 characteristics i chose were Education,Religion and Government And Law. I got along with the task quite well and i finished in time. I didn't bother to fool around like others.Once i was done i took the sheet and stapled it to the back of my book.