This blog began in Room 52 at Alexander Muir/Gladstone Ave Junior and Senior Public School in 2011. I am now a former Toronto District School Board (TDSB) educator on a new journey at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
So, while I may never find myself in Room 52, the blog's name is an homage to one of the school communities, central to my development as an educator and person.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2011
I will begin today by sharing two videos I included in a lesson today on writing plurals. They are from YouTube, very short and useful.
We began our work on plurals with a more formal lesson following our spelling pretest on Tuesday. Here are the words and a KWL (what we know, want to know, and what we have learned) chart on the issue of writing the plural form of words.
KWL chart
List words
We had a really dynamic speaker, Abi, from the Free the Children organization. She spoke about how young people could become active and engaged in social justice issues around the world. At AMG there is a youth group which spearhead fundraisers for the cause. Here are some images from the event:
Abi: Spokesperson from Free the Children. She explains her family's journey from Sri Lanka to the North York Jane and Finch Community
An engaged audience from Room 52
Abi and the AMG youth group.
The event which prompted the formation of Free the Children by Craig Kielburger
After the spirited talk from the assembly we returned to class where I read a book my daughter received for Christmas.
As you can see from the title, it has to do with happiness. The buckets are the invisible containers we carry around with us everyday. To simply summarize the book: We fill the buckets by helping others and we empty them by hurting others. The book prompted a couple of reflective journal questions and two sample answers from me. I was trying to emphasize the word explain when they answer the questions by encouraging the students to provide details when writing.
Writing away on journals
The specific answers I used were also meant to encourage some discussion. Disclosing that I once bullied was an opportunity to demonstrate some reflection and honesty on my part on something I am not very proud of. It was interesting that a lot of the boys found this remark interesting.
In the afternoon, we returned to reading the Giver, completing our daily Cursive writing work, completing the 4-6 multiplication quiz, having some fun during DPA, and the spelling lesson I started today's Blog with.
Homework: Multiplication quiz 7-9 on Friday, Spelling sheet due on Friday
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