Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The vast improvement in the multiplication skills of the class are most impressive!  Most of the class has done an excellent job in learning this skill. 

I did not post a post yesterday but I had a couple of photos from our walk home from yesterday's trip to Bloor CI.  Here they are:

A fair bit of time was spent, in the morning, working on the Health project.  Most of the time was spent explaining the guiding questions.  I explained that the questions are like little maps that will help direct the research a little more.  The project is now broken down into six key questions:

I took a couple of photos while a couple of the Grade 7s were explaining some work they were doing in Science.  Bishop and Adrian created a couple of solutions in class and were demonstrating how it worked:

Bishop adding chocolate syrup to his milk

Adrian shaking his flour and water solution

 Homework:  Continue to work on the Health project.  This would involve reading, doing some highlighting and making some jot notes based on the 6 guiding questions.  If time permits, I will do an example of what the first three answers to the questions might look like and share this with the students tomorrow.

Monday, January 16, 2012

A number of items were returned this morning.  Our final journey into the world of multiplication tables will be put to the test once we begin working on some word problems and applying those skills.  Word problems seem to cause students, regardless of ability of designation, the most amount of difficulty.  It has to do with comprehending the question (Language) and doing the arithmetic (Math).

All of the students are capable of adding digits without carrying and I will assess the students tomorrow -- not for grades-- to see how well they can do this.  Depending on the difficulty the students have with this, I will formally teach a lesson.

In  the afternoon, we began to talk a little bit about the Health project.  To keep students research and thinking focused,  a potential topic needs to be narrowed down.  We will use a question framework to organize the ideas and thoughts the students may have about a topic.  Here is the chart:

We also had our weekly visit with the Kindergarten class for Reading Buddies.  Here are some photos:

Homework:  In your Language book, write what Health topic you selected and make a few (3 or more) jot notes on why you selected this topic.

Sunday, January 15, 2011

Only a few pictures today:

Sandro on the beach in Portugal during the holidays

Rust on the trees

A lovely photo of a sunset looking East from our parking lot

Thursday, January 12, 2012

We followed up yesterday's Me to We visit by watching a video on the founder of the organization, Craig Kielburger.  The film is called It Takes a Child.  Here is a short clip from YouTube:

The movie was informative and very raw.  It provoked a lot of discussion around the exploitation of children and issues related to poverty.  In a little over two weeks, we will be travelling to the Daily Bread Food Bank to volunteer.  In the time leading up to our field trip, I hope to explore some of the issues around the issue of poverty in the city we live in.

After a period of Library I began to think that the class will be needing a refresher on how to do research.  They have to do a Health project and they require some direction and specifics about what to look for when interested in a particular topic.  I hope to partner with Ms. Wills on this.

In the afternoon, we continued to prepare for our stories on an important transition in our life.  We brainstormed a list of "big" transition events that will serve as the basis of our story.  We will next work on the jot note portion of the assignment.  Here is our list of events:

Homework:  Multiplication Quiz 7,8,9,10; Spelling final dictation + worksheet due; Sub forms due tomorrow; Thankful Art due for Taushana and George

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

Planning a game of tag

Running for it!

 

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

I am most impressed with the quiet reading which is a part of our morning routine in class.  ALL of the students have now found themselves in the habit of quietly eating snack and reading for the first portion of Period 1.

After a period of Health, where the students are now researching their Health project, we began working on our Patterning unit in Math.  On the multiplication quiz, all of the lowest score was 29/30 for the 1-3x10 tables.  Tomorrow, the quiz will be for the numbers 4-6.

We are working on some basic concepts of addition and did a diagnostic around addition in which most students understand the basics of adding.  Tomorrow, we will continue this diagnostic by making the questions a little harder.  Eventually, we will be doing addition questions involving carrying.

The students had a period of French culture.


In the afternoon,   the class helped with a little room reorganization as I attempted to set up the SMARTBoard projector.  It is set up and here is a photo of it as I type up the Blog for today.

I am looking forward to using it in class and integrating into the lessons and activities we do in class. 

After members of the Band returned, and we cleaned up the desks we had to move around to accompany the new device for our class, we began work on a spelling unit on plurals.  There are only 10 words in this list and the unit will attempt to address the issue of not using an apostrophe for a plural.  For example, a lot of students will write this for monkeys is often written monkey's by a lot of students.  Also, the rule for changing the y to i and then adding es -- in the case of study to studies -- will be explored.

Not all of the spelling units will come from the same source.  This week's lesson comes from the following book:

Homework:  Multiplication Quiz 4-6, QUIZNOs sub forms due on Friday, final spelling dictation on Friday, AMG Movie Night form due on January 12

Monday and Tuesday, January 9 and 10, 2012

Welcome Back!
A large portion of the morning, outside of going to Gym, was spent doing a Community Circle recap of the class' holiday experiences. 

I had intended to start our new Math unit on Patterning.  I was investigating the possibility of trying to do some work using the Grade 7 and 8 Math curriculum but the skills needed to do this involve being fluent in the skills of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.  Over the next couple of days I will be doing some diagnostic testing to see how comfortable they are with adding and subtracting and continue pushing away at the multiplication table.

If anything, they should be able to leave Grade 7 or 8 knowing how to add and subtract.  Unfortunately, too many students pass through school not knowing these core Math skills and I think that is very unfortunate.  Those basic numerical operations will serve as the basis for our Patterning unit.

There were some final grades returned today.  One for a "Thankful" art project (based on a passage from Randy Pausch's book) and the last Measurement test of 2011.

In the afternoon, we travelled to the Kindergarten room for some reading an activity.  Here are some photos and a couple of images thrown in from the afternoon DPA.

Outside at DPA

Outside at DPA

Homework:  Multiplication quiz on 1,2,3 only. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2011

Someone told me the name of this speaker at a workshop I was at.  I head of him before but never taken a listen.  He really pulled me in:

Sir Ken Robinson on schools and how they can kill creativity.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Happy New Year.

I will not be writing too much information today but I wanted to post the link to the video we watched in the last week of school about the dangers of consuming caffeinated energy drinks.  The video below comes from CBC Vancouver.