Eco Film screen shot, Track affirmations from the class & a few shots from the meet, Hot Docs' Fed Up! & Driving with Selvi, Spring Fling raffle tickets, Ontario Science Centre & Children's Mental Health week

This has been one of the busiest weeks in recent memory.  The "Proudnaus" Eco Film project was submitted to the Planet in Focus film panel for consideration.  Over the past couple of weeks, Ms. Bernaus and I had edited the scenes and footage into a finished project.  Here is a screenshot of the initial scene:

At Birchmount Stadium, there was a qualifier meet in Track and Field.  It was very wet and cold, but we had some great performances and several athletes who will move on to the South Conference Championships next month.  I have some photos of some of our class members at the meet, but I will need time to compile them and add them to the blog.  In the meantime, there were some nice messages, on the board, before we left and when we came back.

I did not have the opportunity to get photos of all our Room 28 athletes at work at Birchmount Stadium.  Here are some of the photos I captured from the meet of our class:

Hot Docs film: Fed Up!

Here is the trailer for this great documentary we watched this week.

One of the exercises prompted a look at some of the ingredients in the snacks we eat.  I will post the images of the snacks and the top 3 ingredients in the samples we received from the class.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/sugar/cohen-text

Unfortunately, I don't think I am able to read this article -- which Charlie told me about -- unless I subscriber to National Geographic.

The HotDocs for Schools film initiative is an excellent opportunity to explore the experiences of others and engage in some rich classroom discussions.  On Wednesday, we completed watching this film and will use it as a discussion piece for a Community Circle on Monday.  

To assist with this, here are a couple of trailers, related to the documentary.

http://drivingwithselvi.com/

Film director and prodcer Elisa Paloschi and Selvi:

Here is a beautiful link to some fun the Director, Cinematographer, Producer, Elisa Paloschi, had with Selvi:  https://vimeo.com/117442775?from=outro-embed.  Elisa first met Selvi, when she was working at a refuge for victims of human trafficking, in Mysuru, at the Odanadi Women's Refuge centre (http://www.odanadi.org/) which which is in southern India.  https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Mysuru,+Karnataka,+India/@12.3108045,76.5654772,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x3b00c582b1189633:0x559475cc463361f0!2sTamil+Nadu,+India!3b1!8m2!3d11.1271225!4d78.6568942!3m4!1s0x3baf70381d572ef9:0x2b89ece8c0f8396d!8m2!3d12.2970683!4d76.640625

Spring Fling raffle tickets handed out!

Ontario Science Centre

I did not take an abundance of photos on this trip, but here are a few and a little context for the main portion of the trip.

The main reason for the trip -- aside from that it is a lot of fun -- was this presentation for Children's Mental Health week.

MENTAL HEALTH: THE SCIENCE OF ANXIETY (Grades 6-8)

My heart is racing, my mouth is dry and my stomach is in knots! Don’t worry, everyone feels anxious sometimes. Explore what’s really going on in our brains when we experience anxiety, how it affects our bodies and why stress can sometimes be a good thing. Good mental health is more than the absence of mental illness. This program will introduce students to evidence-based strategies to manage stress and anxiety. https://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/school/events/supermondays/

I really enjoyed this presentation and so glad to see this topic being discussed.  A lot of students, and adults, often feel the grips of anxiety and are not sure what causes it or what to do when the feelings creep up.  Towards the end of the presentation, a series of links were posted to guide students to places when they are feeling uncertain about where to turn to for support.  The photo is kind of small so I will post the links I think are most helpful here and at the links section of the blog.  

School Mental Health ASSIST (SMH ASSIST) is a provincial implementation support team designed to help Ontario school boards to promote student mental health and well-being. This support is provided via leadership and coordination, resources, and implementation coaching support. from:  https://smh-assist.ca/

Anything you ever wanted to know about mindyourmind - from who we are, to what we've done, to why we exist. from:  https://mindyourmind.ca/about

This website is designed to help youth and young adults in British Columbia check out how they’re feeling and quickly connect to mental health resources and support. Support includes education, self-care tools, website links, and assistance in connecting to local professional resources. from:  http://mindcheck.ca/

Did you know that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health illness in Canada? We provide my anxiety plans (MAPs) to help you understand and manage anxiety. Empower yourself by watching our educational videos, downloading the MindShift app and getting involved by becoming an Ambassador. from:  https://www.anxietybc.com/

After being out for 2 days last week, I am looking forward to settling back into a routine of 5 full days of teaching.  Our preparations for EQAO will continue, along with pulling together different components of the school program for this year.  It is so hard to believe that the school year is almost done!

Spring Fling notices, Community Circle questions for Wizard Mode, Data Management test

Robert Gagno & Wizard Mode

The first documentary we looked at was from the film Wizard Mode which explored one of the stories of Robert Gagno, who loves playing Pinball and someone on the Autism spectrum.  This film is fitting, given our recent discussions, in class, about neurological diversity.

The following clips share aspects of his story and the questions posted below were used for our Community Circle discussion this morning.  Some students did not get to answer a question or respond to a prompt, but we will return to the discussions on Wednesday after our trip to the Science Centre.

IAS test review

In preparation for our final test in the Data Management strand, we looked at the old Math test and walked through each question.  If students had questions about the questions, we worked through them.  With permission, Hannah allowed her Study Sheet to be used to help people for this Wednesday's test:

Homework:

Final Data Management test on Wednesday
Bring in old snack wrappers to examine nutrition content

Apologies for late Journal question posting

Not Without Us recap, Battleship images, two shots from Track & Field at Earlscourt Park and Relay exchanges, some finished school projects....

TIFF Kids:

Last week, we took in a great film at the TIFF Kids Film Festival.  Once again, here is the trailer for Not Without Us!

Geometry/Battleship:

We will play for a small period of time today and then return to the Transformations on Friday.

Track and Field day at Earlscourt Park:

This is one of the few shots of the Track (seen in better days) at Earlscourt Park.  I did not take any photos, unfortunately, of the meet.  This image is from http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.ca/.

Our walk home from the Track

As the upcoming qualifying meets for the Track and Field season beckons, our Gym classes will look at the importance of baton exchanges during the Sprint relays.

Projects:

There has been some great progress with the projects the students have been working on in class.  Lunch hour and Recess time, when available, will be provided to wrap up these two assignments.

Dandelion Tree, Earlscourt Park

TIFF Kids, Moderated Marking for EQAO & School Community Cleanup, playing Battleship/reviewing some Geometry concepts

TIFF Kids:

Last Friday, we had the pleasure of taking in the film Not Without Us at the TIFF Kids Film Festival.
I caught a few shots, although they did not look superb, it seemed that most of the class enjoyed themselves and took something in from the film they watched.

Schoolyard cleanup:

I plan to spin the trailer, once more, and see what they took away from it.  We will do this on Thursday, on account of tomorrow being our Track and Field day at Earlscourt Park.

We missed the school-yard cleanup on Friday, so we did it yesterday, during the last period.

on the move

after the gathering

the gather!

EQAO:

I really like how the staff at Dovercourt work together to prepare the students for the EQAO assessment.  While we are doing some work, as a class, on some of the questions, Ms. Waxer and Ms. Ling have been taking our class to do some moderated work on old questions.

I posted the link to some helpful sites on the side of the blog, but in the group in Room 28, we talk about different strategies that can be used when approaching the question.  We finally got around to looking at the Felix Baumgartener question.  Here are the responses we looked at.

While the print may be too small to read, I took a page from Miriam's approach to using a highlighter to make note of some key items.

This is an example of our approach to answering multiple choice questions.

In the short answer questions, I provided a good example and a poor answer.

My first answer did not answer the question at all!  I did not read in carefully and was very off topic.   The second one is much stronger.

In the following images, you will see sample, scored, responses from EQAO.  I would probably score my first response as a 10 or I (for incomplete).

Battleship:  Reviewing the locations in the Cartesian graph 

The four quadrants of the Cartesian plane is something that is not supposed to be explored until Grade 7, but I thought I would go ahead anyway.  As I posted on an earlier post, playing the Battleship game on the graph is a great way to review how the coordinate system works.  We will be returning to our transformations (reflections, rotations, translations) after we have a final session of playing.  Here are some of the pairs in action, from yesterday:

EQAO practice: looking at Joseph-Armand Bombardier, School Cash Online system, giant asteroid misses Earth: IAS review, sample HW movie review & other items relating to graphing on the coordinate plane

EQAO prep

This is another review and exploration of the way EQAO questions are set up.  We began to take a look at the answers to a reading passage on Joseph-Armand Bombardier.  I must confess, I did not know a lot about him.  Here is an interesting link to some of his creations, which the reading passage touched on.  Here is the link: http://www.museebombardier.com/en/biography

As I mentioned before, there won't be the luxury of being able to talk about the reading passage before the assessment.  I figure while we are reviewing some reading strategies, why not explore some of the content of the reading passage. 

Schools Cash on Line

This was sent home, about the new School Cash Online system that will be used for future trips and excursions.  Here is a link, which I hope may be beneficial for you.  I will also post the handout, which went home last week.

for more info, check out:  https://tdsb.schoolcashonline.com/Home/Support

Science:

There is one group in the class working on a Science project on asteroids.  There was a big news story, today, on a giant asteroid 2014JO25, is passing by the earth today.  Apparently, it is closest an asteroid has passed by earth in 400 years!  See more information at the NASA site:  https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/asteroid-to-fly-safely-past-earth-on-april-19

An asteroid is a rocky substance which revolves around the sun but is not considered a planet.   Here is a link detailing some information on the differences between different objects in space that we may think of as asteroids.

http://www.sun.org/encyclopedia/asteroids-meteoroids-meteors-meteorites-comets

Old link to an IAS review page:

Before Friday's test, I will take some time to review this concept for Data Management.

http://rumblingsfrom52.blogspot.ca/2017/03/a-few-items-on-horizon.html

A review question.

Transformational Geometry:

I was using the overhead projector to first introduce some of the concepts to the class involving reflections, rotations, and translations.  I was finding that my hand was blocking the projector and the students were not able to see what I was doing.

So, for the homework that was assigned from Tuesday night, I decided to make a video of the solutions.  This video is a sample of the longer version I demonstrated in the class, allowing time for questions.  We will continue our investigations tomorrow and turn our attention to a few of the types of questions which may pop up on the upcoming EQAO assessment.

Here are a few interesting YouTube videos relating to plotting coordinate pairs.  One is from our favourite Math guy and the others relate to Minecraft.

As we begin to work on the full 4 quadrants of the grid, I thought we might play a version of the game that many of you may know as Battleship.  In this game, you will plot a variety of ships on a 4 quadrant coordinate plane.

The link to give credit to the author is not working.

Although our game will look different, this YouTube video might give you an example of what we will be doing.

Here is what our game sheet will look like:

There is a lot of information on this post and it does not cover all that we are doing so we may not get to the game by Thursday.  This game will serve as a midpoint review for this unit.

Malala Yousafzai visits the Canadian Parliament

Nobel Prize winner and Activist visits Canadian Parliament:

Malala Yousafzai, aged 19, is a remarkable powerhouse of a human being who visited our Nation's Parliament and received an Honourary Canadian Citizenship.  Here is her speech from yesterday, in Ottawa.

Geometry:

Although we did not get too far, Charlie Cash got us rolling with an example of a reflection from quadrant one to quadrant four.

TIFF Kids International Film Festival & paint

We are a go for next Friday's film at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  A permission form went home today outlining the details and cost of the trip.

We also will be receiving some paint to match the small canvases I have.  Hopefully, we will get to this when the order arrives in a couple of weeks!

There is no homework over this long weekend.  Have a great rest!