Citation Machine website (for the Bibliography), Checklist for the Passport Assignment and Success Criteria chart

The Citation Machine website is helpful in setting up a Biliography when you have been doing research online.  When you go to the link, select the type of source you used.  Most of you would select Website, because the research was largely done from online sites.

Here is a screenshot, along with a link:

http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-book

Most of you pulled current information from the Internet.  This online app allows you to drop in the website of your research in a particular field and then proceed through some steps to the final item for your Bibliography.  Let us walk through a couple of examples:  One will be from the web and one will be a Youtube video:

https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/duckworth
This comes from the research being done by Angela Duckworth.  I have found her very inspirational.

This other link is for the Star Wars fan in me.  It is a fan movie posted on YouTube.  Some of you may have used YouTube to get some information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47fu0L5-OBk


Preview of checklist to be handed out to individuals or groups tomorrow:

First Draft of Success Criteria (to be reviewed with students)

Modified assignment Success Criteria

...to be continued...in a galaxy not so far, far away...

Updated news item from Geography discussions and the wisdom of Photography, Homework checks in Division, Grade 8 French presentation, and a look at the Homework chart

The family of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian 'boy on the beach,' is coming to Canada:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/alan-kurdi-family-canada-refugees-1.3338703

More information can also be seen in this Toronto Star story:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/27/alan-kurdis-family-likely-to-arrive-in-canada-within-weeks.html

I posted this news story on account of the really strong discussions we have been having in class.  When the Federal Government came out with the recent policy on who could and could not come into Canada from Syria, a few of the class mentioned that Alan Kurdi's Dad would now be a single father, as a result of the tragic incidents on the boat back in September.  It seems as though The Fifth Estate is now exploring the complexities of this story a little more.

Good thinking, Grade 7s.

An inspirational bit of information, from a colleague at The Grove Community School.  Applies to the photographers of life, which I suppose, we all are:

taken from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CUyQWCBWEAAyBB7.jpg:large

The Grade 7s are doing some review of some Grade 6 work in Long Division.  While we are not quite at the 4 digit divided by 2 digit questions, we are getting there.  Here are some homework review questions we did with 7B this morning.

Avery mentioned that the same guy who gave some advice on Multiplication offered a few videos on Long Division.  I posted them.

Another example from an approach posted in one of the preceding photos.  It is accompanied with an explanation:

The Grade 7s were invited to travel to the Grade 8 French Culture presentations in the Senior Lunchroom.

Before visiting, we dropped into the Library to select a novel for an early 2016 Novel Study assignment.  I took a photo with my phone, but it is blurry and not looking the greatest.  The teacher in the photo is Ms. Wills, our Teacher Librarian.

homework

- complete all of the Division questions on p. 44 handout.  These are Problem Solving based questions  If there is not enough room, please do it in your Math notebook

- there will be a short division test on Tuesday

- read your novel 

PROGRESS  REPORTS ARE AROUND THE CORNER.  PLEASE CHECK TO SEE IF YOU HAVE ANY OUTSTANDING WORK THAT MAY HOLD YOU BACK IN RECEIVING A "PROGRESSING WELL" ON YOUR REPORT!
REMEMBER, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WORK YOU NEED TO COMPLETE. 

I am here to assist you, but it is, ultimately, up to you to get your work completed and in on time.
Enjoy your weekend.

Welcome Leaf by Sadie, Sentences with Judah, working on jot notes and a new novel for the class.

Judah noticed that Room 52 was working on a Sentence Collage assignment.  He asked about the samples on the board and I did not get a chance to explain them.  Generally, there are the three types of sentences:  Simple, Compound, and Complex.  Sometimes they can be combined, but for the simplicity and ease of learning them, we learn them separately.

I used the 3 types of sentences here:

The circled "but" is from this list:

Some Grade 7s working on a jot note exercise on a news story, I thought they would find interesting:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/social-media-affecting-teens-concepts-of-friendship-intimacy-1.2543158

We will use this lesson on note-taking to add to our developing understanding of how to write a paragraph or paragraphs from the jot notes we take.

This is the new novel we are reading in class.  It is pretty engaging and we all seem to be liking it a lot!  It is a Newberry Award winning novel, which says a lot.

The website for the novel can be accessed here:  http://www.randomhousekids.com/books/detail/172230-when-you-reach-me

Geography: looking at the fourth page of the Passport assignment

For one the Items of Interest for Geography, we will take a short look at the interview CBC's Matt Galloway did with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  Here is the link.  We may divide the interview into sections, due to the length of it.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/justin-trudeau-q-a-one-on-one-with-the-cbc-s-matt-galloway-1.3335676

On page four, you are required to "map" the routes taken by the person or persons you are researching.  Originally, I showed the maps to you in September, before I planned the assignment.  Perhaps this will assist you in conceiving this page; have a look:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/here-is-the-long-route-many-refugees-take-to-travel-from-syr#.vcOyKGLKK

Long Division: Ask Ronald, and another approach

This is a screenshot from a lesson from Promethean Planet.  Sometimes you can find some really cool and interactive lessons to engage the masses.  At the time of writing this, I don't have the name of the teacher who did this.  I will find it, so I can give her the credit.

To support this approach -- and there are many approaches to tackling Long Division -- I have scouted out a few YouTube videos.

Another approach to the screenshot image question from YouTube could be this:

My apologies about the shameless plug that McDonald's is getting.

Some of the examples we did in class looked like this:

A method I will break down into detail, at another point.

"Classic" method used with the DMSC approach.

A post from my daughter, from her teacher at Rawlinson Community School

CBC links, an updated conceptual map for Geography project, working with jot notes

Canada's Syrian refugee plan limited to women, children and families http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-refugee-plan-women-children-families-1.3330185 Shared via the CBC News Android App

Last week, Metro Morning on CBC had a radio series documenting the expected arrival of Syrian Refugees to our city.  Here is the list of titles/themes of the shows, along with the link that you can access and listen to them.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/syrian-refugee-finances-1.3324860

I have updated a more comprehensive conceptual map of the Geography assignment.  Here it is:

 

You will get a copy of this, along with a shortened list of how to reference the information you discover, while researching.  On the links side of this blog, I will post the link to the TDSB Library Research Guides.  You may require a list of passwords on the bookmark you can get from our school Library.

We may begin to look at some different ways to take and record jot notes.  This is an image from a TDSB Cross Curricular Literacy guide on taking jot notes:

 If we don't do a jot note taking exercise in today's class, we will do it in one of our subsequent classes.

to be continued....

Reading Response Sample

Here is the second Reading Response exercise we will be doing.  Basically, the entire exercise has to do with developing reading strategies when confronted with a piece of writing.
The article was taken from one of the free Toronto Daily papers:

http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2015/11/18/city-coordinating-efforts-to-welcome-syrian-refugees.html

click on each photo to make it larger

Selecting an article and completing a response will be your homework for the weekend.

To be continued.

Jot notes

In terms, of the research process, we should take a look at this chart to see where we may be:

Here was an idea I got from Pinterest, as I was trying to find a visual to explain the importance of jot notes:

this came from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/450078556487962406/ and the page belongs to Roslyn Daly

As I look over some of the jot notes, I am reminding the class to take a look at that list put on Immigration and Citizenship website to help determine if Refugees may stay in Canada.

It may be found at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/inside/apply-who.asp

Eye see you: By Ginger, the novel Half Brother & the documentary Project Nim, Regent Park Film Festival, the Sentence Collage, the Geography Project

A few of the students have read, or are reading, this book:

It is based on the story told in the documentary, Project Nim.  

For those of you not familiar with this film festival, The Regent Park Film Festival is Toronto's only free film festival and showcases a diversity of films.

Have a look and catch a film.  There is a free breakfast and screening this Saturday morning.

http://regentparkfilmfestival.com/

Just before we move to our paragraph unit, we are taking a creative turn with our sentence work.  We are working on a series of sentence collages.

On the front board are some samples of sentences with some images.  The words and letters should be cut out, like the examples on the right hand side of the samples.  The marking criteria is also posted.  

In Geography, I would like there to be some clarity for the project by breaking it down.  Here is an image I posted from last week.

Here is a note I recorded, on the board, to help explain how the research will come together from one of the templates  handed out, and made available, to record some initial ideas of the project.  

homework

- working on Geography project

- any outstanding work posted on Homework chart

- take the time to review some Multiplication notes, if you have not completed the Math test you started with Mr. Chung

Moving forward with Complex Sentences, Multiplication review questions

This picks up on some work from last week where we were looking at lists of clauses and deciding if they were either independent or dependent .

Today, we took the homework and then put our work up on the board.

In terms of Math, for the group working with Mr. Chung and Mr. P, we are finishing off the 3 digit by 2 digit multiplication and were doing some review for tomorrow's quiz. These questions came from last night's homework.  For tonight's homework, a couple of problem solving questions were added.