Happy Halloween! Study Sheet

Inspired by the design suggestions of Room 28

An example of a Study Sheet, prepared for Wedsnesday's test.  Details of what is on the test were listed on the Homework board.

Introducing Measurement and Place Value, Math textbook questions, and the rounding of decimals

A former colleague passed on this book to me about the metric system.  Eventually, a YouTube video, from the original 1977 film, showed up.  Thanks for the book, Kris Janssen!

The book and video serve as interesting introductions to a portion of the Measurement strand of Math, which relates to conversion among measurements in the Metric system.

Often, when I have done this, I have used a chart for converting.

It has been influenced by my Grade 8 teacher, Charlie Binkley, Laydin Bowles and Derek Fereira, both former colleagues. Now, the trick to remembering what the prefixes mean can be found in the expression:  King Henry died, drinking chocolate milk.  It is true and here is the evidence:

Now, since we are combining some aspects of measurement with the place value chart, I had this bright student named Avery, who made me rethink the original chart and came up with this:  

In the homework, you will be asked to do some conversions.  You can use the handouts I give you to speed up the process, but you may want to see the conversions in action.  I will do some in class and you can refer back to a few YouTube videos, as your guides.  

Here are a few Math questions, for the weekend.  For some of you who may not want to bring the textbook home, here they are:

In this unit, there will be some rounding going on and this REPETITIVE VIDEO (yes, I know, that is the point) will help you understand how to round decimals.

NYT, dates for Parent Teacher Conference dates and time

What is going on in this picture 

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/20/learning/VTS10-24-16LN/VTS10-24-16LN-superJumbo.jpg

We will do a reveal of what is really going on, tomorrow.  This is my shot at it.   By now, this should have been handed in.

Parent Teacher Progress Report Conferences

More details on this will come from the school, I am sure, but the dates are:

November 17th , after school until 8:30 or so.

November 18th, typically to about noon.

Bloom's Taxonomy, Summary writing continued, Study Sheet & Math HW

Introducing:  Bloom's Taxonomy

One way of introducing students to ideas that seem complex, or abstract, is to use things that they can relate to.  In this example, someone has demonstrated the taxonomy using the film Finding Dory.

Here is another example of Bloom's Taxonomy at work, with Harry Potter as an example:

Summary writing:  Using a wise story for a 10-word summary

This is a dramatic performance of a short story I used for an introduction to writing a summary.
  The story came from this book:

In the dramatization, the actors referred to the woman as a girl, when in fact, she was a woman.  Even in the story, she is described as being beautiful and helpless, which I think distracts from the content of the story.

In any case, the story is short and the purpose of the exercise is to have the students create a summary after recording 10 words from the story after I have read it.  Once I have created some space on the bulletin board, I will post the different samples of the summary.

Group shot of summaries:

Last night's HW & a Study Sheet for Math:  Due October 28

The answers for last night's Math are posted here.  Time was provided in class to check with me, or a classmate, to see the possible approaches to answering the question.

Some students commented that they approached the questions differently.  On a future test, I would not have the  students give their answers in a specific box.  I will only have them break down the composite numbers.  

Another approach to #1:

I will only deal with numbers that are on the multiplication table up to 100, since I am discouraging the use of calculators.  This is meant as a reinforcing of the multiplication skills.

The Study Sheet will be due in 2 days.  The date of the test has not been set, but it will not be on the day after Halloween!

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b5/15/2c/b5152c0ec30b90250d8b9494af4fa8d0.jpg

A possible Study Sheet might look like this:

I suggested 3 different numbers, as examples, on the Study Sheet..

Chanie Wenhjack & some shots from Reading Buddies, film list for Regent Park Film Festival trip, Homework (use your AGENDA!)

Chanie Wenjack

There was a request for a portion of the interview between Gord Downie and Chanie's Wejack's sisters.

A more complete version of the interview, along with the full presentation and post panel discussion, from Sunday night, may be found at this link:  http://secretpath.ca/

We watched the first track of 10 and responded to the following question:

To assist some students who needed some guidance to begin the writing process, I typed up a few possible prompts:  

The lyrics, at the side, are from screenshots of the graphic novel I purchased.  

Reading Buddies

Regent Park Film Festival Lineup:

Homework

There are many items written on the chalkboard and I encourage your son or daughter to use the agenda to record items which need to completed.  Please ask them to share the work they are expected to complete.  I provide the class with opportunities to catch up on work they may not have completed.

Have a good evening.

NYT, Introducing to Summarizing, Learning Skills and Work Habits

NYT:  What is Going on....

A more high res image can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/learning/whats-going-on-in-this-picture-oct-24-2016.html

Summarizing:  Something we are doing in our Partnering in Library and in Writing class

There are a number of students who have told me in their introductory letters to me that they enjoy looking at images and visuals to enhance the learning experience.  So, to begin a look at summarizing, I came across some ideas from Pinterest.  I will include the names of the original authors of the images used in on this blog.  For now I will post them and refer back to these images, for reference.

from Pride Academic Solutions

From Dana Mueller

http://www.wikihow.com/Summarize-a-Story

...to be continued...

These are the areas of the Learning Skills and Work Habits we have been working on for this portion of Term 1, which is also known as the Progress Report Period.  

“The Stranger” Official Video - Gord Downie - Secret Path

Homework, Group Reading Response on Creepy clowns, updates to some Social Studies work

Homework Board

The Prime Factorization worksheet is now due on the 25th of October.  A number or students still had some old work to catch up on and I did not want to rush them.

This is the homework board today, as of 12:20 on Friday.  Time is provided in class for students to ask questions and begin the work in the classroom.  Two periods, this afternoon, will be devoted to working on some of these items.

I returned the Reading Responses, which the students completed several weeks ago.  I usually do not like holding onto material for so long and will avoid repeating this.  For each student, I provided some detailed "descriptive feedback," which is aimed at directing the students to improve the response.  For those of you at Curriculum Night, this would be seen as an example of assessment as learning (what can we learned and improved upon in the process/task).

We are going to a class Reading Response and I decided to pick the topic of creepy clowns.  The students have been talking about it and the stories are quite prominent in the media.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/10/19/creepy-clowns-make-real-clowns-sad.html

There was an article I read from last week's Saturday Star, but I think it is too dense.  Still, it has some interesting elements, which we used as part of a class discussion.  The article was originally from The Chicago Tribune.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-ronald-mcdonald-clowns-1013-biz-20161012-story.html

In the article, there was a mention of Ronald McDonald being an example of "predatory marketing" and being very similar to the Joe Camel image for cigarettes. 

from http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/joe-camel-ads

Sometimes, there are organizations that attempt to critique such ads.  We will be introducing and looking at elements of advertising in the Media Literacy strand of the Language program very soon.  Here is a spoof ad by a group based out of Vancouver, I believe, who are called Adbusters.

https://www.adbusters.org/spoofads/tobacco/

Somehow, this discussion got us on to the idea of vaping (e-cigarettes) and I pointed out the type of marketing often associated with electronic cigarettes and vaping.  Here is one such example.

https://www.vapes.com/blogs/news/pokemon-e-juice-a-new-low-in-vaping

But we must return to the issue of clowns for our group response.

The news story attached to this can be seen here: 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canadian-tire-clowns-1.3808925

News report from CP 24:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUR_BSLD9BI

After reading the article from the Star, and making some notes, here is our response:

Update to Social Studies homework items:

In the orange print, I made some jot notes of the description on the left, so it might be easier to comprehend.

I added a few details to the "Exploring" section of the Inquiry.

Prime Factorization: Part 2 & a review game, Library Partnering, Mr. P's "Exploring" stage for his Social Studies project, the agenda and Homework

Another Prime Factorization video & a review game 

https://jeopardylabs.com/play/factors-multiples-and-prime-composite

The creators behind this Jeopardy template have come up with a lot of interesting ways of reviewing certain concepts. The topics in question touch on some of the work we have done.  The decimal section we have touched on, but will get into it, as we move into Measurement.

We will return to learning about Division, but will be taking a pause from the Number Sense strand. If you are working through the Divisibility rules section, you may want to reference this helpful sheet:

Homework, that was not taken up:

I hope I am not breaking any copyright issues by doing this:

Partners in Action

This was the name of a document the Ontario School Library Association used back in the 1990s.  As a former Teacher-Librarian, we would work with classroom teachers on a particular topic.  Right now, we are working with Ms. Ling on a Book Talk project.  I will post the pdf of the assignment on the Proudfoot Institute download page.

Here we are, at work, on summarizing Cindarella.

making jot notes 

Social Studies

Add caption

This is a screenshot of the beginning stages (EXPLORING) of my Social Studies project.  If you notice, I have not started any formal research.  I am just trying to think about what direction I want to move in.  I have jotted down some of my ideas, based on the expectations of the project.

This may be the first time the students have had to think in this way.  They are being asked to think and make choices on a particular topic and theme, but I have not told them exactly what to do.  I think this is the first step of them being a little more independent in their thinking.  I know this can be challenging, so I will keep doing these sorts of examples, and answering lots of questions, along the way.

Homework and Agenda

I am pleased to see a number of students using the agenda, but it is still not enough.  I would like to see them being used, so students can keep track of what they need to do. I will take a shot of  the Homework reminder board, which is in the front of the room.  Please ask your learner in Room 28 if they are using the agenda; better yet, ask them to show it to you.