Monday, May 16, 2011

Today the student got back a lot of work.

The first graded paragraph was returned to the students.  I was quite pleased with the results.  Most of the students scored above a grade of C (60%) and were able to follow the "Success Criteria" chart we established in the class.  This unit will continue and we will begin to work on writing a descriptive paragraph before the end of the week.  Please ask your daughter or son, sister or brother how they performed.

The Integer tests for the Grade 7s was returned.  There are a few students who will work with me, in a small group, to see if they can improve their marks and raise their score beyond the 50% mark.  Please ask your son or daughter, brother or sister about how they performed.

We spent a lot of the afternoon working on a Genki Note.  To quote from a publication I received, a Genki Note is "... a breath of hope, a smile, a laugh.  "Genki" means a source of energy and happiness...."  Some classes at AMG created these notes to send off to students in Japan who were the unfortunate victims of the Tsunami in March.   Here are some samples of the work we are going to send off to Japan:

Homework:  Read quietly for 20 minutes; complete outstanding homework
PROGRESS REPORTS ARE COMING SOON!

Thursday, May 12, 2011

After snack, the morning was very busy in Room 52. 

The Grade 8s continued to work on their Algebra work in taking up some homework questions.  The Grade 7s, meanwhile, were having a class review on Integers.  They then broke into 2 smaller groups to prepare study and review charts for the test which was planned for today.  I felt it was important to review with the students because some of them may have forgotten ideas about Integers.

Grade 8 homework:  Using Interactions 7 book, p. 220 # 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 & p. 224 # 2, 3, 7

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Today was the day of the play!
We left for Theatre Passe Muraille after snack time and took the streetcar Queen Street.  It was a moving performance and I am looking forward to reading the extensive written feedback from the class.  Be sure to ask how your son or daughter or brother or sister enjoyed the performance.  I think the play did a great job of breaking down some of the stereotypes of what suffering from a mental illness might be like.  The main character was a 12 year old boy named Charlie and I think the students were able to relate to him quite well.

Here are two photos from the performance, just outside of the theatre.  There is also another photo from yesterday's Drama work that I forgot to add.



The students were out for the afternoon, for the most part, on rotary.  The scheduled Math test for today was moved to another day so we can do a thorough review of the concepts.

There was no homework assigned tonight.  The Grade 7s were advised to review the Math pages in their red duotang.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Crazy!
Today, we spent most of the day preparing for our visit to the play, Edward the Crazy Man.  After eating snack and reading quietly, we had a discussion about the amount of work that goes into putting on a play (production).  The class did an excellent job at brainstorming all of the possible roles involved in putting on a theatrical production.  Here is the list we came up with:

We then returned to the issue of mental health and what it is and why it is important.  Some reasons why people may have mental health issues were explored.  The information for this discussion came from the Teacher's Guide for the play as well as information from CAMH (Centre for Mental Health and Addiction).


One of the final activities of the morning, which extended into the afternoon, was the review of some of the lines of dialogue from the play.  This was used as the basis for a Drama activity (and also an Oral Communication and speaking exercise).  Each student had to memorize a line from the play and it will be used, in the future, as a exercise in improvisation.  Here are a few photos of some of the students reading their lines:

The students were encouraged to deliver their lines with a variety of expressions (serious, angry, sad....).

In addition to the Drama, we continued to read from Worse than Boys.  Ask your son or daughter, sister or brother about what is happening in the book to date.

Homework:  Grade 7 Integer quiz and review moved to Wednesday,  Return all permission forms for tomorrow's big trip, read article on plastic bags in the trees at Dufferin Mall.

 

Monday, May 9, 2011

Snack and quiet reading started off our day. Today was the first day where I did not have to mention that it was time to read!  Most of the students got to work right away.
In preparation for the Pyramid of Hate workshop, we did a journal response asking students to think of what the word "hate" meant and to think of a time when they were called a hurtful name and how that felt.  The model for the pyramid, in case I have not posted it, looks like this:

I will return to this model and follow up on the activities explored in the workshop.  You should ask your sister or brother, or daughter or son about what they learned today.  I think this activity is relevant for all students.  The students in Room 52 are deemed "exceptional" but it can also mean, for some, that they are a certain way.  I want the students to see that difference is not a negative or a stigma.

The afternoon period saw the Grade 7s and 8s take turns participating in the workshops.  They had to write a post journal response to the workshop.  I plan to read those this evening.

Homework:  Read for 20 minutes

It is very important that you check the agendas to see if their is homework.  Sometimes none is assigned, but I have noticed that some students are not completing, or even starting, the homework. Thanks.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Snack and quiet reading began our day.  This is something we have been doing as a regular routine since September.  Most of the students are able to get into this without being reminded, but there are still a few students who do not use this time wisely and should.  Quiet reading helps students develop their writing skills, spelling, vocabulary development, the  ability to make predictions and inferences.  Be sure to ask your daughter or son, sister or brother if they are reading during this time period.

In the morning, we spent some time reviewing some old news items.  First, we viewed a Power Point presentation on the wonders of the human brain.  This was like the Scientists in the School presentation we had in the Fall.  Here is an example of one the slides from the presentation:

One of the students had a question, after the Tsunami in Japan, about the effects of radiation on the body.  I was looking through some old issues of National Geographic and came across a visual I used to explain what happens to the body.  I attempted to upload it to this site, but I believe the image is too large.

We continued with our reading of Worse than Boys and added an interesting Drama activity to the read aloud.  It is called the Corridor of Voices.  Basically it involves using a character from the book that walks down a simulated corridor or hallway made up of students from the class.  The students are instructed to say something as the walking character passes by.  The comment should be based on a possible thought or emotions, or question.  It is intended to be creative and fun, but it also is used to check the listening and comprehension of the student during my read aloud period.  The exercise allows the students to get inside the many complex thoughts and emotions we might feel as human beings. 

The students had Family Studies this afternoon and we ended off the day by watching an animated film. 

Homework:   

Reading Response for Grade 7 and 8                     

Math for Grade 7:  select Algebra questions from sheet in red duotang

Math for Grade 8:  Algebra questions from sheet in red duotang

Thursday, May 6, 2011

The majority of today was spent preparing for the big Indigo performance tonight.  All of the Grade 7s from Room 52 were involved in the performance, but I forgot my camera and was unable to capture them in their fine performance.  Here are some photos from this morning's rehearsal:

Today the students spent a fair bit of time on rotary.  Some of that time was spent working on the Health project in the Library.  Ms. Wills, our Teacher Librarian assisted the students in refining their questions and showing them some useful websites to research from.

The Grade 7s had a period to take up the final piece of Math work on Integers before tomorrow's quiz.  The class split into 2 and began preparing a study sheet on everything they have learned about Integers.  Here are a few shots:

Ton

Once again, tonight is the grand performance thanking Indigo Books for there generous donation of money to our school to support the love of reading.

Homework:  Grade 7 mini quiz on Integers

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The class finally got around to watching the video, Speak Out.  It talked about bullying and how it shows up in homophobic, racist, and sexist comments.  In their journals, the students then wrote two things they learned from the journal and attempted to answer the questions they asked before previewing the film.

The majority of boys in the class went off to the Boys peer support group run by the Behaviour Itinerant Resource Support Team (BIRST).  In this program they learn social skills, conflict resolution skills, and play games.

The Grade 7s took up the Math homework.  It was more problem solving based, but still involved our unit on Integers.  A final test will be happening shortly after a review in class.  Like the Grade 7s, the Grade 8s had another short test involving the adding and subtracting of Integers.  The next Math unit will be Patterning and Algebra.  The strand will be the same, but the approach to delivering it will be different for both grades.

Tomorrow is the final day of practice before the big Indigo Book concert.  There was a rehearsal today and the Grade 7s were practicing.  One of the Grade 8 students helped set up the Gymnasium and this was appreciated.

Homework:  Grade 7, Integer worksheet, outstanding memo signatures from a parent or guardian
                     Grade 8, no homework
There are some students who have not completed old homework assignments.  There is a tracking chart in class which helps the students keep track of missing assignments.  They should be encouraged to review this.
 

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

We began the day, in out usual routine, of having snack and reading quietly.  Afterward, we prepared for our Community Circle and placed emphasis, again, on selecting a single topic and adding details to elaborate on it.

The paragraphs we have been working on have now been completed.  We will continue to work on this form of writing until the end of the year and will experiment with other types of paragraphs (narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive).  For some students, this is the first time they have worked on this type of writing.  We have spent a lot of time talking about what goes into making a strong paragraph.

An "anchor chart" was created for the students to check, while they were writing, what should be going into their paragraphs.  Mrs. Machado and I conferenced with the students to explain  the feedback I wrote on their paragraph outlines before they started writing their paragraphs.  I expect to have the paragraphs marked by the end of the week.  A photo of the chart the class used is here:

The Health project was discussed today.  Due to Mr. Moye's absence, many students are confused about how or where to begin.   Mrs. Machado and I decided that the project could be linked with the "paragraphing" unit by asking three key questions around a topic and answering those questions paragraphs.  I plan to do a parallel project to assist the students through the research process.

The Grade 8s have had a thorough review of the adding and subtracting of integers and will have a re-test tomorrow.  The Grade 7s are also working on integers, but are only dealing with the initial ideas of integers on a number line.

We will be finally viewing the documentary on bullying (Speak Out).  To activate some prior knowledge, I had the students do a couple of things:

1.  Think of 2 things they might learn from watching the documentary.
2.  Come up with 2 questions you want to ask about bullying.


All students completed this, will view the film, and then answer a question once the film is completed.

The photos of the mask making from last Friday are now available.

Homework:  Grade 7, Math (second page of JUMP Math on Integers)
                    Grade 8:  Integer re-test on Wednesday
                     Parent signature on memo sent home from last Friday

Friday, April 29, 2011

The Grade 7 and 8s continued to work on their symmetry masks.  I took several pictures, but forgot to bring the camera home.  I will have to upload those images on Monday.  Some students had some difficulty with the concept of symmetry, but many had a lot of fun creating the masks that we will be used for a future Drama based activity.

The class had Library today and used that time to begin researching their Health project.  I plan to assist the class in focusing their research questions so they can really be specific about the information they are looking for. 

We looked at two words today to prepare for an upcoming Drama exercise.  We looked at the words conscience and perspective.  Connections were made with the meaning of the words with the novel we are currently reading, Worse than Boys. 
We had a comprehensive desk clean up and spent some time preparing for the weekend.  The Grade 7s ended the day extending our discussion about Integers by looking at the temperature and working on the first page of a worksheet from the JUMP Math workbook.

Have an enjoyable weekend.

Homework

Grade 7 & 8 Reading  Response (to a newspaper, book, website, or magazine) to be completed in the green literacy duotang.

Grade 7:  p. 87 JUMP Math workbook page on integers

OUTSTANDING HW:  Needs to be completed by Chris, Jack, and Sophie.  This relates to the election question and voting (see blog from Tuesday, April 26).

  The lower portion of the memo needs to be signed, detached, and returned to class.

 

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Today was the final day of discussion about the Federal election before the Student Vote ballots were cast.  Every student in Room 52 had the opportunity to vote for the candidate in the Davenport riding.  It is a large riding and a number of the students in the class reside in it.  Here is the link for the Student vote website:  http://www.studentvote.ca/home.php

Most of the students, though, were familiar with the main political parties (Conservatives, Green, NDP, and Liberal) and voted along those lines.  Just before the vote, we looked at the websites of these parties and reminded them about the Internet link to find out what candidates are running where they reside.

We did a group exercise today, involving art, which looked at what it might be like to have something you cherish taken away from you.  The idea was aimed at having the students reflect and discuss what it might be like to be unable to vote or have a voice in expressing yourself.  Here are some drawings from a few students: 

The other Art activity today involved doing the prep work for a symmetrical mask using construction paper.  It is my hope that these masks will also be used, in some way, for a Drama activity.  Hopefully, some of the masks may end up looking like this: 

I spent a fair bit of time going through the outlines the students did for their paragraph writing.  Most of the students are understanding the basic parts of the paragraph, but I will spend some more time conferencing with them in the coming days to prepare the students  to write on their own.  We have used the "hamburger" organizer to structure our ideas for our paragraphs.  The model looks like this: 

Since there was a lot of rotary today, I did not see the class a lot.  We continued with the reading of Worse than Boys and, as always, began the day with quiet reading during snack time.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

After Snack and silent reading, we welcomed students back to the class today by doing a Community Circle.  This provides each student with the opportunity to share one thing they did over the long weekend.  I am aiming to have this sharing moment resemble the structure of a paragraph (1 topic, with details).

In preparation for watching a play (May 11, more details to follow), we read the book called Edward the Crazy Man by Marie Day.  Edward suffers from Schizophrenia and Charlie, the protagonist of the book, offers him help.  We spoke a little bit about what mental health is and how people can become ill, mentally.  We did a brainstorm about this and talked about some of the stereotypes of people who are called "crazy" or "mental".  We spend a little bit of time on the Centre for Addiciton and Mental Health website looking at what Schizophrenia is. The link for this site is:  http://www.camh.net/About_Addiction_Mental_Health/Mental_Health_Information/Schizophrenia/schizophrenia_whatis.html

In preparation for the upcoming election, we took a look at the boundaries of the Davenport riding and then had each student search for the riding in which they live.  Each student used either there postal code or address to find the location and the names of the candidates running.  Homework was assigned for this and will be listed below. 

The Math re-tests scheduled for today have been moved to Wednesday.  Just a reminder:  a Study Sheet was sent home with each student on Thursday, April 21.

Homework:  Ask a family member what advice they have about voting.  Have a discussion with them about the party they are thinking they are voting for and why.  If a parent or guardian is not voting, ask why.   

All students should be encouraged to read at home, quietly,  for at least 15 minutes.  It would be great if you could spend some time asking them a couple of questions about what they read.  

Thursday, April 21, 2011

I was at a workshop in the afternoon looking at strategies of how to support learners in an Intensive Support Learning Disabilities classroom.  The workshop was broken into three parts and I will briefly summarize each one.

1. Preparing for Learning.  This portion dealt with the importance of ensuring that students have an understanding of who they are and how they learn best.  Additionally,this segment spoke of the importance of integrating explicit social skill instruction into the weekly instructional schedule.

2. Assistive Technology.  The various types of programs available to the students, via the TDSB network, were summarized.  I plan to make this a goal of integrating them more in the lessons.

3. Executive Functioning.  This set of skills are often overlapping and deal with such issues as inhibition, emotional control, initiation, planning and organization, and self-monitoring.  These often confront, in different degrees, the learners in our class.  Our brief discussion spoke of strategies to implement to support students who may have difficulties in this area.

In the class today, we took another step forward in our "paragraphing" unit.  I think this may require another lesson, but the students began to work on an outline for their paragraphs.  We will resume work on this next week and use a couple of the strategies from today's workshop to support the students.

I worked with small groups of students who had difficulty on the last Math test on Integers and mapping on a Coordinate Plane.  I am hoping this intense review of the questions they had difficulty with will assist them when they are reassessed next week.  A Study/Review sheet was sent home with each student to look at before next week's test.


Due to the holiday, there is no assigned homework for this weekend.  Enjoy

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Today was the trip to the zoo.  It was a little cool and rainy, but the students had a good time.  We walked as a group and Mrs. Machado and myself took turns asking students questions about the exhibits we visited or the what they heard from the various presenters.  Here are some of the images from the trip:

The trips over the past couple of days have been really good at building a sense of community among the Grade Seven group. 
Upon returning to the school, we spent the remaining time writing a couple of journal entries explaining the favourite parts of the trip.  As well, the students were asked to illustrate those entries.

There was no homework assigned tonight.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Today is the day for a Grade 7 class trip.  The morning was short, but we managed to read a chapter from Worse Than Boys, a novel by Catherine MacPhail.  A detail of the book can be seen at http://www.amazon.ca/Worse-Than-Boys-Catherine-Macphail/dp/0747582769/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303222176&sr=8-1The book is quite suspenseful and full of intrigue and aimed at the tween audience.

The class wrote thank you letters to Indigo book store for providing AMG with a $250 000 grant to our school over the past three years.  Since I have been at AMG, I have seen $2000, in books and games, come into Room 52.  It has been a literary pleasure to receive this wonderful gift.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Today we began the day with our Community Circle.  This is a sharing time and for the class and a part of the Oral Communication portion of the Language curriculum.  I have decided to give the students 1 minute to share to focus their thoughts and structure the sharing like a paragraph.  "Paragraphing", as I like to call it, is the focus of our writing for the remainder of the year.

In terms of paragraphing, we spent a portion of time trying to come up with the ideal topic sentence to support a list of details for a paragraph.  Each student was able to provide an example of a sentence, but two really stood out as being ideal for the paragraph in question.  Here is an example of one of the completed paragraphs:

        I walked up to the big, empty looking house but as soon as I stepped on the porch, I regretted it.  My hands shook a little as I opened the door of the large, imposing building.  The stairs began to creak as I slowly ascended them, wondering who the last person was to ascend the stairs and whether I would ever come down them again.  Then I heard a blood curdling scream and ran as quickly as I could out of the building.  That was the last time I would ever enter that house alone.

In terms of Math work, the Grade 7s completed a test on mapping points on a coordinate grid and the Grade 8s reviewed the results of a test involving the adding and subtraction of integers.

Reminder:  Grade 7s should have an umbrella for the trip for Tuesday and Wednesday.  No lunch is needed for Tuesday's trip to the theatre, but one is required for the zoo trip on Wednesday.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Today we continued to talk about the importance of Pink Day and why bullying is a problem that everyone has a responsibility to confront and resist.  I spent some time commenting to the class about their journal entries about the significance of Pink Day and how it was important to not be a bystander when bullying is taking place.

We began to preview a documentary created by 18 year old, Alex Vander Vlugt.  It is called Speak Out and can be found, along with some other information on Pink Day, on the following link:  http://www.pinkshirtday.ca/2011/04/12/speak-out-the-documentary-tackles-bullying-issue/
We will watch this film and then have a class discussion about the content of the film.

The Grade 8 students had a test on the addition and subtraction of Integers and will be moving on to multiplying and dividing them by next week.  The students are pleased and eager to know that this work is "at" Grade level and they are having success at completing and understanding it.

The Grade 7 students are preparing for a quiz on Monday and mapping points on a coordinate grid.  The mapping of points on a 4 coordinate grid is one of the expectations of the Grade 7 Geometry Math program and the students are very excited to know they are doing this.

At the end of  the day the students cleaned up their desks and participated in a 20 minute community clean up.  Once I figure out how to post photos, I will upload some images from the very windy, cold, but productive outing.

HOMEWORK
Grade 7 Coordinate Plane quiz (plotting points on a graph) based on classwork and homework