inspiring app development from an 11 year old student

The following video is posted from CityNews about an 11 year old who is developing an app to assist newly arrived refugees to Toronto.

The video:  http://www.citynews.ca/2016/01/14/video-boy-11-creates-app-to-help-newly-arrived-refugees/

update and Summarized chart for Health Assignment, postponed tests, and some Art

This pre-weekend post will be refined a little more, along with the post from a couple of days ago.  I have not had the chance to sit down and work on it.

I refined the health project and it was handed out to the students two days ago.  Below is a summary of the two key parts:

It is not the neatest scan, but it does detail the possible topic areas (at the bottom) and the criteria and the top, explains how it will be graded.   I cut and pasted -- old school...with scissors and tape -- the key portions together and had it displayed during today's work period.

 It is a Health project from the Healthy Living section of the HPE (Health and Physical Education) curriculum, so the core of the project is about making healthy choices.  You may have noticed that the section on Human Sexuality has been removed for this project, but will be explored in the early part of the second term.    The Ontario HPE curriculum may be found at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/health1to8.pdf

homework
- Sentence quiz (with Promethean Board and with short writing) has been postponed until Tuesday
- today's Math test for the Resource Math group, originally scheduled for today, has been postponed until Monday...it will be an open book test

Supplemental approach to "King Henry," another look at Bloom's Taxonomy and using it with Little Red Riding Hood

Avery pointed out another helpful video for exploring Metric conversion.  I will use it and then come up with a chart and brief note to explain how it works, even though the video is very helpful.

Here is part 2 of the video:

Here is the chart I came up with.  I will make sure everyone gets a copy.  By no means is this meant to be a dismissal of the chart I have been using with the Z in the middle (see Math notebook), but another example or perspective on how to approach these problems.

Thanks, Avery!

In my attempt to use a classic Fairy Tale to orient the thinking of the thinking in Bloom's Taxonomy, I realized that the questions I posted should have been linked to |Little Red Riding Hood.  I made a mistake a titled it incorrectly.  Here is what the taxonomy looks like, even though I may have posted it before:

https://juliaec.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/blooms-taxonomy-encouraging-higher-cognitive-thinking-in-primary-school-classrooms/

The questions are kind of small, after I scanned it in.  I shared the questions with the class to let them see how the different level of questions worked.

Learning Skills for Term 1, initial ideas around Health project, playing with Paragraphing, King Henry Math conversion

It is hard to believe that we are approaching another Report Card, but we are.

In terms of the Learning Skills I will be commenting on, here they are:

In about three weeks, the class will be doing a self-evaluation, which I usually include on the top portion of the Strengths/Next Steps section.  As I look at this, I realize that I have not assessed my skills.  This is something I will do, just before we do this exercise as a class. 

I am in the process of developing the idea of the Health Project that the Grade 7 teachers came up with.  It is a more educational spin on this video:

The more educational part comes from The Healthy Living section of the Grade 7 HPE (Health Physical Education) curriculum.  So far, the project looks like this:

As I mentioned, I wanted to continue our work and understanding of how paragraphs work.  We did look at a video, which I posted the other day, along with the "classic" paragraph hamburger handout.  We also used one group's sentence work to develop a short paragraph:

Each of the students will then work on the sentences they completed for homework and then develop a short paragraph.  This form of writing is a variation of the 5 Sentence paragraph that a lot of teachers talk about.

http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/paragraph_hamburger

In Resource Math, we looked at our tests from last week and assessed the questions.  The test questions will be similar to the one from last week and the higher of the two marks will be used towards evaluation on the upcoming Report Card.

Although I have provided some questions and samples for our unit on Measurement and the King Henry chart, I will post a video here to see it in action.

First off, I love this one:

Here is another one:

Here is something worth noting.
BASE is another way of saying UNIT for the following set of measurements:  metre, gram, and litre.  Also, I think "deka," as it is typed above, should be spelled "deca."  I only say this because I am a Track and Field fan and think of the Decathlon, where there are 10 events.
 

http://olympic.ca/2015/07/23/warner-wins-decathlon-gold-breaks-canadian-pan-am-records-at-to2015/

In class, I have often used the King Henry Doesn't Mind Drinking Chocolate Milk.  The "M" represent the metre, but is only 1 of 3 base units (metre, litre, gram). 

homework
- complete the set of sentences, if you haven't (2 simple, 2 compound, 1 complex sentence)
- complete Math sheet involving conversion  

 

A news item relating to a couple of Grade 7 Geography projects

Hyeon Soo Lim describes North Korea labour camp conditions in interview:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150305171230-rev-hyeon-soo-lim-exlarge-169.png

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lim-korea-labour-camp-1.3397978

Siham Abu Sitta on CBC's Metro Morning, Photo Club images posted in school "Breezeway", code.org, reviewing our sentences, working on our new Math unit

Earlier this week, I shared a news story with my students about a Syrian woman on Metro Morning who was talking about her initial time in Toronto.  We will take a listen to the discussion and connect this with the current article we are reading in class.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/after-months-of-hold-up-syrian-refugee-family-arrives-in-toronto-1.3392054


I will come back to this post, to clean it up and add some more details.

The photos from the members of AMG's Grade 7 and 8 Photo Club have been framed and posted up in the "Breezeway."  This is the hallway that travels from the front foyer up to the school Library.

We will plan to add more to this area of the school, over the last half of the school year.

Room 52 was quite excited to hear about the coding opportunity.  I discovered this page:

It is from code.org

After looking at this, we came up with some ideas for developing apps.  I would show them, but I don't want to give away the ideas!

After my workshop next week, there will be more information to share about this exciting project.
In the same area of Science and Math, we will be looking at the Measurement and Patterning strand through the frames of metric conversion and Place Value.  Today, the students were responsible for recording this chart in their notebooks:

On the left are the place values for each of the corresponding metric prefixes.  The conversion part fits in as you travel up and down the chart along the red line.  The arrows on the line correspond to the direction the decimal moves when making the conversion.  I handed out a sheet of paper, which we read through, that breaks this chart down:

I know this is not entirely clear, but each student should have this in the Math section of his or her book for reference.

Another variation, on the same idea, may be seen here:

taken from http://mcdn1.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/Metric-Conversion-King-Henry/original-238562-1.jpg

The whole idea of measurement and the pattern of multiplying or dividing by 10 can be summarized in this old, retro video based on a book I have, Powers of Ten.  

I used the book (not the video, I will share that another time), along with some Base Ten materials, and a metre stick to explain the idea of things being 10x larger or 10 x smaller.

The large cube could be seen as two things:  a kilo and then working down to the small cube, representative of a metre, litre or gram; or it could be seen as metre, litre or gram and then being broken down with the prefixes for  deci, centi, and milli.

This metre stick shows a series of orange and black intervals.  Each one is one decimetre.  It takes 10 of these to make 1 metre.  On another side of the stick is a list of 100 cm and, if you had the time to count, small markings of 1000 millimetres!















On the Language front, we did do a review of sentence structure, but this time we worked cooperatively and aimed to keep the subject of the sentences similar, so they could be possibly developed into paragraphs.

I will develop this into a paragraph and share with the students.

All of this came after I posed a very basic paragraph (using only Simple Sentences) to illustrate why it was important to learn how to write with a variety of sentences.

The idea for this began with Heather -- a former student -- coming in the room sketching on the board.  She likes Art, so I decided to use it as a talking point of the basic paragraph.  I then asked students to make possible suggestions to improve and develop the paragraph.  Here is what we came up with:

Nice work!

Well, that is about it, or now.

homework
- complete sentences in Language book (I believe it was 2 compound, 1 complex, and 2 simple)on the same topic
- p. 449, Math textbook, question #1 (I think this is the page...it has to do with conversion)

a gorgeous photo, taken by my neighbour

Ed Hack App: An innovative activity for students in Room 52

So, this looks like a neat opportunity for me to stretch myself and the class by looking into an opportunity set up by the TDSB Model Schools program.  On Wednesday night, I was introduced to the ideas of this opportunity that will involve group work, collaboration, creativity,problem posing and solving, and some coding.  Ultimately, the end result will be proposing and constructing an app, which could be used on an IOS device.

Part of the project will be learning about coding.  Here are a couple of cool, and important videos, on the benefits of coding:

Here are a couple of videos about the project from last year (I believe) and a group of students pitching their ideas.  As I learn more about this project, which should last until mid May, I will share it with the class and post it on the blog.

The project has a lot of potential and I am excited to learn more about it and share it with the students from our class!  Here is the promotional page for the activity from 2014:  http://edapphack.com/

Ikigai, Marking the Geography projects, Guided Reading exercise in Geography, moving slowly into Paragraphing, and a visit from some former students, mo

Item of Interest (I of I)

Over the break, this image was shared with me.  I found it interesting and inspirational.  It comes from the Japanese idea of "finding the purpose in one's life."  More can be understood of this concept by checking out this page on Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai
As you enter the wonderful, confusing, exhilarating, and challenging period of Adolescence and start looking ahead, think of this image.  

I am enjoying the marking of the Grade 7 Geography assignments.  Fortunately, many students have completed them with a lot of pride, creativity, and enthusiasm.  Some students, unfortunately, have not.

I am posting a link that looked at the Success Criteria for the assignment.  Each student received a copy of this to guide them through the process.  In addition, I modeled the process with a mock assignment I did.

http://rumblingsfrom52.blogspot.ca/2015/11/citation-machine-website-some-examples.html

A few of the assignments, so far, have not used this guideline and some students have even plagiarized a fair bit of the writing from the websites they used for research.  During the research for this project, I insisted that students make jot notes to record information.  This would serve as the material for the story/narrative they wrote.  The narrative/story about the person did not have to be long and I wanted it to emphasize quality over quantity.  

If projects have been submitted outside of the agreed upon timeline (a flexible date of December 18 was provided), minor deductions in marks will occur.

Before we begin History in February, we will be looking at the plan for settling Syrian Refugees in Canada and attempting to deepen that understanding by using Bloom's Taxonomy.  We will be reading an article from What in the World entitled, "Long Road to Canada."  In it, it mentions the temporary accommodations that will be used for housing.  They are located at the Canadian Forces base in Trenton, ON.  Here are a few images of the housing:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/syrian-refugees-canada-united-states-comparison-1.3340852

And a shot from the outside:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/syrian-refugees-housing-trenton-1.3332336

Tonny Liu reminded me of the website, which tracks the number of Syrian Refugees in Canada.  Here is the site:  http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/welcome/
Language:  Paragraphing

I mentioned, towards the end of last year, that we would be moving into the skill of paragraphing (paragraph writing).  Before doing it in detail, we will be reviewing and recapping where we have gone with our sentence writing.

The collages were marked.  From an Art perspective, 11/12 people scored a mark of 70% or higher.  From a Writing perspective, 7 people scored a mark of 70% or higher.  I would have liked this to be higher.  This suggests a review is needed, before entering into Paragraphing.  This is why I describe it as a slow entry to the unit.

At the front of the class, this image is posted:

To supplement its meaning, I am going to provide some YouTube contexts:

Here is a classic video, that some of my former students found annoying, but thought it was useful:

I truly believe that if students are able to write a paragraph, then they will have a valuable skill they can always use.  The head of the English department, at Oakwood Collegiate, once commented that paragraph writing appeared to be a real struggle for students.  This is a skill that is supposed to be taught in Grade 2 (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf).  If students are unable to write a paragraph by the end of Grade 8, I feel that this is very unfortunate.  I will do my best to encourage the students to develop the skills to "paragraph."




A photo, taken in early December, of some students from 2011-2012.

Welcome to 2016, returning to Bloom's Taxonomy, select images from The Photography Club, and Math Resource quiz on Tuesday

Welcome back, well almost.

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/welcome-man-making-number-using-metallic-numbers-57394836.jpg


Near the start of the Geography unit, we looked at that horrific image of Alan Kurdi on the beach.  So much has happened in our classroom and a lot has happened for the family of Alan Kurdi.  While the news tends to be negative and, often, horrific, here is a story to lift our spirits.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tima-kurdi-opens-hair-salon-with-refugee-brother-mohammad-working-beside-her-1.3387473

As I mentioned in 2015, we would be exploring the idea of Bloom's Taxonomy a little more.  We will use it and apply it to an article from What in the World, but before we do that, let's have a little review.  A taxonomy is a way of organizing something.  In our case, we will use it to organize our thinking and stretch our understanding of a particular subject.

Let us begin with something simple:  The Bloom's Taxonomy ladder.

Now, we will look at the sandwich model for understanding how this might work.

Let us use a few examples from Hollywood, to enhance our understanding:

We will continue to use this taxonomy to help us make sense and understand an article we will use in Geography.  This kind of thinking will help us develop our reading comprehension skills, too!

Although this is not the best quality, here are a few of the shots from our Grade 7/8 Photography Club:

homework

Math Resource group has a quiz tomorrow.  A small group of students had their Study Sheets returned, so they could review for the quiz.  The following items will be on the quiz:
- rounding decimals up to three places (thousandths)
- multiplying and dividing numbers up to three decimal spots by whole numbers

These quiz items are from the Grade 7 Number Sense curriculum.  Even though there was no homework assigned over the Break, these items were part of the homework in late December.  Mr. Chung did review questions in Math class today.  Some of the items, and how to approach answering those questions, is on the December 14, 2015 blog page.

Enjoy your holidays & a couple of news items related to Refugees

This news story may be found at:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/syrian-refugee-family-toronto-1.3379374


This form of media offers up a section from the radio show The Current:

The link to listen to the story is here:  http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-december-28-2015-1.3381867/established-refugees-offer-advice-to-arriving-syrians-on-how-to-make-canada-home-1.3381895 

I think it is important for you -- the students -- to know that the many Refugees who arrive in Canada will be happy and thankful for being here.  At the same time, there will be difficult and challenging times.  There will be an adjustment period (which can't be measured) to an entirely new culture and painful memories to work through.  Of course, human beings can be incredibly resilient and it will be up to us, as Canadians, to support our new citizens.  It is quite possible that they may end up at AMG.  What will we all do to help them feel welcome when we are face to face with a new Canadian or Canadians?

As some of your have explored other parts of the world in your projects, here is a short link to a discussion on CBC's Metro Morning about other non-Syrian Refugees who are also in need of support.  Think of this as another portion of a larger story on the settlement issues we have explored:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/other-refugees-1.3381943
This is an 8 minute radio interview. 


For me, as a teacher, I am considering this book:

We have another month of Geography, before we move into the History curriculum.  Perhaps we will use this time to make some connections between some of the challenges, how we can be allies for Canadian newcomers, and some of the Historical concepts we will explore over the balance of the school year.  This book was written by Jan Stewart.  She is a professor at The University of Winnipeg.

Keep enjoying your time off.

image courtesy of image courtesy of: http://zentofitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/relax2.jpg

Happy Holidays & Zedtangling

Have a wonderful rest.  I will not be assigning any homework over the break, which is in keeping with the TDSB Homework policy.  If there are any outstanding assignments, though, they will need to be completed.  

Enjoy your rest and the time you have with your family.

 Some YouTube videos:

There is research that exists that suggests this form of Art to be relaxing:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/arts-and-health/201403/calm-down-and-get-your-zentangle

And now, for some examples.  The images may exceed the margins of the blog posting area, but I wanted to do the Art some justice.

http://mykidcraft.com/zentangleinspired-hands/

from http://mrs-cook.weebly.com/respect-zentangle.html

The following two images are from from  https://www.tes.com/lessons/PcceSGxaCjB6oA/zentangles

My sample: