Wednesday, May 23, 2012

I will add some more details around this, but here is a video of some of the performance the school took in today from Humber College:

It seems as though Blogspot cannot handle videos that are too large.

I was absent yesterday due to the West Conference Track and Field Championships.  Marks, in case you were wondering, were given back for the 1 Point Perspective Art and the Narrative Paragraphs, written earlier this month.

There was a Health class today along with the French Culture class.

The marks for the Dance performance last week were returned.  Individuals received a mark for their effort and participation throughout the preparation process and a group mark was assigned for how they did in the performance.

The CASI (Reading Comprehension) work has been marked and I am pleased to say that all of the students, with the exception of 2, improved on their performances from the First Term.  I am going to share the responses with the students, encourage them to bring them home, and then provide them with some samples of how the questions could be answered in order to attain a Level 3 or higher score.

We are 10 pages shy of completing Half Brother and looking forward to beginning the Hunger Games novel.  A number of the students have seen the movie but not read the book.  I think it will be a good opportunity to compare the two because I am hoping we may be able to watch the film as part of our year end celebrations.

I am hoping that all the talking and viewing of topics around the Titanic will prepare the students for answering some reading comprehension questions about the disaster.  For homework tonight, the students were asked to read a short article on the Titanic.  Tomorrow, we will read it as a class and then do a Reading Response on the article before working our way into answering questions about the passage.

HOMEWORK:  Complete reading selection on the Titanic disaster. 

Friday, May 18, 2012

I will be adding some more details but I wanted to post this video on yesterday's dance performances.  I was very proud of the groups and how they put everything together.

Today we began to work on some reading work related to the Titanic.  There is an endless amount of information on the Internet about this and using the images really helps to activate the thinking before reading an article.

Before we even read, the students will be doing a KWL chart related to the Titanic and I am sure they will have a lot of detail to add now that we have checked out some images related to the tragic liner.

Looking at the images provides opportunities for discussion and observation of clues in the photos (weather, people, words and facts, items in the image) and this becomes a form and way to be media literate with an eye for detail.

KWL sample

Also, when talking about how many passengers there were and how many survivors made it, you can factor in percentages and some Mathematics.  Some of the online information talks about the absolute location of the sinking and where the distress call was sent out (Geography).  For some reason, this subject never seems to bore students.  I think the immensity of the tragedy boggles the mind.

Titanic in Harbour

Artist rendition just before the crash

Submarine photo of wreckage

Image of an iceberg..yikes!

Many of the dead were buried in Nova Scotia

Poster advertising the ship

HOMEWORK:  Relax!  Read 20 min/day.

For Lia and Taushana.  You will need to compile your strengths on the summary sheet I gave you.  Here is a sample I did to explain how you tally the information.

Tally information for SBR Exercise 5

 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

In the following video you will notice some of the skills the students are working on for this assignment.  While the subject is Dance, the students are learning to collaborate, organize, and develop some initiative.  All of the groups are working efficiently in coming up with their routines and should be ready to perform by Thursday.  Here is a short video capturing the groups in action:

The Geography homework was taken up for a couple of nights ago.  Two students did a very good job applying what they read to the two questions I posed.  We watched the following video to explain how the GPS works.  I only showed 3 minutes of the movie; it is quite heavily biased in favour of the military.

In the afternoon we began to watch the film, Exteremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

A very large image

This film is interesting in the fact the central character has Aspberger's Syndrome.  I think this film will allow students some insight into the complexities of the Autism spectrum.  We will continue the discussion around this a little more tomorrow.  I enjoy the fact that the main character has an Exceptionality or known to have a Learning Disability.  As we can see with his character (Oskar), we learn that his differences make him quite special and unique.  I suppose that would make him exceptional

 Here is a video I found on Youtube about Asperger's Syndrome:

Homework:  2 journal questions inspired by the film.  The two questions do not relate to the specific content of the film.  This means that the students don't have to know every single detail about what we have watched in but display some imagination, thinking, and curiosity in asnwering the questions.

Monday, May 14, 2012

To start the week, we had two assemblies.  Although I was not in attendance, entirely, for the first one, I did manage to snap a photo of the students from the Free the Children committee presenting a cheque for $9000 to that organization.  This fundraising initiative has been going on at AMG for over 4 years.  The students of room 52 should be proud of the money they helped contribute to this total.

Ms. Catarino and members of the Free the Children committee presenting a cheque to Noah for $9000.

 

 

Community Circle, a usual routine of Monday, took up a solid piece of the morning, along with Gym class.  We ate close to completing Half Brother and will be moving onto Hunger Games as out next read-aloud.

The students worked on their dance routines.  I was very pleased to see the leadership from a number of students today as they practiced.

The afternoon assembly was for Jump Rope for Heart.  Information about the fundraising initiative can be found at http://www.jumpropeforheart.ca/Default.asp

There is no homework tonight.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Here are some additional shots from last Friday's assembly.

Mr. Chung leading the group in a large sing-a-long.  A superb teacher!

Here is the video I managed to convert with Lia and some Primary students singing:

I uploaded 2 versions of the video to test which format works best with Blogger.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Ms. Sitarek brought this information to our attention:

http://homeworkzone.tvokids.com/

This is a site, set up by TVO to help students with homework.  A friend, whom I went to the Faculty of Education with, works there and emailed me about this on the day I posted the link on the blog.

I have not checked it out yet but I will and make a few comments about it.

The theme of dance is right alongside our work in Geography and Reading.  On Wednesday, we visited Oakwood Collegiate to watch the senior students in the Dance program.  I did not take any photos of the performances but have some images of the students.

Inspired by the moves and flare, we returned to school for the groups to continue working on the dance routines.  I took some really nice shots of the groups today but the battery in the camera was drained and the shots did not turn out. 

The groups are at different stages of planning and executing their moves.  They are using this chart to guide the approach to the performances:



Members of the Junior band performed in front of the school today.   I was very proud of them.  Nick, Jennifer, George, and Mathew did a great job playing three tracks with Mr. Marshall.

There is a funny video I captured at the end of the concert.  I hope it uploads.  It is from our spunky and passionate Lia.  I am going to have to tinker with the file before posting it.  I think the settings are off.

HOMEWORK:  Geography.  p. 18 article in textbook on GPS devices.  Answer question 1 from the textbook and answer the second question I wrote on the board:  How would you use a GPS device?
Have a wonderful weekend.