Ancient civilisations part 2

               

Last week we presented what we had learned about the inuit. We voted on two new civilisations to study for the next month or so. Some students have chosen to study "la grèce antique" and some have chosen to look at the vikings. Today, we started by looking at where these civilisations are in the world. For the rest of the week we will focus on the environment (plant, animals, climate etc.) of these civilisations. For our inuit inquiry students were grouped randomly. This time around students will get to choose their collaborators. Students will get to keep working on the 3 Cs we have studied so far Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Character.

Last week we analysed our inuit projects to see what we did well and what we needed to improve this time around. Many saw improvement in their character progression. We were more independent and responsible for our learning (of course some students still need to work on this area). We worked really well in groups which demonstrates how far our collaboration skills have come.

This time around we need to work on making the interaction between the environment and the way of life of the greeks/vikings more explicit.

We also need to use the exemplars and success criteria to do our best work. 

For students who would like to deepen their learning at home they can find all our goals, resources, exemplars and success criteria in our Hapara Workspace (students access it through the OCSB student portal)

Character

So far this year we have focused on 2 of the 6 Cs: critical thinking and collaboration. Last week I finally decided we should look at Character. Character is the C which incorporates pretty much of ALL of the learning skills found on the Ontario report card. It's all about learning to learning, being responsible for your own learning and self-regulation.

Here is the rubric we co-created together to help us reflect on where we are, where we need to go and how we are going to get there. This is the English adult version of the progression if you want to take a look and better understand character and what inspired our rubric.

So far we have discussed things like:
- ALWAYS knowing what the learning goal(s) is/are for the block, the day or the week
- monitoring whether we are meeting the goal or not
- making a plan for what we need to learn and how we are going to learn it

Learning skills

It is report card writing time...in case you've seen a teacher and thought they look a bit more frazzled than normal. I am a big believer in the importance of learning skills. My Mom taught me that what she looked at first and foremost was that first page of the report card. If you got a C or D in a subject but got Gs and Es in your learning skills she knew you had done your best.

That being last week I took advantage of the snow days to conference with students and show them their learning skills marks IF reports went home that very day (they don't they go home in a few weeks). I explained what students got a particular letter and how they could improve. I also told them they had a week or so to change their grade (hopefully for the better). Might be a good idea to ask them how the conference with Mme went.

one ending is a new beginning

We are wrapping up our rocks and minerals science unit. We wrote a collaborative book! We did a lot of critical thinking and learned how to organize our text using subtitles and a table of contents. Today we voted on the art work which will be on our cover page. Next week, each student will receive a copy of our class made book to show off to you at home! We will also keep a copy in the French book room and LC so future generations can use it too.

The end of one unit means the beginning of another. We started our light and sound unit today with 5 new centers. This unit will also integrate a lot of music and art. We will be recording our questions and learning on this blog. Here's a padlet with overall curriculum expectations and many many links students can explore in class but also at home.

Roches et minéraux

Bonne année!!!

I am hoping to power through our Rocks and Minerals science unit this month. We talked a bit about the mining industry when we studied Regions of Canada before Christmas. This week we will look at the identification of rocks and minerals using certain characteristics, we will also look at the rocks and minerals in everyday objects. Finally, we will look at the environmental impact of the mining industry and how we can possibly minimize it.

As always here is our padlet with curriculum expectations and some useful links for exploring at home.

Regions of Canada

Students will be studying a region of Canada by analysing one of its environmental problems. Students will learn about the issue then brainstorm possible solutions. Here are some of the problems we will be studying:
- acid rain
- fish farming
- oil extraction
- mineral extraction
- logging industry

Throughout this project we will continue to build our collaboration skills but we will also add critical thinking to the mix. Here is the rubric we co-created that describes some of the components of critical thinking. We used it to evaluate where we are approximately yesterday.

habitats learning fair

Students presented their final habitat projects today. Every group used Google Slides to document two habitats: our yard and Mer Bleu Bog. They then had to explain the images using what we had learned about habitats. They had to show examples of food chains, animal or plant adaptations, the importance of the habitat for humans and how humans impact it.

The students chose to present their projects in a learning fair format whereby half the students presented their projects and the other half listened then we switched. Together we discussed some of the main ideas in all the projects. Tomorrow, we will reflect on our learning journey. We will also reflect on how our collaborations skills have improved (have they ever!!!)  and what we can yet improve on.

Next week, we will be working on our listening skills as we listen to very short videos which will give us a good overview of Canada's regions (which is our social studies focus)