Monday 13 May 2019

Ancient civilisations part 2

Image result for vikings clipart               Image result for ancient greek clipart

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)


Wednesday 27 February 2019

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



Wednesday 30 January 2019

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.


Résultats de recherche d'images pour « light and sound »

Monday 7 January 2019

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.