New read aloud, Fish in a Tree!

The students are I are very excited about our new read aloud Fish in a Tree by Linda Mullally Hunt. Some interesting conversation ensued from the first two chapters as well as this Einstein quote I had shown the students earlier in the week. We are left wondering how old Ally is and what grade she's in?

We look forward to connecting with other classrooms as well as continuing our conversations.

Earlier this year, we were involved in the Global Read Aloud and discussed themes and topics with other classrooms with our previous book Fish by L.S. Matthews. It was great to also make the connections with the ambassador activity around the Syrian refugee crisis and to connect it to the themes in Fish. We look forward to video conferencing with the author Ms. Dron next Thursday!

Active listening skills will be put to the test!!

We all wear poppies again!

He does it again! Our very own Justin bought poppies for the whole school for Remembrance Day! The 6/7s are so very proud!

This is not the first time Justin has bought poppies for everyone in the school, here's last year's article from The Hamilton Spectator. Justin explained to the class that he bought the poppies again because "my grandpa and my great grandpa fought in the war and I want everybody to wear a poppy." He goes on to tell us that last year he was affected by the news of Corporal Nathan Cirillo's death in Ottawa.

Myles thinks poppies are a symbol of peace because when we put them near our hearts we keep the soldiers in our hearts. Isabella adds, "they represent how many people have fought for the peace of our country."

Owen says, "the whole school is thankful for Justin's donation."

This has been a shared writing piece by the 6/7s. Thank you for reading!

Photo credit Mrs. Smith

Suddenly it's October!

It's interesting how much we get done on those super busy weeks! We had the Terry Fox walk, We Day and Cross Country, but we also got so much accomplished in class!

I introduced all students to coding in Math. We were working on factoring and defining prime and composite numbers. Now we are moving on to number sense, although it ties into patterning as well. We will be exploring numbers bigger than 1 million and the Grade 7 Extension is exponents. If I don't assign Math homework it's a good idea to keep the Math brain going at home by exploring such sites as ixl, Prodigy or Khan Academy. There will also be links on D2L for additional practice.

We are live with D2L! I'm thrilled, as I like to put as many reading and writing tasks online as I can. I find I can give the most timely descriptive feedback on discussion forums or dropbox, rather than on papers and notebooks I must transport back and forth. The students really impressed me with their knowledge of digital citizenship and we developed rules for bringing their own devices.

A note on progressive discipline. Students will be given one verbal warning when found doing something inappropriate, the second time there will be a call home and the third time students will be asked to leave their electronics at home or in their lockers. I appreciate your support in enforcing these guidelines!

We also covered what it means to be an active listener, and we practice it throughout the day in most subject areas.

As marks begin to trickle back home, usually on Fridays, I'm attaching my Science achievement chart. I will make anecdotal notes of student behaviour and responses especially during lab work and in general, performing the lab safely and cleaning up is meeting my expectations (level 3). Some students are already beginning to exceed my expectations by going above and beyond what I have asked (level 4). On the progress report, these will be the students that will receive a "progressing very well." I prefer to give feedback over marks in general, but there will be some culminating tasks that will have both.

Grade 7 Science New Unit Launch

I wanted to post next week's lessons just to get our brains thinking about what's coming up. Students can refer back to this as well. The strand is covered in Chapters 1-3 in the textbook handed out on Friday. We also coded the particle theory this week using scratch. The students really enjoyed working with this program, I encourage them to find other Science concepts online and "remix" to suit our curriculum expectations.

What a great week 3!

This week in Language, we began typing our reports. Although our D2L drop boxes and our Microsoft accounts are not ready to go just yet, the 6/7s impressed me with their computer skills. We practiced saving on the H drive. Students should practice typing on a site such as Dance Mat in order to improve on typing skills. We are still sharing and making connections to our seven page novel study.

In Math we went over Greatest Common Factor as well as the Lowest Common Multiple and there will be a quiz on Tuesday.

I always love Curriculum Night. An opportunity for parents and guardians to take a peek into the world of their children as students. My goal for this blog is to do the same thing - just virtually! As promised, here is the presentation I shared with those in attendance. Please let me know in your child's agenda if you would like a hard copy sent home.




Coming up next week in Science:

• Grade 8s have a fluids quiz, check D2L
• Grade 7s will beging coding the particle theory on Scratch. Don't forget to get your accounts with your parents permission. Safety Poster assignments should go home on the Friday File.

Please continue to check Twitter for other updates!

Week 2 in review.

This week in Language we started digging deeper into making connections. After the students completed their "7 page book report," we began sharing and making connections to the books being discussed. This will keep us busy until October 2nd when we being The Global Read Aloud. I'm currently assessing and giving descriptive feedback on connections, predictions and questions as well as listening skills and oral communication. They were also taught to make jot notes onto stickies while they read or listen.

In Math, we continue to work on input/output machines. Since quizzes are formative assessments, I return them to the students with feedback and I show them how to show their thinking at the next level. The patterning unit will probably only last until the end of the week. We have gone over the four part problem solving model and students are expected to use it and apply it. We will probably have another quiz on Thursday and possibly an Art activity for those early finishers.

In Science the Grade 7s began their poster project. Posters are due on Wednesday September 23rd. The Grade 6s had some discussions around what to consider for the tomatosphere experiment. The Grade 8s blew me away with their fluids investigations. They should perform their experiments Thursday as we will be ready to move on whether they do or not. You can see what we did in Science on our Twitter feed this week.

In Health we continue to discuss digital citizenship. The Grade 6s will begin Bravo next week and the Grade 7s will begin writing/planning/preparing their Health PSA around internet safety. Every class period the group is expected to hand something in and show what was accomplished.

What a great first week back!

I think this has been one of the best first weeks back for me. The students have been eager to learn and take risks in both our homeroom and rotary classes and we had a wonderful week of learning. I will be posting updates here until D2L is up and running for the Sensational Six/Sevens.

Students got to know me and my expectations:

In Math, I wanted to get to know the students as Math learners. I was very impressed with how so many of them applied the four-part problem solving model that they learned last year and we will continue to work with it. The Art activity that we began on Tuesday is due on Monday September 14th.

This is our intro slideshow.

This is our first unit slideshow. We only got as far as working collaboratively on the first problem.

In Language, we reviewed forms of writing and we will begin with reading strategies next week. We wrote newspaper articles about each other, I will hopefully begin to post some of those here once the technology in the school is up and running!

In Religion, we were joined by our ESC friends and we discussed the uniqueness of our names as well as a prayer service to end our week. I feel so blessed to have this wonderful group come together in my room.

New to me this year will be Health. We will begin with Digital Citizenship (lessons will be posted next week) and some discussions around mental health and stress. I would like to start an online discussion forum with the students, we are looking for alternatives to D2L as it may not be up and running just yet. The following forms need to be returned: BYOD (went home Friday) and the purple form (went home on Tuesday) as well as the pink form regarding permissions.

Our leaders of the school, the grade 8s, surely impressed me in Science class this week! We reviewed the big ideas of our first unit and I challenged them to ask one to three questions of each big idea. This is a diagnostic assessment and I hope that I will be able to continue to see growth. Their first challenge: coming up with a lab that investigates the properties of fluids.

Below are the course outlines for each grade. The 7s only had one period of Science and the 6s will begin Science next week. The 7s will be exploring lab equipment and safety while the 6s will begin their first unit: Space! (One of my favourites!). We have our Tomatosphere seeds ready for planting and NASA is eagerly waiting for our results.

Grade 6 Science

Grade 7 Science

Grade 8 Science

Well done everyone I'm looking forward to a wonderful year!

The Golden Rule rules us all

This article was brought to you by Andrew and Jacob.

This April, the grade 8 class from Ascension School decided to do a project about the golden rule and how it is the same message spread through out all religions.

Jack a grade 8 says that he think they chose the month April because it is the most important month in the catholic religion so why not do a project on how all religions are spreading the same message.

It has been a fun and exciting project for the whole class, Amy says she enjoyed the project because she could express herself and show the golden rule in her drawing.

Mrs. Giammarco came up with this amazing topic for a project to teach her class about many different religions and how they all are teaching us the same massage and how being different is good.

Each quote has to do with a different religion so that is how they came up with the drawings of different races and religions.

Keelin says all of the quotes relate to the golden rule it all has to do with equality and difference it also relates to our school community.

Are all religions the same but different?

Thank you for sharing grade 8s and we wish you the best in high school!

The Holy Rosary Makes an Impact in Mrs. Roberts' Class

The next article comes from Sarah and Laura.

Mrs. Roberts' class Holy Rosary project goes public!

For weeks Mrs. Roberts' split class has been working away on a big project. Both 3's and 4's have been making wonderful drawings and have put a lot of effort into it!

We asked some kids what their project was about, and what they did. We got a positive response.

What did you learn about this project?

"That Jesus dies on the cross for us," a grade 4 student answered.

"I learned how Jesus rose from the dead, and I really enjoyed this project," a grade 3 student replied.

"I learned a lot about Mary's Ascension into Heaven to be with Jesus and I enjoyed getting all of the information about Jesus," another grade 3 student responded.

What is the rosary?

"A Rosary is something that has beads on it, and you pray Hail Mary and Our Father," said another grade 3 student. Praying the rosary helps you connect to God. Mrs. Roberts encourages her class to pray the rosary daily. She is very proud of her students' work.

Grade 3s Investigate First Nation's Daily Lives

Our first year end article comes from Hayley and Amanda.

As we know The First Nations were a huge part of our history. Today we thought we’d interview some of the grade three students who had the opportunity to do a project about The First Nations. The Grade 3s in Mrs. Roberts constructed dioramas portraying a scene of what life was like for The First Nations in Canada for their Social Studies class. Here are the questions we asked:

• “Did you enjoy doing the project?”
• “What did you learn from it?”
• “What was your favourite part?”

J. answered, “Yes, I liked the project. I learnt how The First Nations built stuff and did everything on their own with no help. My favourite part about the project was learning about The First Nations.”

R. answered, “Yes, I liked the project. I learnt how The First Nations made their own clothes and blankets. My favourite part was making the actual project.”

C. answered, “Yes, I liked the project. I learnt that The First Nations use the river to wash clothes and they hunt mostly buffalo and they grow their own crops. My favourite part of the project was doing the clay part with all of the objects.”

As you can see these three students really enjoyed learning about the First Nations and  their daily life. The class did an excellent job with their dioramas.