The students are having a fantastic time. So far, so good. The weather has been exceptional, the activities engaging and fun, the food so-so.
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Our hallways have been filled with the sounds of beeps, bloops and "YAHOOS"! Grade 6 students have been working on exploring angles, decimals, and degrees through robotics work. Students' work with the Lego Mindstorms systems has been focused, enjoyable to observe, and rewarding. Challenges include: turning 360 degrees, navigating an obstacle course with acute and obtuse angles, as well as specific wheel rotation challenges.
Students have been working on creating their own individual podcast episode on a specific topic in Canadian History that we have covered. This last week, students were focused on researching their topic in order to integrate facts into their final piece. The topics being covered really vary: Jackie Robinson playing baseball in Montreal, the Famous Five, explorer John Rae, the list goes on!
Students are starting to get excited for the upcoming My World Conference on February 23. This is the 9th annual conference and is comprised of three Keynote Speakers and a breakout session. The three keynote speakers include Calgary Zoo celebrity Brian Keating, renowned presenter Alvin Law, as well as producer and actor Cowboy Smith X.
Just a reminder that students need to be at the school at 7:00 am and will be leaving at 3:45 pm. The cost is $40.00 per student. This covers the cost of transportation, lunch, and other costs associated with the conference. As always, feel free to contact Mr. Burima if you have any questions! What a week! We are settling into our new space nicely. The halls, though still beautiful and fresh, are feeling a bit more like home thanks to a few scuff marks and smiling faces.
We have been exploring the ideas of saying goodbye and hello to spaces. To help in our exploration, last week we had students record the "sounds" of our Elbow Park portables. What sounds were unique to the school and made it feel like home? How do sounds make a space feel like home? Using recorders, students explored the school and taped sounds. We edited the sounds together into a nice little audio piece that can be heard below. The project also helped "prime the pumps" for our upcoming podcasting project. Enjoy! "EUREKA!" Admittedly, I don't recall if any student actually shouted it out this week, but there certainly were some "a-ha" moments in our class. Students successfully designed and executed their own experiments this week, as well as recorded their observations and made inferences.
We also continued our discussions on residential schools. As part of a reading task, students were provided with sections of the original Indian Act. Their active reading (underlining, circling, asking questions in the margins, etc.) helped drive rich classroom discussions and more questions. Happy new year one and all! We have leapt back into the school year with full gusto. We have had some very busy early days.
As an extension of our Remembrance Day discussions and research, our class spoke with Professor James Dempsey, a history professor at the University of Alberta. Professor Dempsey is the great-nephew of Mike Mountain Horse, an aboriginal war hero from the Blood Tribe. Mike Mountain Horse fought in WWI and documented his story of survival on a buffalo robe, seen above. The students asked Prof. Dempsey questions over speakerphone. The students also used the opportunity to discuss questions that they would ask their own family about their personal family history.
This week, we discussed what makes a "good" question line and a solid interview. The students had an opportunity to grill Mr. Burima and Ms. McNeil on their misrepresentation of a friendly football toss. Let's just say things became a little too toasty for the teachers. The students also had an opportunity to interview each other and analyze several interviews as a class. In addition to focusing on research skills and communication, this work was done in preparation for our upcoming projects involving uncovering our family stories, as well as stories less told in Canadian History.
How many balls do you see in the "Crazy Ball Prank?" This week, we continued with number sense, place value, and multiplication by exploring BIG numbers. The students created a 100 000 block in our classroom and expanded their estimation abilities.
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