Thursday 27 September 2018

What's Going On?

Tonight is Meet the Educator night! 

Students have settled in to their routines and schedule, in their transition to grade 7. Overall, everything is going well. The focus this month has been on organization and further developing responsibility of their behaviour and daily commitments to their learning. Below is a collaborative poem the class wrote in our study of poetry these past couple of weeks.

A New School Year!

The last half of the 2017-2018 went by so quickly that it took me away from making any posts. The girls volleyball team hosted two friendly games and made it to the semi-finals in the regional tournament. Eight intermediate girls formed two collaborative working groups and competed in the Ottawa Technovation Competition. Batoul, Nikita, Maria and Jasmine came in second and moved on to the Global Finals which was so exciting for them and me, having never participated in such an event before. All the girls in my homeroom joined the second Hackergal Hackathon in the Spring to continue building and learning computer programming skills. The class also had the privilege of learning about Ozobots and how they can be used to learn how to code. The Spring also brought much interest in soccer for the intermediate boys, and with the assistance of a former student, now in university, we coached the team to a silver medal in the regional tournament. Before the year was over, we attended the Ottawa Indigenous Festival at Vincent Massey Park to celebrate a year of very hard work - well done!

Sunday 7 January 2018

Volleyball Season is here!

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I am the intermediate girls volleyball coach and have either been playing or coaching (or both) for most of my life. I coach the team three times per week during recess to prepare for the regional tournament. Before the Christmas break, we played a friendly game against Steve MacLean PS and Hawthorne PS. This year, the tournament will be at Vimy Ridge PS on January 17 and we look forward to competing.

Computer Science Programming!

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From the beginning of November until December 13, I worked with 14 girls (including Harmony, Dunia and Fatima in our class) in grades 7 and 8 at recess time, to learn how to code. We were part of Canada's largest ever hackathon using the codesters platform, and supported by a Chief Information Officer from the Federal Government on the day of the event. It was a great day of fun learning and girl bonding! With the assistance of School Council who found 2 computer programming judges and another school teacher for a 3rd judge, the girls work was reviewed according to design, gameplay and coding. Winners will be recognized this week - stay tuned! You can view their work below.

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So where have we been?


This year, we are a class of 26 students (and mostly boys) where our personal development focus so far has been on the life skill of respect. We began with a rocky start but once the routine and expectations of not only the classroom but also the school were made clear, student behaviour improved. Consistency has been key. Since I haven't made any posts on this website this school year yet (but many are on twitter), here is an overview of what we have been doing.


December 
Celebrating our achievements!

Working collaboratively to problem solve in Science with building structures according to set criteria.
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During the week of Dec. 11, students completed learning how to code activities over several days.

November 
 We finally finished inspirational posters about hopes and dreams.
Science digital posters to showcase learning of first unit in Science on interactions in the environment.

Remembrance Day reflections

 In Math we worked collaboratively on vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS) to solve pattern problems.

With improved behaviour, students earned the privilege of a trip to MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre to emphasize their Science learning of interactions in the environment.

October


Showing our learning of ratios in many ways.

September

Interactive notebooks at the ready and using the learning strategy of visualization of Science vocabulary in a cooperative word sort.

Goals for the year!