Printmaking!

It's been a busy few weeks, especially after March Break with the two short weeks that followed immediately. We finally wrapped up History last week with a unit test, and began Geography last Friday. It's a welcome change, and for a change it's heartening to know that some students have actually voiced that they will miss learning about History - job done! We are now learning about the five themes of Geography.
In Language we are getting close to the end of the class novel studies in both grade 7 classes, and will have all learning activities wrapped up by the end of the month. Students have been enjoying their blogging experience, with the added bonus of off-topic blog activities for bonus points. Afterwards, we will make our last final year-end push with writing five paragraph essays - one collaboratively and one independently.
We have been busy in the "Science Lab" continuing our learning and exploration of solutions and mixtures. Tomorrow we are doing an experiment with chromotography. Pictures of the scientists at work will be posted later. Test next week on how the particle theory plays a role with solutions and mixtures.
What you see below are students in Visual Arts. They are using carving tools with rubber blocks, from which they will print representative symbols of themselves with various acrylic paint colours and for different effects. In the end, they will create a design with their prints to produce a larger art work. 
 
  
  

Welcome back from March Break!

It's been a short week but a busy one. Yesterday, we had teacher visitors from Austria tour our school and visit our classroom, which was a pleasant surprise!
In Art, we started a printmaking unit these past two days. We took a virtual tour of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, and students have started creating a symbol that represents them - some have even started carving their rubber blocks (pictures next week).
In History, we began our last layered curriculum project which is posted in Google classroom. Over half of the class completed Layer C on the first day - awesome work!
The novel studies with Elijah of Buxton and Bud, not Buddy are progressing very well and the students are finally more comfortable with the blogging component of the novel study on kidblog. They will no doubt become master bloggers!

Blogging Beginners

Two weeks ago, we began learning about blogging. In preparation for our class novel studies in both LA classes, we reviewed how to write an opinion paragraph. Students wrote about a topic of their choice progressing through the writing process. Their final product was completed in the form of a paper blog. We then discussed the commenting part of blogging, which promotes the interaction of blogger and audience. Students read two blogs by other students leaving comments and questions for the blogger. Their great work can be seen below.

Classifying Substances

We have just begun a new unit in Science (Pure Substances and Mixtures), and completed a lab where students in their roles as scientists, inspected several items (kitchen ingredients) and classified them as pure or mixture. We have been focusing on the scientific method, specifically learning how to write a hypothesis. Practicing safety in the lab, they wore gloves and safety goggles in making their observations.

WORLD READ ALOUD DAY!

Today we celebrated World Read Aloud Day throughout the school. Students in grades 5-8 read to small groups from kindergarten to grade 4. Our class read to kindergarten students and they are pictured above with their picture book of choice...many favourites that they had forgotten about. We look forward to doing it again - perhaps during Education Week.

Centerpointe Theater

On Tuesday morning this week all the intermediate grades went to listen to the National Arts Centre Orchestra play music under the theme of "The Composer is Dead". They heard well known music such as the theme songs of Mission Impossible, The Pink Panther and James Bond. They also listened to a narrator try to solve a mystery of who killed the composer by learning about the different instruments in the orchestra. Students thoroughly enjoyed the outing and wished it had lasted longer.

Yet Another Snow Day - that makes three!

As I was leaving school today, this was the scene outside our classroom. It was quite the winter wonderland! More students came to school today and we continued learning about the Group of Seven, Black History and War of 1812 review for the History test, which is now postponed to Monday due to the snow days.