September 19th- 23rd

     We are getting into the swing of things with our independent reading and I love how kids are taking  the initiative to sign up for conferences to talk about what they are reading and clarify how they will choose to respond to their novels. We have been working our way through various writing strategies to improve the quality of writing and have also begun our work with Quickwrites. It was great to have so many willing to share their writing with their classmates! We reviewed the paragraph structure and the kids were asked to show me what they know in a descriptive paragraph assignment.

Sharing writing after our first quickwrite

    We talked about the importance of setting academic, personal and health goals for ourselves and visualizing those goals with vision boards. We experimented with Canva, a fantastic digital communication tool last week and now it's time to put it to use with the creation of their own vision boards for Media Literacy. 

    We finished off the week by making sure that we were caught up on all our assignments and then took some time to play word games and then made our way to the ball diamond to cheer on the MDHS baseball team to another victory. We seem to be good luck charms for our secondary teams!

     In History, we started to look at the Inquiry Process and specifically how to ask better questions when doing research.  We learned about Bloom's Taxonomy and higher-order thinking. I shared a critical thinking skills tool with them so they know how to ask rich questions that will drive independent research in the future.  We also began to watch episode 4 of CBC's Canada the Story of Us and learned how the creation of the Welland Canal and the invention of steamships impacted growth in Upper and Lower Canada's economic strength and population.

Learning how to ask better questions collaboratively.

https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/07/a-quick-guide-to-21st-century-critical.html

    In Science, we did a doodle note about the Scientific Method so that we are ready to become young scientists and carry out experiments. Students will have the opportunity to run their own experiments during our first unit on Water Systems. 

Reminders for Next Week:

Wear orange on Friday, September 3oth for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

Five Whole Days!

      We are getting into the swing of things and working on building routines. Independent reading and conferences have been going well. It's been great to have one-on-one conversations with the kids and get to know them better as learners and human beings. The first conference is at my request and as students finish their independent reading novels it is their responsibility to sign up for a meeting so that we can chat about their books and make decisions about which Tic-Tac-Toe Novel responses they are going to complete and the due date. We worked in small groups using a plot graph as a tool to help with writing summaries. 

Collaborating on plot graphs.

     We have begun our visual note-taking journey by learning about the assistive drawing tools in the Jamboard app. We broke out the stylus bin and the kids were amazed by the AI that guesses at what you are trying to draw. We learned about the elements of sketchnoting and brainstormed various digital tools that are available for them to use. I can't wait to see what they create this year in History/Geography and Science!

Sketchnoting 101

     We took some time to learn how to organize our digital learning spaces and our first area to clean up was our Google Drives. We learned how to make folders and how to personalize those folders by changing their colours. We also learned how the move Google files from one folder to another and the importance of naming your work so you don't have a Drive full of Untitled documents.  We also learned how to set alerts using our iCalendars to make sure that we are staying on track with our reading goals.

We finished off the week by going to support the MDHS girl's basketball team. It was a fantastic game and it was so wonderful to be able to be in the stands with everyone cheering on our Blue Devils to victory. 

Reminders for Next Week

School Council Meeting: Monday, September 19th at 7:00 pm

First Week in the Books!

 Well, we have the first week of school under our belts with lots accomplished! I need to apologize for the mistake in my email address in the letter I sent home. There should have been a period between my first and last name. The correct address is:  joanna.jackson@ed.amdsb.ca, please feel free to contact me at any time.

This week was spent talking about how we can make MDHS a safe and welcoming learning environment. We covered the topics of racism, discrimination, bullying, disciplinary consequences, and ways to report incidents that may occur. 

We co-created our E104 Class Agreements:

Before Class

• We will treat everyone with respect
• We will have all the materials we need for class
• We will arrive on time
• We will be respectfully quiet in the hall

During Class

• We will treat everyone with respect
• We will respect anybody who is talking by actively listening
• We will not have phones in class unless given permission by an adult
• We will raise your hand when we have something to say
• We will be respectfully quiet in the hall
• We will work to the best of our ability
• We will use our time wisely and get work done
• We will ask questions when we are unsure of something

After Class

• We will treat everyone with respect
• We will clean up after ourselves making sure to take all of our belongings with us when we leave
• We will be respectfully quiet in the hall
• We will use our time wisely and get work done

We started the process of getting to know ourselves as learners by completing the How Are You Smart graphs. I want kids to see that it’s not who is smart, it’s how you are smart! 

source of  image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

We spent some time speed-dating the books in my classroom and also went to the library so everyone could pick their first book for the Novel Study Tic-Tac-Toe.  Not all kids read at the same rates and to accommodate this everyone will be setting their own goals for their book completion which will be established in our daily reading conferences.  We went over the Tic-Tac-Toe reading response assignment and evaluation rubric.

In the world of writing, we decorated our writer's notebooks and started reviewing the writing process and began to work on generating ideas by doing a few speed writing activities.

8B personalizing their writer's notebooks

We took advantage of the beautiful weather and finished off the week with a little Art in the courtyard.  We are learning about elements of design and creating personalized name tags.

Courtyard artists

Reminders For Next Week:

School Portrait Day: Friday, September 16, 2022.

Welcome to the 2022-2023 School Year!

    First off, I'd like to thank you for stopping by and checking out my classroom blog! My goal is to document all of the learning that happens in Room 104 during the school day and share it in a weekly post. I will also post major assignments and other important information as the year progresses. 

    I created this space the last time I was in the classroom and because there are so many great widgets I decided that I am going to pick up where I left off so, right now you will see posts from the 2019-2020 school year after this post. 

    I'm very excited to be back in the classroom after two years of supporting AMDSB as a Tech-Enabled Learning Support Coach. I look forward to getting to know everyone and working to make sure that we have a fantastic year in grade 8 and helping all my kiddos own their learning! Let's go!!!!