Fall is in the Air

      The mornings are crisper, the fall colours are everywhere and we are trucking along in E104.  In English, many students are finishing up their first novels and have begun to work on their first independent novel responses.  We read Roch Carrier's story "The Hockey Sweater" in preparation for students to write their own memoirs. We went over all stages of the assignment which can be found under the Writers Workshop section of Google Classroom. We picked a due date of October 18th for students to have their best copies turned in. Students also finished up their responses to Gord Downie's The Secret Path and the pieces that they created are haunting.  They also honed their sketchnoting skills by responding to an article of their choice from the website Wonderopolis.

   

In Science, we talked about water from an indigenous perspective and learned about Josephine Mandanim and her niece, clean water activist Autumn Peltier. We learned about the states of water and reviewed the water cycle. 

    In History, students responded to episode 4 of CBC's Canada: The Story of Us. They were asked to give their opinion about which of the 5 stories we watched had the most significant impact on connecting British North America. This question is modelled on the opinion questions that appear in the OSSLT Literacy Test they will have to write in grade 10. Historically this question has caused problems for students in AMDSB so I want to give my kiddos as much experience with this type of question as I can while I have them.

Success Criteria

☑️ Your answer contains part of the question

☑️Your answer contains details from the video

☑️Your answer contains evidence of your own thinking

☑️Your answer is in complete sentences

In Visual Arts, we learned about Norval Morrisseau, the Picasso of the North. Students have begun to create their own pieces of Woodland-style art.  I can't wait to see what they create! We are going to use Flipgrid for art reflections this time. This is a digital tool that allows students to leave video responses instead of writing out their ideas.  Stay tuned for their works of art in future posts.

Reminders for the Future:

Uncle Dad's Pizza Fundraiser Orders

Monday, October 24th is a PD day no school for students

Friday, November 4th is picture re-take day

One Month Down!

     I can hardly believe that we have already completed our first month of school! Independent reading and conferences are in full swing with some kids already working on their first novel responses. I'm loving the initiative that the kiddos are taking to sign up for conferences to talk about their books and set goals for themselves. We have been doing quickwrites to work on the rewriting and drafting stages of the writing process and next week we will dive into our first major writing assessment, the personal narrative. We read an article and discussed the war in Ukraine and students responded to the article using Nearpod a digital tool that we will be using throughout the year. I really love this tool because it allows me to record my instructions so that students who happen to be away can still do work while they are at home. We finished off the week learning about residential schools and watching part of Gord Downey's The Secret Path the Chanie Wenjack story as part of Media Literacy. We had powerful discussions and the students started to work on creating their own media texts in response to the Songs The Stranger and The Swing Set.

     We took time this we to reflect on organization skills and learned how to use the To-Do List in Google Classroom to make sure that we are keeping up with our school work and submitting assignments when they are due. We will be reflecting on our learning skills every week as I truly believe that when students learn how to learn they will be set up for success.

    In Science, we worked on creating our first sketchnote in response to a National Geographic video and started to begin investigating ideas for an independent research assignment that will have the kids look into problems related to clean drinking water.

    In History, we learned about how to search the Internet efficiently and also how to evaluate information that we find online as part of the learning about the Inquiry Process. We also finished watching episode 4 of the CBC series Canada The Story of Us and will be responding to the video next week. 

Reminders for Next Week:

Monday, October 3: Uncle Dad's Pizza School fundraising information comes home 

Wednesday, October 5: Staff Appreciation Day

                                      *Students will be encouraged to dress like staff members.

Friday, October 7: Terry Fox Run/ Walk & School Pictures orders due

 

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!!!!

A central goal of English is to maintain a reading habit in the busy lives of students. Reading is a foundational skill for leading a literate life. There are a number of reasons why students should become avid readers. Here are some of them: 

Reading makes you smarter. Reading provides your brain with unique exercise. The more you read while your brain is in its developmental stages (birth through your early 20s), the smarter you’ll be as an adult. 

Reading relieves stress. Adolescence is stressful. Reading takes you out of the present and into another place and time; it is a perfect escape. 

Reading builds a mature vocabulary. Research has shown that the larger your vocabulary bank is upon graduating from high school, the more likely it is you’ll be successful. The best way to build your vocabulary is to read. 

Reading makes you a better writer. Students who read the most write the best. Better fluency. Better development of ideas. Better diction. Better sentence structure. 

Reading is sometimes hard, but “hard” is necessary. After high school, you will be confronted with hard reading. Cell phone contracts. Tax forms. Insurance paperwork. People who read the most are the best equipped to handle the difficult reading that awaits you in the real world. 

Reading prepares you for the world of work. People who leave high school with strong writing skills are more likely to get hired. And once hired, they are often more likely to be promoted. 

Reading well is financially rewarding. People who read well are more likely to earn higher salaries and are less likely to make financial mistakes. The more you learn, the more you earn. 

Reading arms you against oppression. James Baldwin said, “It’s expensive to be poor.” Reading is knowledge; knowledge is power. It is much harder to oppress well-read people. That’s why governments in oppressive societies burn books and limit Internet access. 

And the most important reason to read: 

Reading is rewarding. Reading takes us to different worlds. Reading helps us to look in the mirror, to find ourselves. In short, reading is fun. I can’t imagine a life without reading. As Mark Twain said, “A person who doesn’t read is no better off than a person who can’t read.” Reading builds richer lives.

There is a lot of talk in the media that “students today won’t read,” but I believe students substitute distractions (texting, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, video games, TV, etc.) if they feel no passion for reading. In my experience, students who haven’t been readers since early elementary school will suddenly become quite passionate about reading with the right book in their hands. 

One way I try to get the right book into your child’s hands is to grant them access to my classroom library as well as the MDHS library. I have worked hard to develop my library, as research shows that the availability of books is a major motivating factor in getting kids to read. Students who are surrounded by books at school (and at home) read more. Students who read more, read better. I have found having my own classroom library has dramatically increased the amount of reading students do. 

As a parent myself, I want you to know I am sensitive to having appropriate reading material in my classroom library. That said, what is considered “appropriate” may vary from one parent to another. Some parents might see the value in having their children reading a book like Crank, which delves into a teenager’s drug addiction. Other parents might find it objectionable. Please be aware that the selections in both my classroom and MDHS library, just like any public library, range from elementary-level to university-level reading materials. As a parent, I ask you to remain aware throughout the year of the books your child has chosen to read and assist in gauging appropriateness. Rest assured the books in my classroom library are checked out on a voluntary basis only. 

Any student who chooses to use either my classroom library or the school’s library is asked to have parental permission to check books out. Signing the permission slip means you understand your child will be allowed to choose from the hundreds of books this year. I am hoping we can work together to capture the pleasure and passion of reading.