This blog began in Room 52 at Alexander Muir/Gladstone Ave Junior and Senior Public School in 2011. I am now a former Toronto District School Board (TDSB) educator on a new journey at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
So, while I may never find myself in Room 52, the blog's name is an homage to one of the school communities, central to my development as an educator and person.
The preceding sketch is based on a recent problem I had with my family while we attempted to check-in for a flight on Caribbean Airlines. The use of the charts and squares was my attempt and trying to map out my app. Ideally, I should have used marvel to develop it some more, but I ran into some technical difficulties. Here are the images I uploaded:
I added a tutorial for the portion of the project, we are currently working on in the helpful links section, to the right. Sarah was very helpful working with our groups. Shucks, I forgot to capture some images of the students at work.
What you will need to work on is developing an idea of how the app looks and functions. Sarah will be visiting our class and will offer some guidance.
As a way of reviewing and preparing for our Integer test on addition, let us look at a few videos, before doing some review in class:
So, here is a video recapping some of the work we have done, using number lines, to add integers.
Jade, reviewing for the Math test
This tutorial sheet was handed out, along with some introductory homework. When this was assigned, the students were told to write this in their agenda. Please ask your son or daughter to see the agenda to make sure they are in the habit of using the agenda.
This was not handed out, but from a note I prepared before the March Break.
Tutorial sheet. Questions for homework are on the back.
Welcome back.
Apparently, there are 14 weeks until the school year is done. As we adjust to the change in temperatures, and the change in the seasons, the year will race by. Before we know it, the month of March will be done, even though it seemed to have just started.
In the last week before the March Break, I was not blogging as much as I usually do but I will settle into a regular period of blogging. This is a short week, as is next week, but there is still work happening. Today, we will be having a visit from the Black Lives Matter movement and a visit from theRoseneath Theatre for a production of the play, Outside.
This is the summary of the play, taken from the Roseneath website:
SYNOPSIS: Outside is
the story of Daniel, a teen who triumphs over homophobic
bullying, depression and suicide. At his new school he shares his story
at a meeting of the Gay Straight Alliance. Meanwhile, at his old school,
struggling to come to terms with what happened, his friends Krystina
and Jeremy attempt to start their own GSA. Through flashbacks, we travel
through Daniel’s harrowing experience with bullying that began with a
taunt and a text message and eventually led to a serious physical
assault. Three friends, two high schools, one lunch hour. #RoseneathOutside http://roseneath.ca/20152016-season/outside/
Here is the official trailer for it and a 5 minute sample.
Both classes will be completed their History/Drama work by next week and we will be moving into work in the Grade 7 History textbook, along with supplementary materials to develop our understanding of the Grade 7 History program.
Before we present, I want to be sure that the groups who will be presenting understand what they are being assessed on. While we have talked about this before, I felt it was necessary for a recap.
Interestingly, some of the concepts on the Historical Concepts chart -- Conflict/Cooperation & Power -- were a part of the discussion during the Black Lives Matter presentation.
There were a lot of really interesting questions the class had after the discussion. The discussion was deep, I am not going to try to skirt the issues raised, but I was very pleased with the questions and comments coming from the Grade 7s.
Layout of History class: Item B initiated our discussion. I opened up about some of my own experience of being Carded by the Police and some of the struggles I had with someone with a White father and Black mother.
A wrote the names of students beside some of the comments and questions which came up. This served as a springboard for our discussions.
Although this was not named in the assembly, we discussed this in class. It will be explored further and connected to Calahan's question about the "line exercise"which was done in the assembly to demonstrate how power and privilege may work.
I managed to find a video on YouTube relating to Calahan's question.
The idea of a stereotype began the discussion this morning in the assembly. I am rushing this a little, but the idea that our ideas about certain groups of people, when they are paired with discrimination, usually results in someone being discriminated against. For example, if someone thought Black people were lazy, so they won't be good workers, and should not be hired, that would be an example of racism.
Here are a few photos, from my phone, from this afternoon's play:
Homework: Resource group Math test on Wednesday Comma "clicker" test on Thursday Reading Responses for Resiliency story
It has only been about 9 weeks since school began for 2016, but it is time for a Break. We will meet again for the final push, in Spring, in a week and a bit.
The following photos capture some of our class taking part in the first section of the Poetry Slam workshop at AMG. It was very cool.
Pardon the brevity of this post. This is a link to a post, from April of 2015, on the addition and subtraction of integers. The week is winding down before March Break, and not many new concepts will be explored, but we will carry this over.
In History, the students are developing their Dramatic performances for presentation after the March Break. For some, they are going through initial rehearsals and others are busy planning out their ideas. I have been providing each group with written feedback.
In 7C, many of the students are working on their dioramas for the upcoming Book Talk:
The next paragraph writing exercise will involve looking at some items from the Strength Based Resilience Program, SBR,which was set up in conjunction through The University of Toronto Scarborough campus and the Toronto District School Board.
The first paragraph, when we get to it, has to do with the idea of being resilient. We began exploring this topic by looking at the preceding YouTube video and the following quote:
This is a screenshot from the workbook I have used for the SBR program.
To ensure our memories are sharp, as it pertains to paragraphs, we did some exercises and wrote a paragraph, as a class.
A classic 5 sentence paragraph!
Homework
- Science test on Wednesday
- Resource Math and DaSilva test on Wednesday
- Comma rule test, with Promethean clickers, on Thursday
