Febrary 24 - 28, 2014 6/7 E-1

What an incredibly busy week! The 7E's enjoyed an AMAZING day at the Marlies game...without a snowstorm!!!!

PARENTS: If you have not yet signed and returned the tear-off portion of the Term 1 Report Card, please do so! I must file the reports complete with this page signed. 

Here is a look at what we have done this week:

Language:

Students are working on finishing their Book Talk work from last week. We are looking towards next Wednesday and Thursday to present their posters to the class. We will go through how to do this presentation IN CLASS on Monday and Tuesday so that they are well-prepared.

Journals - continuing writing either by choice or "starter" topics

At home: please continue journal / creative writing

Math:

Students are working on translations and beginning reflections across the x and y axis.

At home:

Translations

Translations 1

Translations 2

Translations 3


Geography:

Students are investigating how to use an Atlas. They are learning where to find specific maps and how to find information related to the various topics in Geography.

At home:

Please go online to the following sites to continue to familiarize the students with our World. There are online quizes, puzzles and activities they can work on!

Canadian Atlas

This is a link via our school website:

School Library Link      Canadian Geographic for Kids, Atlas of Canada (Gov't website) and National Geographic Kids are all excellent choices.

Gr. 7/8 Girls Volleyball - Information for Tuesday, February 25th

Girls…

Practice at 8:00 am.

Leave school by 9 ish.

PACK A LUNCH, SNACKS, DRINKS, ETC…we may be there the whole day and we are unsure of facilities available.

Get a good night's rest and we will see you in the morning!!!!!

Mrs P and Mrs T

6/7 E-1 Week of Febryary 18 - 21

We hope that everyone enjoyed a restful Family Day weekend! It's good to be back at school...snow and all!

This week, I will be heading up north with the Grade 8's to Muskoka Woods. The students will be taught by a 3 teachers - all are familiar with these staff. The Grade 7's from the 7/8 E-1 class will be joining us. Both EA's (Mrs. Abe and Ms. Church) will also be in the class for extra support.

Here is the work for the week:

Writing

Monday - On the Weekend...    OR   Family Day...    OR Finish the starter from Friday: Imagine that you have a bottle hidden inside your bedroom closet. Inside the bottle live several tiny people. Write about your adventures with the little people.

Reading / Writing / Media

The students have been participating in DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) since the beginning of February. They will be completing a "Book Talk" assignment this week. Here is the outline: 

Book Talk Poster

PURPOSE: To create your own  cover for a book that you have selected to read, identify key information

about the book, make connections to what you are reading and prepare a book talk presentation for the

class.

SUCCESS  CRITERIA:

I can make an attractive book cover.

I can answer questions in complete sentences.

I can answer questions using information from the book and from what I know to support my answers.

I can create a captivating presentation - the other students will want to read the book I've chosen.

PROCEDURE:

• Choose a book and let your teacher know your selection

• Read the book

• Draw a picture (your own creative cover, different than the original book cover, which relates to the story). YOU MAY DO THIS ON THE COMPUTER, BY HAND WITH DRAWING TOOLS OR BY MAKING A COLLAGE. Make sure you have included the title, author, etc.

•Answer all questions using information from the text to support your answers

Math

6/7 E-1 students will be continuing Symmetry work. Next week, we will become more familiar with the Cartesian Coordinate System.

What is Coordinate Graphing? Coordinate graphing is a way to present information as a picture. By drawing a grid and assigning values to each spot on the grid, the relationships can be shown as points and lines. The grid, or graph is made up of two axis, an X axis that runs across the bottom and a Y axis that runs up and down. Each axis is numbered, usually starting at zero. This is what a coordinate graph (with one labeled point) looks like:

From: http://www.mathworksheetsworld.com/bytopic/coordinategraphing.html

The point A (on the graph above) is labeled by numbers (3,4). The first number in the brackets is always the "x" number. The second number in the brackets is always the "y" number.

Here are some at home activities to get you started:

1. Plotting Coordinates

2. Plotting Coordinates

3. Plotting coordinates

SOCIAL STUDIES / HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

The students are using newspapers to search for articles, advertising and any other Olympic "news" they can find! We are creating an Olympic Bulletin Board in our classroom! We are discussing the information in relation to our Gr. 6 Social Studies and Gr. 7 Geography curriculum.  On Tuesday, we reviewed HOW to read and find information in the newspaper. Students are learning about the different sections and what the small print: "rest of story S1" actually means. 

AT HOME WORK: 

Please continue to visit online websites (i.e. cbc.ca) and discuss newspaper articles, etc. as a family to keep up to date with this world event

Tuesday, February 18/14 - Gr. 7/8 Girls Volleyball IS ON!!!!

Girls, both coaches are trying to get there on time for 8:00 am. Please be patient…we will get there. Office opens at 8:00 am, and we will call to make sure you are not outside.

YEAH VOLLEYBALL!!!! YEAH SNOW!!!!

Mrs. Trudeau, Mrs. Paskewich

7A English

The students are busy writing their Narratives! At this point, the students have completed:

1. Plan

2. Peer-edit of Plan

3. Rough Draft

4. Peer-edit of Rough Draft (including time to conference with their peer-editor)

Where do we go from here...

Students will be taking the Descriptive Feedback from their Peer Editors to update, edit and write their second draft.

This draft will be completed on the computer AT SCHOOL. The draft will be printed and students will complete a self-edit and one final peer-edit before correcting and printing their final draft. In all, the students will hand in:

1. Plan - with peer editing form attached

2.Rough Draft #1 - with peer editing form attached

3. Rough Draft #2 - with peer editing form attached

4. Final Draft

Grade 7/8 Girls Volleyball - Practice Update!

Great season girls!!!

Here is the updated practice list leading up to semi-finals:

Thursday, February 13, 2014 - CANCELLED

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - practice @ 8:00 am

Thursday, February 20, 2014 - CANCELLED (8's @ Muskoka Woods)

Monday, February 24, 2014 - practice @ 3:00 pm

Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - meet at 7:45 am at school to travel to  L'AMOREAUX COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE - we will warm up and practice there...

Semi-Finals take place @  L'AMOREAUX COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE @ 9:00 am 

WE NEED DRIVERS ON FEBRUARY 25!!!!!

Please let us know @ practice on Tuesday, February 18 if your parent can drive!!!!

Lastly, please keep yourself in the game next week! That means, keep yourself MOVING!!! (Gr. 7's I have asked your Phys. Ed. teacher to give you a class to play volleyball....fingers crossed!!!!)

February 10 - 14, 2014

What an amazing start to the week! The Grade 6's went on their first Outdoor Education field trip at Willowdale! I can hardly wait to read their Journals telling about their experience!

Here is our week at a glance:

LANGUAGE

Guided Reading

Reading the story - Students will do their "first read" independently. There are boxes inserted strategically into the story that I call "THINK MARKS" - a place for the students to stop, think, answer a content / connection / inference question to direct their thinking and increase comprehension of the story. 

"Second Read" - as a Guided Reading Group - students will have the opportunity to read aloud and take turns to share their "THINK MARKS". I collect their work and will "mark them" - the students are expected to use the question in their written answer AND use what they read in the text to support what they say to justify their answers. (These are skills we have been working on in Media Literacy and in Social Studies / History.)

Writing

Monday - On the Weekend...    OR   finish the starter: Imagine that you have eyes on the bottom of your feet. Write about what you see and experience...

Wednesday - Writing a letter to our Athletes in Sochi

Friday - Imagine that you have a bottle hidden inside your bedroom closet. Inside the bottle live several tiny people. Write about your adventures with the little people.

Media

The students are using newspapers to search for articles, advertising and any other Olympic "news" they can find! We are creating an Olympic Bulletin Board in our classroom!

AT HOME WORK: Please continue to Journal writing

MATH

Students are defining and demonstrating their understanding of Symmetry in class. They completed a pre-assessment task for me on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 to help me gauge what they know, what they need to learn and plan future learning. This pre-assessment does not count towards marks, but acts as a baseline assessment. 

AT HOME WORK:

Here is an interactive practice activity for placing lines of symmetry correctly on shapes

Online Symmetry Activity

SOCIAL STUDIES / HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

The students are using newspapers to search for articles, advertising and any other Olympic "news" they can find! We are creating an Olympic Bulletin Board in our classroom! We are discussing the information in relation to our Gr. 6 Social Studies and Gr. 7 Geography curriculum.  On Tuesday, we reviewed HOW to read and find information in the newspaper. Students are learning about the different sections and what the small print: "rest of story S1" actually means. 

AT HOME WORK: 

Please continue to visit online websites (i.e. cbc.ca) and discuss newspaper articles, etc. as a family to keep up to date with this world event

6/7 E-1 Week of February 3-7

This week, we started a new "organizational" system. Last Friday, Mrs. Abe (one of our EA's) helped me

transform the chalkboard at the back of our classroom into a VISUAL SCHEDULE of weekly work. 

There are 4 main sections: Language, Math, Social Studies / History and Overdue Work. The content will 

change weekly, but we are attempting to increase the structure and personal responsibility for the students in 

our class. Having an organized visual of what is expected is also important for their learning styles. I am 

happy to report that we are already seeing an increase in task completion from some of the students!

Language: We continually discuss steps we can take to become better writers. The students identify that 

reading a variety of genres increases vocabulary and that actually writing on a regular basis is needed 

practice.

Each week, the students are expected to write 3 journal entries: Monday (On the Weekend / Recount Writing), Wednesday (Writing Prompt) and Friday (Writing Prompt / Free Write).

Guided Reading: The students are grouped to develop reading and comprehension skills. The tasks for Guided Reading are broken up into weekly tasks. Each story will take a full 3 weeks to complete.

Week 1: (this is what students worked on this week)

Vocabulary - students are given words from the story - they are learning to use a dictionary to write definitions for story vocabulary

Vocabulary Sentences - once students identify and write definitions, they are to use each word correctly in a sentence. 

Week 2: (this is what students will work on week of Feb. 10 - 14)

Reading the story - Students will do their "first read" independently. There are boxes inserted strategically into the story that I call "THINK MARKS" - a place for the students to stop, think, answer a content / connection / inference question to direct their thinking and increase comprehension of the story. 

"Second Read" - as a Guided Reading Group - students will have the opportunity to read aloud and take turns to share their "THINK MARKS". I collect their work and will "mark them" - the students are expected to use the question in their written answer AND use what they read in the text to support what they say to justify their answers. (These are skills we have been working on in Media Literacy and in Social Studies / History.)

Week 3: (this is what the students will work on February 18 - 21)

Writing  - this is usually a planning activity - for example: writing a letter to a character in a story or writing a next step / different ending  in the story

Making Connections - All throughout school the students learn how to make connections. Making Connections helps the students internalize written material and increase comprehension. The tasks and students responses will vary according to personal experience. 

Text to Text - does this remind you of something you have read before?

Text to Self - does this remind you of something that has happened to you before?

Text to Media - does this remind you of a movie/commercial/show/song you have experienced before?

Text to World - does this remind you of something you know has happened in our world?

Story Elements - These written activities help the students identify specifics about stories:

Characterization, Plot, Problem-Solution, Moral, etc. These tasks will vary according to the content in the story and what the students need to practice.

AT HOME PRACTICE - Students are encouraged to keep an at-home journal 

Math

We are beginning Geometry. Students will be identifying 2-D shapes and their properties using Math Language. Students completed a chart for 9 2-D shapes. From here, we will be investigating symmetry, plotting shapes on a Cartesian Co-ordinate system, translating, rotating and reflecting shapes. (THIS CONNECTS TO Term 2 GEOGRAPHY!!!!)

Sides of shapes - in correct Math Language, these are called EDGES

Corners of shapes - in correct Math Language, these are called VERTICES

AT HOME PRACTICE - Students are encouraged to explore Symmetry this week: 

Symmetry #1 - this one requires you to identify / draw lines of symmetry

Symmetry #2 - this one requires you to determine if the line is a line of symmetry or not

Symmetry #3 - this one requires you to draw the other side of the figure

History - Grade 7 Students are working to finish up our History curriculum. We are taking a brief beak - The Winter Olympics are providing us with significant discussion about World Events, Canada's role in poilitical issues, and mapping skills (not to mention, further graphing skills as we begin to track countries / medals). We will resume with textbook work in two weeks.

Social Studies - Grade 6 The Winter Olympics are providing us with significant discussion about World Events, Canada's role in poilitical issues, and mapping skills (not to mention, further graphing skills as we begin to track countries / medals).

AT HOME PRACTICE - Please take the time to follow the Olympics on the news, various news websites or via newspaper. 

GR. 7/8 Girls Volleyball SNOW UPDATE....

We are cancelling practice for 8:00 am on Thursday, February 6, 2014. We will hold a practice at 12:25, as soon as the bell rings. We cannot get access to the gym until then, as Wintermurals takes place in the gym at lunch.

We are SOOOOOOO proud of you!!!!

Mrs. Paskewich and Mrs. Trudeau