Today we cheered on the Canadian women's hockey team in the gym. After a few amazing Go Canada Go chants, Canada tied up the game to eventually win GOLD in overtime! Check us out in our red and white!
Today in Health and Career we discussed strategies that can help us to improve our self-regulation skills. During our lesson we had a class discussion on what we currently do to regulate ourselves during distracted or transitional moments. The saying 'This too shall pass' came up which reminded me of a fantastic and very relatable country song by Gary Allan called 'Every Storm Runs Out of Rain'. Check it out! This week we have been doing a different type of art project, String Art! Instead of using paints, markers and paper, they have been using nails, string, and wood. Each student created a design on a piece of paper and then they taped the paper onto a piece of wood. They also marked where they wanted to put nails to go. Once they had stuck the paper onto the wood they used a hammer to pound small nails in through the paper into the wood in the shape of their design. After all the nails were all in the wood, they very carefully ripped the paper off the the nails and wood. Then came the fun part. Students wrapped colored string around the nails making sure to stay within their patterns. Once they were done, they had a true piece of art. Although it may seem like it’s different, all of the students think that it is definitely the most beautiful and fun art project to do and many of them plan to decorate their rooms with their pieces. I would encourage you to try it for yourself. (By Isabel). Over the past two weeks we have been working on drama using a First Nations Legend that I read aloud to the students. The name of the legend is called “Coyote Loves a Star” from the Klamath Indians in Southern Oregon. The legend includes reasoning behind why coyotes howl and how Crater Lake was formed. Students were divided into groups and each group had to act out a quarter of the story. Did I mention that they had to act this out silently? Without any props, using only facial expressions and body language! The focus of this drama lesson, aside from provoking amazing discussions about First Nations legends and the characteristics of inanimate objects, was for students to learn to use alternative ways to act out every part a skit with nothing but their bodies. Once the groups practiced their parts they collaborated with the other groups and gave feedback on what they could work on to improve. They were given 45 minutes to practise over the course of two weeks and then the groups acted out their skits consecutively, one after another, while narrators read the legend aloud. Check out some pictures of us practicing from the big performance! Just before Christmas we had a secret santa gift exchange in class! Students brought in gifts that were either new or gently used from home. Isabel made our beautiful paper Christmas tree and we all circled around to begin the exchange. Even Santa stopped by! Check it out! At this time of year, students are busy creating Christmas crafts as either gifts for their families or to decorate their homes. I decided to put a bit of a spin on this tradition with my grade sevens by incorporating inquiry into their crafts! I asked the students to just bring in three random items from home that they could “mess up.” They were not given any further instruction on what these items would be used for you as you can imagine we had some pretty usual items enter the classroom the following day! Students brought in everything from egg cartons to pipe cleaners to googley eyes! Then the real fun began. I gave them a list of only 5 things they could use along with their items (felts, paper, glue, tape, scissors) and challenged them to create a Christmas craft. The students responded with some original, one of a kind crafts that were truly amazing. For example, Jordan’s “Solar Panel Sleigh” incorporated the hand warmer and circuit board he brought. This was a great way to engage students in the inquiry process while embracing the festive season. Have a look at some of the students hard at work! As a Christmas craft we created our very own 'Elf on a Shelf' figurines! Not only were they absolutely adorable but they also starred in iMovie trailers in every genre from action adventure to horror to romance! Students used fishing rods, pencils, strings and other contraptions to puppeteer their elves. Some elves even did stunts, including, parachuting off a slide, bouncing off hallway walls and even a high speed chase! Check out some photos of the preparation that went into making the movies! I should warn you, there were elves injured in the making of these films, nothing a bit of glue couldn't fix though! We decided that the gym needed some pizzazz for the Christmas concert so we immediately went to work on some giant sized decorations. Check them out! I can't even begin to explain how excited I was to come across the Sir Cumference series of books written by Cindy Neuschwander and Wayne Geehan! They are very cleverly written to include many of the concepts that are covered in our Circles and Area Unit. Such an amazing teaching tool! Here's a picture of us reading the first book in the series as an introduction to our new math unit. Sir Cumference and the First Round Table!
|