The Mansfield Trip

Here are a few photos from the Mansfield trip which by all accounts was a total success. Kids said they truly enjoyed the trip. We had cool weather and then brutally hot weather but fun was had by all. Some students slept outside on the final night on their porches. The stars were awesome that night. Thanks so much to the students for making it such a fun trip your laughter certainly brought me joy.

Investigating creatures at the pond

Searching the whole pond

Playing Instincts for Survival in the woods

Playing Hucklebuckle

Low Ropes Activities in the Barn

Getting Right in the Pond

Foot to Butt in Huckle Buckle

The Pond is filled with Tadpoles and Newts

Teachers were hunters during Instincts

Grade 7 and 8 Overnight Trip to Mansfield Outdoor Centre

So students are about to embark on a three day, two night trip to Mansfield Outdoor Centre, which is located just 1 hour from Toronto in the beautiful area of Mulmur. Students will be staying in the cabins at the Main building and will be participating in a variety of outdoor based activities. Essentially, our students will be coming to a traditional kind of summer camp, only we're going during the school year.

I believe strongly in the value of getting kids outside and having them experience nature, learn and be connected with their world. Once you get them outside and experiencing and learning they love it and become even more curious. Richard Louv author of the "Last Child in the Woods", discusses the importance of kids gaining independence and getting outside.

These types of activities are so important for our kids. Firstly, many of our kids never get to come to a place like Mansfield and experience the outdoors. So many of my city kids have no idea what it's like to spend 24/7 outdoors, in nature.

When we come here kids  get an opportunity to explore the nature. We give them freedom within a set of boundaries. For instance, during free time kids can go and explore the area as long as they see the main building at all times. This rule allows kids to explore approximately a 4 or 5 acre area while still being within eyesight of our home base. The kids play soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc. They explore the fields. I make the rule that students can climb trees as long they stay on branches that are thicker than their wrist. The reality is they never really get very far off the ground but it feels like a huge freedom. So many of them have never climbed trees before. Last year we taught a group to make a horn noise by blowing on thick pieces of grass. Some of them were so entertained by this they spent the whole week playing with grass horns.

The programs we participate in are also extremely valuable. Kids, participate in pond study, where they investigate pond creatures, or they complete orienteering maps and explore the forest. They learn about nature through experiential education.

I'm truly looking forward to this trip and can't wait to see what happens.

Photo Essays on Migration

Recently, students in Mrs. Naidu's grade 8 geography class completed a research assignment on the push and pull factors that affect human migration. Students utilized smart ideas to organize and map out information which compared the quality of life in Canada to life another country. Students utilized The CIA World Factbook, and many other sites to find information about birth rates, literacy rates, unemployment rates, etc. Students then took this information and synthesized it into a photo essay with captions for their chosen images. Students had many different options available for creating the photo essays. Some used the iPad or their Mac book, others used Prezi or PowerPoint. We gave them many options for creating their photo essays.
Students were given several periods to research their topics and Mrs. Naidu and myself guided the students through the numerous facts and information as they built their webs on Smart ideas. All in all the results were pretty successful. Students learned a great deal and had to do a lot of thinking about their topics. Some found that their countries weren't very different Canada in terms of health care, education, etc. These students really had to think about what might draw a person here to Canada if their home country was so similar to our own. We watched the students think they're way through the project and learn a great deal about life in other countries. Many of the students were surprised by infant death rate in many countries. It's fairly unheard of here in Canada to lose a child so this statistic surprised them quite a bit.
The project was an enjoyable experience for both teachers and students and the results were valuable. We look forward to working together on the same project next year. Of course there will be items that will be tweaked and the amount of data will probably be lessened. Student feedback on the project mentioned that this was a difficulty they had with the project.

Below are some links to examples of the project and the finished photo essays.
Jordan's Photo Essay
Nesha's Photo Essay as a website
Amy's Morocco Photo Essay

A Fall Report on our Library

I just wanted to write up a little progress report on the activities occurring here in the library over the fall term. There’s been a lot and I’ve learned a lot. We have a lot to do still to keep building this place into a learning commons.

My Goal to build this library!!!

1. A welcoming, service-oriented, tech-rich environment that is open on a regular basis and that invites students in to find resources and services that support their work.
2. Comfortable reading areas that attract students to books and to developing the lifelong habit of reading.
3. Comfortable working areas that enable different groupings of students to work, from independent learners, to pairs and small groups to whole-class instruction.
4. 24/7 access to digital resources as well as a collection of dynamic print resources all supporting curriculum and reading.
5. An area that would invite teachers, and guests to work with a class or group, with the support of the teacher-librarian to present multimedia or other performances.
6. A place that would provide students and teachers with opportunities to learn more advanced technology skills and create more complex digital products.
7. A place that is available for teachers to work in groups in workshops/lunch n’ learns to build new skills or collaboratively develop new resources, tools, etc.
8. provide a multitude of literacy initiatives and reading programs

Total number of Forest of Reading Books - 160
Total number of students participating in Forest Voting - 194 signed up
Activities for Forest of Reading

• Book Club
• Award Design Contest
• Talks with Expert Teachers
• Voting
• Imovie for the blog

Library Helpers
Currently 17 students come to the library regularly to shelve and restock books and help with maintaining the library

Study Hall
This runs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - 99% of the time I’m full and have to turn people away


Total number of checkouts to date - 2971
grade 6 total = 567
grade 7 total = 847
grade 8 total = 784

Total new items purchased by year
2011 - 503
2012 - 788

Total number of items in the library
Books - 2594
easy read/picture - 246
Graphic novel - 210
Magazine subscriptions - 8
Prof reference - 334
encyclopedias/reference - 180

Age of Books
Average age of books is 11 years old by publication year
2004 - 1111 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2001 - 887 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2008 - 442 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction

Graph Age of books by Dewey system

Teacher Research/Collaboration

• grade 6 research for Biodiversity - students researched and created presentations using poster board or prezi or powerpoint
• group research on Aboriginal peoples - students created a presentation for class on a specific group of native people
• completed Dare Arts cards
• research for grade 8’s completed Island City project
• grade 7 french project to create comics using Bitstrips
• utilized Tumble books
• website creation with live reenactment utilizing twitter for confederation
• recording radio advertisements in french for restaurants
• utilizing ipads and screenchomp for explaining websites for a charity “Shattered” novel study
• utilize computers to work on gizmos for science
• utilizing Imovie to create TV ads for a French Restaurant
• utilizing Ipads to film skit for french
• research project on mixtures and solutions end product was powerpoint or prezi
• research project with students on Canadian Artists
• research project on famous musicians students create a presentation for the class, like Prezi, powerpoint, frames 4, or jeopardy
• research project for migration students are creating photo essays on push and pull factors
• robotics project
• collaborating with me to train students on premier

Upcoming Projects/Plans

• using both the cart in class and the lab students will do research for cells
• will use Imovie to create trailers for the book the Twits - we will split the class and do storyboards then alternate filming times
• students will research water then create children’s stories about water utilizing Storybird
• utilizing audacity to make podcasts in music

6 Teachers bring their classes for regular book exchange

Fundraising

• Book Fair - 250$ - store credit
• Chapter’s night - 400$ - gift card
• Dare Arts - 95$ - cash
• Adopt a School - 500$ - gift card

Major Expenses for library budget

• Purchasing Fiction titles appropriate for grade 6’s - 1500
• Purchasing Graphic novels - 500
• Purchasing replacement book tape - 150$
• Repair books - 195$
• Magazine subscriptions 275$
• Incidentals like barcodes, magazine racks and board games took up the rest

Lessons learned from this year so far

• I can’t let teachers book regular weekly periods for computer use. There isn’t enough flexibility to schedule around them in 4 period day
• I needed to purchase more than 8 copies of Red Maple for Forest - they’re very popular
• The cart is a huge maintenance issue - reliable students should be trained in September to help with upkeep
• Cell phones are too small for BYOD to be useful awkward for kids to read
• The cart needs to monitored every period to ensure everything is back
• If Ipads are constantly plugged in to charge the battery dies
• Netbooks must be shut down with each new user or you can’t get on the network
• Each Wi Fi hub has 30 logins
• The cart is heavy
• Not everyone knows that you can sign out books from the library
• Not everyone knows that they can bring kids to the library to do research and collaborate/team teach with me
• Many teachers aren’t aware of the need to scaffold research so students of all levels are successful
• I have a lot to learn :))))

The Actual Assignment pages.

Yesterday I posted a description of a collaborative project that I completed with some grade 6  students and their teacher Mrs. Camarda.

Today I've pasted in the assignment pages for our First Nations Assignment so that you can see the roles that we supplied to the kids. Hopefully, this gives you an idea of the structure we have created for this assignment. Please see the Two Heads are Better than One post for more info on the assignment.

Aboriginal Unit:  Culminating Task

You will be placed into groups.  Each group will have the task of researching one of the following Aboriginal Groups:     

Cree (Subarctic Region)

·         Haida (Northwest Coast Region)

·         Interior Salish (Plateau Region)

·         Inuit (Arctic Region)

·         Iroqouis (Eastern Woodlands)

·         Blackfoot  (Plains)

As a group you will need to complete the following tasks that will be presented at our Potlatch at the end of this unit.

Task 1

Find a myth/story from the group that you are studying.  Create a four square sketch of the stories important scenes. 

Write a paragraph on why this story would be important to your tribes culture and what message or lesson your group thinks it is trying to teach.

Task 2

Research the art and culture of your tribe.  Look at the fact sheet provided and decide on an individual and art form that you would like to research and describe in your report.

Task 3

Describe the lifestyle that was lived by these tribes before contact with the Europeans.  Look at the fact sheet provided for key words that you could use to begin your research.  Look at what their homes looked like, what tools they used to gather food and survive the harsh climate, how they travelled or transported goods.

Task 4

As a group, once you have researched your tribe, you will come together and design a flag that represents the people of your tribe.  Also, you will need to share a dish during the potlatch that you think best represents these people that you can share with the rest of the class.

That was page 1. Here's page 2.

The Story Teller  Checklist

1.       Your task is to find 2 myths from the particular tribe you are researching. 

2.      Create a four square sketch for each story. 

These should be drawn neatly and coloured in.        

3.       Write one paragraph on the importance of one of these stories. 

What is the main idea of the story?

What is the theme? 

In your opinion, how do you think this story was used by the tribe in

order to help them survive?                                      

Cultural Attaché

1.       Research an art or musical style from the particular tribe you are researching.

2.       Find 2 examples of your art or musical form.  This can be a photo, a music video

or an audio file.

3.       Create a paragraph about the artist who created these pieces of art work.

Who is the artist?

When did they begin drawing/singing/sculpting, etc?

Where did they learn this art form?

What type of message are they trying to send with their art?

What is your opinion of this art form.  Do you like it?  Why/Why not? 

Life and Style Reporter A

1.       Research what it was like to live like the tribe you are researching.

Start with researching the types of homes they lived in.  Ask for a

“Constructing a Model of an Early First Nation Home”  Sheet  from Mrs. Camarda.

2.      Create a good copy drawing or a 3-D model.

3.       Write a paragraph describing the home.

What tools and materials were used for construction?

What items could be found inside the home?

Who was in charge of the home and what were their jobs? (ex. Mom’s were in

Charge of cooking meals, dad’s hunting and gathering food.)

Life and Style Reporter B

1.       Research the clothing that the tribe you are looking at wore. 

2.       In a paragraph, describe what they wore on an everyday basis and if

there were any pieces of clothing used for special occasions or ceremonies.

3.       Provide at least two examples of everyday wear and two examples of

ceremonial dress.

The Food Critic

1.       It is your task to find any interesting facts about how the tribe you are

researching found their food source. 

2.       Write a paragraph about how they were able to feed their tribe.  Think about the following questions.

How did they find food?  Were they farmers, fishers, hunters, etc?

How did they prepare their food to eat?

What tools did they use to prepare their food or kill it?

3.       Provide at least three pictures of how they found and prepared their food.

Hope this gives a good idea about what the project was all about.