Month: October 2016

October 5th Update, Wednesday

Hello Everyone,

Agenda:
MOA Field Trip Tomorrow, please arrive at 8:50 AM on time, bagged lunch/snack
WOW Letter D Words due on Friday
No LIBRARY due to field trip
Balloon Car Race Friday
Have you turned in your green karate form?

Today we had a great mini-debate about the pros and cons of the Site C Dam, and I was very impressed with the way students were thinking and debating the issues! We also discussed how human rights are affected by quality of life and made a list together of what affects quality of life in different countries, such as wealth, access to clean water, pollution, transportation, education, and more. We read stories of children from around the world and evaluated their quality of life. Most everyone finished these two evaluations in class and turned them in to the INBOX. If you did not get them done, you will have some time on Friday morning.

We also experimented with Stop Motion Video today! We will be using this tool on our project for the unit. Here are the steps we will follow for doing our unit end project. We are not quite done with the unit and still have more learning to do about solar energy, inventions, and action, but we will be working up to our end project slowly, and I hope it will be fun!:

  • Experiment with Stop Motion (done today)
  • Make a mini Stop Motion instructional video on something we feel we are an expert at (such as “I am an expert at how to make origami”) Criteria and a rubric will be provided for this, as it will be marked.
  • Do research on a human rights issue of choice and ways people are taking action to address it with ideas or inventions
  • Present the research in a creative stop motion video

I hope everyone enjoys the field trip tomorrow as we learn more about potlatch, given we have been talking about First Nations and their rights in the context of human rights throughout the world.

Have a great night!

Ms. D

Monday, October 3rd Update: Question Formulation Technique!

Hello Everyone!

Today we began with the Question Formulation Technique. Some of you may remember this from last year, and it is a set of steps to help students develop great questions. We started by brainstorming around the topic of our unit, keeping these rules in mind:

  • Write down anything that comes to mind
  • Try to write things doing in a question format
  • Don’t judge anyone’s questions — no great, fantastic, good question, or bad question, etc.
  • Write down as many questions as you can

Then, we went through the questions and reviewed them to see if they were really in a question format. We fixed any that needed adjustment with a who, what, why, where, when, how, etc.

Our next discussion was over the meaning of open and closed questions. Open questions take further research, are deeper, require multiple resources, and do not have an easy yes/no answer. Closed questions are “googleable”, have a right answer, and are quick to answer with one resource. Everyone labeled their questions with an “O” or a “C” for open and closed. They then chose one question to change between open and closed, closed to open. We discussed what kind of investigations need open or closed questions, too. How will you know which kind of question to ask? When is each kind useful?

Finally, we each wrote a question to add to our wonderings board about the unit, using the “jar of inquiry” approach. We look forward to explaining this more as we develop our understanding of how to ask deeper questions!

TONIGHT: 

Please finish reading information from the Articles of Interest page, under the section on Human Rights, the articles available on the Site C Dam. Tomorrow we will have discussions to answer these questions:

  • Where is the Site C Dam located exactly? (You need to be able to find it on a map)
  • Why is Amnesty International upset about the Site C Dam? (Do you know what Amnesty International is?)
  • Why are First Nations groups upset about the Site C Dam?  (Bonus: Which group of First Nations peoples are living in that area?)

TUNING IN articles are due tomorrow (Tuesday.)

YPC and Field Trip Payments are overdue; please get them in as soon as possible.

Field Trip Thursday Please see my previous post about the field trip.

Balloon Racers: I hope you made some progress on this today, and if you need a bit more time, I can give it to you tomorrow. You are allowed to work on it at home, too, but only if you want to.

Math: We are continuing with the next pages, but I did not assign them for homework.

WOW Letter D: Words for letter D are on the board. Due Friday due to field trip.

Museum of Anthropology Trip Thursday, October 6th

Just a reminder that we will be at the Museum of Anthropology October 6th, Thursday. I am looking forward to the program we will attend, which will involve learning more about the potlatch tradition. We will also have the opportunity to see the rest of the museum after lunch. Students need to bring a disposable lunch, snack, and water bottle for their visit. Given space on the bus, no large backpacks are allowed, so please limit what you bring or use a simple string bag to hold items.

***Please do not bring a camera and/or valuables. Ms. D will take photos during our time there, as will other parent volunteers. Thank you!

One of the exhibits we can see is called:

LAWRENCE PAUL YUXWELUPTUN: UNCEDED TERRITORIES

Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun is an artist who uses abstract painting and sculpture to communicate about emotions and issues surrounding land and First Nations groups in British Columbia. Please see the MOA’s web link to learn more about him and watch the video at the bottom.

POTLATCH

Read about First Nations Background here so you are better prepared for our program. We have spent time talking about many of these things in class, and will revisit them this week before our trip. There is also a map of First Nations in BC you can look at that contains the traditional names of groups mentioned in the museum.

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