Good Day to all of you in Division 9:

It is Thoughtful, Thinking Thursday and today I want you to think about any assignments, activities projects that you may have not had a chance to work on or complete.  Now is your time to get to them and hand them in as I will not be receiving or commenting on any hand-in assignments next week.

All of you have worked so hard during this third term, at a time when teaching and learning has been so different for us all.  I appreciate all of your creativity and personal expression.  I am proud of all that you have accomplished.

During the last week of May, I recorded an audio-read but never did share it with you.  Even though there are May references and a connection to plant growth from Seed to Flower, I thought it was a purposeful story to share at this time.

Five Tough And Tiny Seeds reminds me of our journey through the third term.  You just might connect with the seeds in the story as I did.  We were like the tiny seeds, wanting to hold strong to what we knew, which for the seeds was the reed.  We wanted to hold on to our classroom routine, our personal connections and our in-class lessons. As the spring time winds came and gave us a push, we were able to move and grow in ways we never expected.  Just as the spring time winds blew the seeds here, there and everywhere, we as a team of Division 9 students kept moving forward on our learning journeys.  The story helps us make text to text connections as we relate to seeds, plants, insects, trees, birds, ponds, that we shared through out our on-line learning. As you’ll hear and see in the story, the seeds let go of their grip on the reed and began to explore and journey in places and spaces they never expected. They grew into the beautiful flowers of summer.

You are my little springtime tough and tiny seeds that have grown into bright and independent flowers of summer.

When you listen to the story, be thoughtful and think about which seed and flower you might be.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1paRXagN2yHpJYhsheanuOja1r4XLBNdr/view

I have to tell you, that when I was recording this audio-read, I had to stop and start many times as a drone was flying over my backyard and kept hovering way above my head to see what was happening.  The sound of the drone was loud and kept interrupting my audio-read.  That is why it is a bit darker than I wanted it to be as the light of the day was disappearing.  I didn’t give up though and I finally got through the story.  I remembered the O.K. Book and just kept trying!

For this Thoughtful, Thinking Thursday, reflect back on your learning journey from Spring Break to Now.  Take some time to write in a journal.  Write about your feelings, your explorations, your “new normal.”  Share your ups and downs, your connections with your passions and talents and the experiences you have had during this time in history.  This last 3 and 1/2 months have flown by but you have engaged in some amazing moments and I don’t think you’ll want to forget them.  So get out your handy, dandy pencil and a notebook, journal or writing paper and WRITE WRITE WRITE!  Don’t forget to include your appreciation and gratitude for all your amazing moments.

That’s all for now you tough and tiny seeds that have grown into beautiful flowers ready for summer!

Mrs. E.

Hello Division 9:

It was really nice to see so many of you yesterday at the class meeting.   My apologies to Eric for forgetting to pass the Talk About It to him but more apologies to Zahra who was sitting right in the classroom and missed out on her opportunity to share.  We had a good laugh about that after the class meeting ended but I will let her share next Tuesday.

We will have our final class meeting next Tuesday so we can share our summer plans, sing happy birthday to our summer birthday students and say good-bye to one another.  Information about supply and report card pick up times will come closer to the end of this week.  Pick up dates will be Wednesday, June 24 and Thursday, June 25.

Ms. Hossack has shared some amazing books with us and I am going to link you up to her resources.  These are books that may support some of the conversations you are having with your families and in your home at this time.

“Below there is a link to a google slide presentation with book shelves of books that are clickable. Click on the book and it will take you to the read aloud. Some are in our library and some are to come…great reads and resources for this timely topic. I can’t take any credit for it, but many of the titles I can highly recommend.” Ms. H.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18pOK3roiwPQ9WF7D2wA0o7Ktr8KwAJeZfn-o6O8T__Y/mobilepresent?slide=id.p

I would also like to share with you a connection I had with our Frog and Toad classroom story studio.  The pond in my neighbourhood is full of lily pads.  Perhaps, you have a pond near your home full of lily pads!  A recent walk in the rain also had me see so many slugs and snails.  Clare, Cara and Selina will remember our snailariums from last year. The last photo I have is of the baby geese, goslings, now on their way to becoming adults.  They are teenagers at the moment.  So keep taking note of nature in your neighbourhood and appreciate all the Earth has to offer as you continue to be Earth Warriors and protect the natural habitats of your environment.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, Mrs. E.

Let’s Talk About A Treehouse!

Did you listen to Audrey’s Tree House?  If you did not, perhaps you will have time before our 10 a.m. class meeting today.

In-class we made our own designer tree house plans.  First though, we looked at some tree house designs.

Check these out: https://www.google.com/search?q=treehouse+designs&rlz=1C1GCEA_enCA840CA840&sxsrf=ALeKk02kItTBf2evOU_RlUM-d-DtpWpc8w:1592254643868&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjq1MHj2oTqAhUSgp4KHXgmA_sQ_AUoAXoECBMQAw&biw=1366&bih=657

Here are some photos from that link!

We look forward to meeting with you today.  Please have prepared your thoughts about who may be residing in the tree house you saw yesterday on the post and Shape of the Week!  Tell us something interesting about the inhabitants of that special tree house!

If you have also made some plans and designs of your own for a tree house, you can share them too!

See you soon, Mrs. E. in a tree!

Hello Division 9:

This is our final full week together.  Tomorrow, we will be having a class meeting at 10:00 a.m.  You will be asked to share who you think might be living in the tree house that sits in a tree at my father’s home!  Before you consider the photo I have attached, please have a listen to the story called, Audrey’s Tree House!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iSD61nlBdt6zCnE5kW1W_zCo7T_hL04L/view

I love how creative Audrey is with her ideas.  She reminds me of someone considering, “what are the possibilities?”  She also works very well with her father.  Father’s Day is coming up this Sunday, June 21 which is also the first full day of summer.  Let’s hope we get some summer sun!

On Father’s Day, we get to appreciate all the people in our lives that support and love us.  Anyone and everyone can be a father figure to us.  I know that all of you have special, caring relationships so please consider celebrating that love and kindness this Sunday!

So now that you have listened to Audrey’s Treehouse, here is the photo of a real house in a tree!  Who do you think could be living in there?  What are the possibilities?  What could be in the house?  How long has the home been hanging in the tree?  Be as creative as you want with your ideas and share them tomorrow during our class meeting.

You can then draw an architectural design for your own treehouse.  Make a blueprint.  Think about how you will get up or down from your treehouse!  Consider the tree you will be building in?  Will you have one level or a few?  What colour will it be?  Will you have stairs with a banister?  Will you have blue bed to hide all your secrets under?  Will you have a deck to sip tea on?  Will you have a bathtub to play in? What are the possibilities?

You can share your tree house design with me and I will share it with those in-class this week.  We will be creating our own tree house blueprints.

Please look to the Shape Of The Week for support with ideas for this week.  It is on the top of the blog.  Look for the dates June 15-19! Have fun!

Oh, right…I forgot to share that Clare, Zahra, Selina and I got to have a meeting with Thomas in Korea.  It was 6:20 a.m. for Thomas.  We enjoyed our chat time.  Here are some photos of our experience.

Have a Marvelous, Magical Treehouse Monday and I will see you tomorrow at the meeting.

Mrs. E.

Do you remember the Pink Refrigerator?  Dodsworth loved doing nothing.  His motto was “Try to do as little as possible!”  As we move toward the end of June, I would like you to continue putting forth your best effort so you are not like Dodsworth, doing as little as possible.

Dodsworth ended up finding his spark and passion through the magic of the pink refrigerator.  So on this Fridge Friday, think about Dodsworth finding paints, brushes and a sketchbook in the fridge.  Think about Dodsworth finding a fridge full of books.  Think about Dodsworth finding a trumpet and playing music.  Think about Dodsworth finding a cookbook and a whole assortment of ingredients in the fridge.  He found out that he was a gifted chef.  The Pink Refrigerator then told Dodsworth to keep exploring.

I want you to keep exploring your passions as we move toward the end of June and the end of your Division 9 year.

Evan Lin and Amos continue to explore their passions!  Check out their ukulele Rainbow medley and hula hooping!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmjYPRVuD0&feature=youtu.be

https://youtu.be/Y5ddhtiJVdc

That is the last of our talent sharing for the year!  Thank you to all those that contributed to our BLOG POST TALENT SHOW!  As mentioned, keep exploring your passions just as Dodsworth decided to do.  We began the year with the OK Book which taught us to keep trying new things.

Today, via email,  you will receive a form that will ask you some Money Money questions.  Please answer the form and submit it to me by next Wednesday, June 17.

Please complete your Ocean Zone Art Piece as well as your Ocean Garbage Patch drawing and return them to me.

On Monday, you will get a link to a Treehouse Story Video I created for you to watch.  I will then send a photo of a house in a tree and you can be prepared to tell me what characters may live in that house during our Tuesday class meeting. You will also get an opportunity to see another Mystery Doug lesson.  This one will be about  Mars.  I will assign two more READWORKS passages.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Mrs. E.

Thoughtful Thursday!

Today is the 163rd day of the year.  There are 203 days left in 2020.  It is the 24th Thursday of the year on the 24th week of the year.  It is the 84th day of Spring and there are 10 days left until summer. Metric version of this date is 06-11-20!

On this special 11th day of the month, you are being encouraged to continue with your Clinton Star Behaviour and keep moving forward on your learning journey.  Remember to always be a STAR!  Show your awareness to  Stay Safe, Take Responsibility, Act Respectfully, Remember to be Inclusive.  Your STAR behaviour is so very important during this time in our history.

Please always be mindful to work from good, to better to your personal best and that is with both your academic and social growth and development.

Peter Reynolds shared some wonderful messages in his book Say Something!  He shared that “The world needs your voice! Mine and yours.” He tells us to “follow our heart, be brave, stay strong, listen and learn and let’s right the wrong. Let’s make our world a more colourful place, together is  better and hate has no home here.”

In class, we are taking some of the messages from Say Something and putting them in speaking bubbles in our classroom window.  We are letting “kindness be our compass.”

If you can’t remember the book, here’s a link to a read aloud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWvD6usLuX8

“Be the change you want to see happen” and have a loving, caring, kind, thoughtful Thursday!

Mrs. E.

We are enjoying some DPA time in-class and Go NOODLE has been helping us.  We are moving up through the levels with some brain breaks and FLEX has been our go-to Go Noodle video.  Here are some FLEX characters we have made!

You can take some time to make your own FLEX characters and participate in some flex and stretch activities.

We have also been making use of puppets!  Your Shape Of The Week gives you some puppet ideas.  Have fun creating your own puppet plays.  Think of it as an extension of your Story Studio Builds.  Eric could make some car puppets! Nils could continue with Froggy and Toadie. Raina could work with Sparkle and Leo puppets.

Here is a look at some of our in-class puppet experiences.

We have the added lion and elephant in the scene on the left and the bat and buzzing bee on the right.  These puppet characters have been visiting Frog and Toad as well as visiting each other and having dance parties with their shadows. 

Please remember to get your Core Competency Reflection Pieces in by the end of today.  It is very important that I receive them from you.  If you have misplaced the emails with the attached activity, please let me know as soon as possible.  Thank you!

So continue to refer back to the SHAPE OF THE WEEK  page at the top of this site and continue to work on your Ocean projects, have some FLEX time and have a puppet party.  A Money Matters form will arrive on Friday for you to work on.

Your ocean projects are the 3 zones of the ocean visual art piece (show the sunlight, twilight, midnight layers of the ocean and the sea life in each layer) and the Garbage Patch activity as requested from your READWORKS passage, Garbage in the Ocean.

Enjoy your Waterway Wednesday!  Mrs. E.

Today We Are Going To Talk About It!

Join us for our class meeting at 10 a.m.  Go to the TEAMS site, click calendar, click JOIN MEETING!

Please arrive with microphones and cameras off.  Our class meeting will require your patience as I make sure that those of us in class are able to join in and participate.

We will take turns and share a Charlotte’s Web Word Collector Word that you have included in a well-dressed sentence that helps us understand the meaning of the word.  You will then share your Magnum Opus, your Hour of Triumph moment.  Many of your classmates did not get a chance to be the STAR OF THE WEEK.  They missed out on sharing what they are proud of.  This will be their opportunity to share their masterpiece, their great work, their proud moment.

I will share the final answers to Yoga By The Sea and say a few words about Mystery Doug and the Shape of the Week expectations.

You have a few Ocean projects to send in this week.  I am attaching a few links that we have watched in class.  These links will help you understand a little bit more about the layers of the ocean and what animals you may find there.  One of the videos will take you deep, deep to the depths of the ocean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHVE4B-UjmM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ybBjbZnq9I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE-lAftuQgc

While you are drawing and colouring, you can put some calming ocean waves or coastal beach music on.  We did that in class yesterday!

Tomorrow is the deadline for returning your Self-Assessment Core Competency Reflection work.  There are 3 options for you to choose and only 1 of them has to be completed and returned.  These pieces will be attached to your report cards so they need to be returned to me by tomorrow.  Thank you!

Please continue to access the Shape Of The Week activities and I look forward to seeing your ocean art!

Have a Terrific, Talk About It Tuesday.  Mrs. E.

Good Morning Everyone!  Sorry if this is arriving a bit late.  I left the Yoga By The Sea Book in the classroom for the weekend and had to get to it this morning before I could publish the daily post.

I hope you had a well-deserved long weekend as you have been working so hard.  Many of you have engaged in the READWORKS assignments, learning about oceans, lakes and rivers.  I have been connecting your readings with our Yoga By The Sea Guessing Game.  Today will be another reveal of answers with a few more clues that I will answer at our class meeting tomorrow.

The class meeting will be a bit different as I will be working from the classroom.  My laptop has a camera and microphone but the other digital devices in the classroom do not.  In order for our in-class students to participate, they will be able to access the classroom pc screen to see you share but then they will have to pop in front of my laptop to do their own sharing.  Of course, we will have to social distance ourselves in that moment.  So patience is of upmost importance tomorrow.  I have been receiving your self-assessment pieces so I know that you are all very good with your patient strategies.

Please arrive at 10 a.m. with microphones and cameras off.  We will take turns and share a Charlotte’s Web Word Collector Word that you have included in a well-dressed sentence that helps us understand the meaning of the word.  Please then share you Magnum Opus, your Hour of Triumph, your masterpiece, what you feel proud of.  Charlotte was proud of her egg sac filled with her 514 babies.  That was her greatest work.  She also knew she had been a good friend by saving Wilbur. Knowing that Wilbur received a medal at the fair and was going to be cared for and loved for the rest of his life gave her the peace at the end of her life.  I do hope you enjoyed the last 5 chapters of Charlotte’s Web and will be ready to talk tomorrow for our Talk About It Class Meeting.

Before I give you the answers to Yoga By The Sea and the new clues, I wanted to attach a Mystery Doug lesson that connects with our Pond, Oceans, Lakes, River theme.  It is Why Fish Can’t Breathe On Land.  When I think about that, I connect to our tadpoles who can’t breathe on land and then become frogs that are able to breathe on land as their gills turn into lungs.  But you are going to find out about swim bladders in this episode of Mystery Doug.  Try to also watch the Bonus Info as well.  It is so very interesting.

https://mysterydoug.com/mysteries/fish-breathing#slide-id-9079

Yoga By The Sea!

Answers from Thursday:

I am a boat; I am a bridge; I am a fish!  How did you do?  Did you guess correctly?  Now try to make those poses!

Today’s final clues:

A squishy blob inside my shell,  this round hinged home is where I dwell.  I try to burrow in the sands to hide from gulls and digging hands.  What am I?

I breathe the air, the air breathes me.  I am the land.  I am the sea.  I am the clouds that drift above.  I am special. I am love.  What am I?

I’ll reveal the answers to the final clues of Yoga By The Sea when we meet tomorrow.

Please Check the new SHAPE OF THE WEEK .  As we move toward the end of June, there will be fewer assignments for hand in but it is expected that you will continue to pursue online learning from home.  T  HIS WEEK THERE ARE 2 HAND-IN ASSIGNMENTS. For those of you that have not handed in your core competency reflection pieces, please do by Wednesday.  That was your 1 assignment from last week.

Continue to access the sidebar for activity links, take a virtual field trip from the virtual field trip page at the top of the blog and try out some Go Noodle activities.  Some of our in-class students really likely FLEX!  We have been and are making some FLEX characters from play clay. We are also working with puppets and you have a chance to as well.  Continue with your money money math activities.

Have a Meaningful, Magical Monday and we will see you at the meeting tomorrow.  Mrs. E.

Hello to a Thinking Thursday.   And I would first like to start off by thanking you for thinking about why Life In The Ocean does not have any questions attached.  In class, we do not have the digital capacity that all of you at home do.  We do not have the tech tools to use so we must do some hands-on assignments.  The reading passage Life In The Ocean is going to be used next week as a support for a hands-on assignment.  The reading passages were assigned over a 2 week period but some of you are working through them all in one week.  Good for you.  You will see next week why I assigned a reading passage without questions.  Until then, be patient.  A word that you are going to hear time and time again.

Today, for our Thinking Thursday, I would like you to think about a few things.  Of course, I know you are thinking about your core competency self-assessment reflections and working toward returning one to me.  

I would also like you to think about the spiderlings that Charlotte had hatch from her egg sac.  There were 514 baby spiders.  Instead of creating number sentences to the date today, I am going to ask you to consider making number sentences for 514!  That’s right. You could be making number sentences for hours with this number.  So get to it!

I also hope you are experimenting with some of the financial fluency activities and videos I have provided in the Shape Of The Week.  Money, money, money!!!!

I would also like you to think about your Magnum Opus.  Your great work!  On Tuesday, June 9, we will meet again at 10 a.m. for our in-class/on-line class meeting.  Not only will you share one of the Charlotte’s Web Word Collector Words and the sentence you created but you will share what you believe to be your Magnum Opus.  For Charlotte, it was her egg sac.  The creation of her peach-coloured, waterproof, tough material egg sac that held her 514 babies was her masterpiece, her great work, the finest thing she had ever made.  What is that for you? What do you think is the finest thing you have ever made, created or done.  You could even consider your Hour of Triumph.  For Charlotte, having Wilbur recognized at the County Fair and being honoured with a medal was her hour of triumph. She knew that by helping Wilbur, she was also lifting up her life.  When she filled his bucket, her bucket was filled.  So perhaps, you would rather share a moment that you felt proud about.

So think about it and arrive with microphones and cameras off next Tuesday, ready to share your Word Collector Words and your Magnum Opus or Hour of Triumph Moment.

Tomorrow is a Pro-D Day so I will not be posting.  I will leave you today with the answers to our Yoga By The Sea Clues and I will give you 3 more.  Please continue with your READWORKS passages, listen to the final chapters of Charlotte’s Web, play with money, prepare for our class meeting and return your self-assessment reflection piece.

Answers to Wednesday Clues:  1. I Am A RAINBOW (Can you think of a pose?) 2. I Am The MOON (Can you think of a pose?) 3. I Am An EAGLE (Can you think of a pose?)

More Clues for Yoga By The Sea (answers will arrive on Monday):

1.People row or paddle me.  I can sail across the sea, with a captain and a crew, to navigate the endless blue. What am I?

2. To get across from A to B, you might go up and over me, or sail under in a boat or sneak across a castle’s moat.  What am I?

3.Would you like to live with me…swimming in the deep blue sea?  Glistening fins and shiny scales, hanging out with clams and whales?  What am I?

So much to think about on this THINKING THURSDAY!  Mrs. E.