May is on the way

April 30th

To say that we are doing many things differently these days is a gross understatement! Before going to explore activites I’ve assigned for today (and some how-to videos), please leave a comment here about what skills (or tools) you have had to learn or improve a lot while working from home.

Please also remember to visit me for feedback & small group discussion online in Teams this morning (also tomorrow). Login to your school Office365 account and go to the calendar in Teams to join the session.

I look forward to your comments, questions & discussion.

April 29th

I was delighted to see many students’ comments that the demonstrations I gave during our meeting yesterday were helpful. It was certainly frustrating having the difficulties we had with sound!

I’m asking students to reply to an email messsage today that I have sent to your school-assigned Office 365 address to confirm that you are able to read & reply to those messages in Outlook. So check for my email. For help, I have another Teams meeting scheduled for you between 9:30 and 11:30 where I’m available for help & feedback. Join the meeting through the calendar in Teams. And check the list of assigned activites. I’m looking forward to reading (listening to?) your story endings!

I’ve also just added links to some how-to videos in that list of assigned activites to help you in case you are still not sure (or have forgotten) how to do things like login to Office365 or hand in work online.

April 28th

I am looking forward to our next class meeting online later this morning.  I’ll be posting some new activities after we get a chance to chat at our meeting, there is one creative storytelling option for this week you may want to have a look at sooner rather than later.

Before we meet together, I am hoping most of you will follow this link and complete the short survey there.

Are April showers on the way?

Update for Friday, April 24th

Hubble Space Telescope

It is the 30th birthday for the Hubble Space Telescope (well, anniversary of its launch into space – it’s a telescope, not a living thing). If you could have that powerful telescope, with its ability to capture amazing images of almost unimaginably distant objects, look anywhere you wanted, where would you have it look? (answer in the comments)

It is Friday, so make sure you’ve finished (or sent me questions about) everything we’ve been investigating and working on this week, including a few new activities for today (Remember Fridays4Future?).

Remember that Monday is a professional development day, so if I don’t see you during office hours in Teams, I will see you all during our next meeting online Tuesday at 10:30AM!

Update for Thursday, April 23rd

Yesterday, for Earth Day, I asked you to spend time just quietly observing the natural environment. (Maybe you sat for 30 min in your back yard, on the front steps, in front of a window…). Today, it would be interesting if you would please leave a comment & share a little of what you could observe from your sit-spot and what it made you think about.

Monday will be a professional development day, so among the activities I am giving you today, I am asking you to think about what you might like a pro-D day for students to be like!

Notice that some of our Hearts for Healthcare Workers (see Monday) are now up in some slides. We’d love to add more, so keep them coming!

Hope to see many of you during my onilne office hours (check in; say, “Hello”; ask a question; make a suggestion…) See you soon!

Earth Day, April 22nd

rotating Earth from greatanimations.comPeople have been noticing some wildlife in cities these days where they would not have been seen before, maybe because there is so much less human traffic these days. (Check out these photos from CBC kids news.) What is the most remarkable animal you’ve ever seen in the city? Let us know in a comment.

Please revisit our activity list once again to find new activities added for this special day. Thanks to everyone for attending yesterday’s meeting (& sort of class circle). A new meeting has been set up so students can visit me during virtual office hours online to ask questions & get help. Students can find the link in their Teams calendar or school email.  These will be group sessions for those who decide to come; I’m not expecting everyone all at once, and we’ll see how well it goes. I’m still responding to questions in assignments and sent in via the ask a question form and via email, but sometimes it may be easier just to talk about it.

And keep creating those hearts so we can wear them on our houses (if not exacly on our sleeves) for our communities to have something to see as well as hear while we show our support for one another from our windows, front steps & balconies each evening.

Update for April 21st

We’ll meet as a class online later this morning. My applause and thanks go out to all of you who have increased the stream of work coming my way. I especially appreciate your questions (and your enthusiasm to get started early each morning!).

Today, I’m going to wait before posting an update to our activity list. I am anxious to give you part two of our story and other things, but I want to get us gathered together first. But you can count on there being more to do this week about tomorrow’s 50th anniversary. Do you know what it is? If you’re not sure, then get over to Ms Lea’s updated blog where you should get a good idea (and you’ll find a few things you’ll need to work on too).

See you soon!


Welcome to the week of April 20th. The flowers have been loving the sunshine, and I hope you have too. I’ve been appreciating the nice weather each evening when I go out on my balcony with a pot & lid (and sometimes some other musical instrument, perhaps you might guess which one!) to join the neighbourhood in giving a raucous Thank You Chorus for all the people working on the front lines during this time. And for me, that often means I have our healthcare workers front of mind.A request from the Burnaby Now

So, as you, my students, work on activities this week, I also invite you to share with me (perhaps by leaving a comment here) what sort of a cheer,  joyful noise or thankful thoughts you are sending up each night come 7:00 PM from your house. (And do you have a rain plan for when the days get a little soggy?)

Onward and upward

April 17th update

Welcome to Friday!

I hope you are finding your way through our activities without too much difficulty. It seems like many of you are at different places along this new path, and that’s OK. I do want you to reach out and let me know what has been difficult or confusing and I especially want to know what help you could use. Please leave a comment on the blog, use the question form, or send me a message via email.

Today is a day to finish up the activities you’ve chosen to work on over the whole week [choice or flex-time]. Review these along with the other activities for each day, including preparing to meet together onine on Tuesday.

It has been good to be able to reconnect with more of you, and I’m sure it will keep getting better. Talk to you soon!

March April 16th update

[Oh My! I do feel foolish! All week I’ve been naming the wrong month when writing the date! Comments and work submitted show me you are carrying on despite my error, but I do apologise for adding more confusion to this confusing time. Yikes!]

Over the remaining days of this week, we need to spend some time preparing to meet as a class online. It might be a little tricky at the start, but we will get better at it. You might have had some experiences visiting with family members or other groups online over the last few weeks. That experience may be helpful, though our meeting will be a little more formal than a visit with family and friends (we will be in school after all, or at least in a virtual school setting while not actually in our school building).

Please leave a comment on the blog about an experience or a question you have about meeting or visiting online. (Maybe you have a funny story about a pet interrupting your video, or maybe you have a frustration to share or a helpful tip.)

I am including some new activities today, but it is also important that you spend some time reviewing & asking questions about what we’ve done so far.

March April 15th Update

How did yesterday go for you? Let us know by leaving a comment or by sending me a question [especially if you are having any difficulty with tasks, links, logins, or anything else]. 

Reading a few new comments to the blog, getting a few questions from students & getting to talk to a few folks from school on the phone yesterday made my day. I think most students are still adjusting and getting used to using the blog and office documents again. I am available through the school day to give feedback and answer questions.

I’ve added updates to activities for this (short) week for you here. Check them out and give them a try. And please keep letting me know how I can help!


March April 14

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I am glad to welcome you back with a short video message.

Click the image or click here to play the video (and give it a moment to load)

Then visit my last post, Still Growing, to leave a comment or follow this link to find a few activities to get this (short) week started.

I’m excited to see your comments and I’m looking forward to your questions too. See you soon! (Well , you’ll see me in the video, but it’s a start.)

 

Activities to get started on will be found here.