Miriam.Arden

Just another Burnaby School District Blogs Sites site

April 16, 2020
by ardenm
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Reminders/Information

Please remember to e-mail your week 1 journal entries to miriam.arden@burnabyschools.ca

Your virus project is due this coming Monday. ‌

If any of you are interested in playing virtual chess games with other Taylor Park 6/7 students, please e-mail derek.cockram@burnabyschools.ca, and he will help set you up. ‌

Parents – our wonderful counsellor Mr. Anderson has set up a blog to help connect families to resources and ideas related to mental health. Please check it out if you think this could be beneficial to you and your family: http://sd41blogs.ca/andersons/

I will see you at 11:30 tomorrow for our regular yoga/check-in time. 

April 6, 2020
by ardenm
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Updated Schedule/New information for this week

Revised weekly schedule starting on Wednesday: 

updated schedule April 6-9th

New assignments:

Task 1 of Covid 19 project Assessment Science

Reflective Journal Assignment

Hi all, ‌

Please check in with me tomorrow at 11:30 for some yoga/more explanations on assignments. I have sent your parents an e-mail so that they can help you get set up on Epic books. Please remind them to do this when they can find some time and start finding an e-book that you would like to read. ‌

Please remind your parents to have a look at the letter I sent last week and to get back to me with the answers to my questions as soon as they can. Thanks so much. ‌

Letter from Mr. Wenzek to band students:

Hi again everyone,

Your teachers are all hard at work trying to learn a variety of technologies in a very short period of time to help you with your school work. ‌ I would like to have all my band students try this out before I start giving more directed assignments. Your participation is very important! ‌

To start, using Chrome, go to smartmusic.com

In the upper right hand corner, click “login”

On the login page, click the left image

At the bottom of the next page, you’ll see “I’m a student”. Click on “join a class” Your class code is HN2GF-U7KWU. Please do not share this code with kids that are not in your class: if they register, I’ll simply have to kick them out, causing me extra work. This code is for Taylor Park Band ONLY!

Be sure to register with your Burnaby District Email Address (student#@edu.burnabyschools.ca) You will then need to confirm your registration through your Burnaby District email. You’re set to go! You only have two “assignments”, though they really aren’t ones at this time. It’s just an opportunity to try out the program with music you already know. ‌ Once you’re familiar with it, feel free to explore.

Examples to try:

‌ Slow down the music to help with practicing.

Speed it up to make it sound funny!

Make loops to isolate bars that need extra work/practice. Use both with and without the metronome. Add subdivisions for even more accuracy.

Listen to your part alone Adjust the “Accompaniment” and “My Part” levels Save recordings, then keep only the ones you like and delete the others…the saved ones should be there the next time you log in. When you are simply looking at the music, click a note, then click either of the little icons immediately next to it: one plays the correct pitch for you, the other shows you the fingering/slide position of the note…COOL!

In the near future, I will have a class meeting in MS Teams with you to better help guide you through SmartMusic and help with specific instrument questions. Details of when the meeting happens will come soon, both through District email and on my website. Stay tuned! ‌ If you have any problems or issues, please email me and I’ll do my best to answer your questions. (peter.wenzek@burnabyschools.ca) ‌ 

April 5, 2020
by ardenm
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April 6th-10th

Grade 7’s, I have sent you all of your usernames and passwords for IXL Math. Please make sure this information works and get back to me if you have any problems.

Grade 6’s, this week you will be working on J.1 – J.3 on IXL math. Please do a minimum of 50 questions a day. 

Grade 7’s, this week you will be working on F.8-F.10. Please do a minimum of 50 questions a day. 

For Monday and Tuesday, continue with doing one hour of math and two suggested activities from the learning website/day. Please meet at 12:00 on Monday for yoga and more updates on assignments. The suggested schedule will begin on Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday, I will explain the instructions for each assignment so that by Wednesday, you can work on your assignments in a self-directed way. Please make sure you e-mail me to set up a video-conference time if you need any support.

April 2, 2020
by ardenm
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Meditation Meeting

Please join me on Teams tomorrow for a 12:00 meditation session with my favourite online yoga teacher. Please wear something comfy and sit on the floor on a yoga mat or towel. Looking forward to seeing you all there. Please make sure your microphones are on mute as you join the meeting. 

April 2, 2020
by ardenm
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New Assignment

Good morning/afternoon everyone. 

Today I have a few things for you to do and explore.  First, I hope that you will establish a space in your home that you can do “school.”  It should be a space where you are not completely isolated and that your support/parent has easy access to you.  Your bedrooms are probably not the ideal place.

I know that your school supplies are probably at school but hopefully you can pull together some supplies – most importantly paper and pencils/erasers.  Coloured pencils, a fine liner and something to use as a diary would be good too.

Think about balancing your screen time and activities without screens.  I know many of you have been playing a lot of video games.  Think, that during the week, school is in and other than for school use, you should be off your screens.

Today is explore day.  I have set up a math group on Prodigy. Please check your Microsoft 365 e-mail account for instructions on how to set up your prodigy account. I have sent you instructions and a class code that you will need to register.

Go to WWW.prodigygame.com/welcome.  Enter the class code then follow the instructions.  Spend some time exploring the site.  I would start with concepts you have already learned in order to do some review. 

Go to https://learning.burnabyschools.ca/grade6/7 and choose one or two of the suggested activities to do today and tomorrow. 

I will be setting up groups so that we can conference more easily on Microsoft 365.  30 is too many, and it is hard for everyone to have a voice.  More info to come.  If you need to talk to me, use my e-mail to communicate this, and I’ll set up a chat.

Have a great day.  Gratitude is good medicine for whatever ails you so take some time to think about something you are grateful for.

Miss you,

Ms. Arden

March 30, 2020
by ardenm
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Hello

Greetings everyone. I have written a few posts on Edmodo, but I realize that not everyone has access so I am copy pasting all posts that I have recently written here:

March 25th:

Hello to all my wonderful students and families, ‌

I just wanted to write you message and let you know that I’m thinking about all of you during this time. I know many of you are probably feeling scared and anxious with all of the uncertain events unfolding around us. I hope that you are all taking time to connect with your families and that you are finding ways to cope with feelings of stress and anxiety. When I am feeling nervous or overwhelmed, I find that listening to music, doing some yoga, baking, and going for long walks is helpful. I try to limit my time watching the news as this can feel quite overwhelming.The best thing we can do right is to stay home and stay connected to all of the wonderful people in our lives. Call your friends, your grandparents, and others loved ones, and spread as much love, positivity, and kindness as you can. Even though I can’t physically see my family members, I call my mum, grandma, and sisters every day. Use your amazing creativity and bake, write poetry or a novel, create inventions, draw. Anything that helps to keep you in the present moment. Jason and I are working on building a crib for our future little one – I will let you know how it turns out. Wish me luck!

I’d love to see what kinds of things you are doing if you want to post a message on here. We are all in this together, and we will get through this difficult time. You are all such special people and know that even though I can’t be there in person, I am here for you. Please write me an e-mail or message if you want to chat or if you want someone to talk to. ‌ Every night, I try to do this exercise that I found online. It helps me to feel calm before I go to bed. Maybe this can be a helpful activity that you can incorporate into your daily routine? ‌ “Each night when you get into bed, take a few minutes to reflect on your day. Jot down 3 things that were good about today. It doesn’t matter how big or how small they are, you are not in competition with anyone, not even yourself. Don’t compare today to yesterday. Notice how it feels in your body to think of the good in your day. Hold this feeling as you drift into sleep. When you think a certain way for a long time, you strengthen the pathways in your brain that run these thoughts, and it takes deliberate attention and perseverance to form new pathways. This week’s practice is scientifically proven to forge new, more positive pathways in the brain, helping you be more naturally aware of the good that already exists in your life.” ‌

I also absolutely love yogawithadriene on youtube. She has so many amazing yoga lessons and has a wonderful, positive presence. Check her channel out if you are interested in learning yoga. ‌ Take very good care of yourselves and your families. Sending you all my very best.

March 27th:

Hello all, ‌ All of your parents should have received an e-mail from the district updating them with important information on how we are going to move forward in the coming weeks after spring break. ‌ In other news, I am overjoyed with excitement, as I became an auntie last night. My older sister Gabrielle gave birth a month early to a beautiful boy named Riker (they named him after a character in Star Trek- much to Jason’s excitement). He will be in the hospital for a few days to make sure that he is eating well, but he is a very healthy little boy! I am dying to meet the little one but will not be able to see him for some time. Until then, I will scrutinize every inch of the photos they are sending of him. I spent my whole night last night dreaming about holding him in my arms. I cannot wait until that day. Just needed to share the joy with all of you! I will be contacting your families next week and look forward to connecting with you all soon. Until then, take good care of yourselves!

March 30th: 

Hello again, ‌ I hope you are all keeping well. This week, teachers are spending time connecting with colleagues, learning digital platforms, connecting with students and families, and spending time preparing materials. ‌ I will contact your families a bit later on in the week and will be touching base to see how you are doing, what your needs are, and how I can best support you. I recognize that this is a stressful and overwhelming time for everyone, and we are going to take things day by day. Please know that I am here for you. We will figure everything out, and there is no rush. ‌

If you go into your office 365 account (the e-mail you use to send me all of your assignments) you should be able to find an app called “Teams”. This is what we will be using to communicate from now on. Today, spend some time trying to access this app. I have added a team called TaylorParkDiv4, and you have all been added to this team. Through this app, we will be able to video-conference (in big groups and small groups), write messages to one another, receive assignments and updates etc. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the app and to explore the different tools. You can try sending me a message, posting a message to the group, and tomorrow at 1:00 p.m., we will all try to log-in and connect through video conferencing. I have added you all to this event, and you should be able to see an invite for the video conference in your microsoft 365 e-mail. ‌

Information for students who forget how to access their microsoft 365 account: ‌

1) Go to Taylor Park website

2) Click on the top right hand corner where it says Office365

3) Your username is the same username you use to log-in to Taylor park computers + @edu.burnabyschools.ca

4) Your password is the same password you use to log-in to Taylor Park computers

‌ If you have trouble with any of this, you can send me an e-mail to miriam.arden@burnabyschools.ca. Please send me your phone number and I will find some time to call you/help guide you through the process. Before you e-mail me, you can also try asking your tech savvy friends. We can all help one another out. I will keep posting updates on Edmodo and our class blog as well until everyone becomes more familiar with Teams. ‌ Take good care for now.

November 29, 2019
by ardenm
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November update

Super Fluffy Unicorns 

November 2019-2020 Newsletter!

Upcoming Events (mark your calendars): 

December 2nd: Skating

December 17th, 18th, 19th: Christmas Musical

REVIEW OF THE MONTH: 

Lit. Circles/Reading: 

We’ve already ended the lit. circles a while ago, and we have all finished our reading projects! There were two different ones we could choose from. One is called Character Container, which is a container of any sort, which explains the main character of a story. The character container contains symbols, quotes, that might represent the character. For example, if someone’s character is Sadako Sasaki from Sadako and 1000 Paper Cranes, he or she might add a paper crane into his or her container. The other one is the Ideagram, which is a poster-like diagram that includes visual imagery about what our book was about. If someone read Sadako and 1000 paper cranes (that story is beautiful by the way), he or she would write about the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then relate the real-life information to the book. He or she would add quotes and symbols to it as well. 

Science:

For Science, Ms. Arden divided us into groups and we researched different ecosystems in the world. For the first part, we created dioramas out of boxes and made powerpoints on them and presented them. For the second part, we made powerpoints about how humans have impacted the ecosystem, for example, hunting for animals in this ecosystem. And boy is that a hard one to do. 

Art:

Right now for art, we get to do any art-related project we want. Everyone did an art proposal about a certain art style and ran it through Ms. Arden and got started. There are people even drawing anime, blueprints and many other interesting types of art. People are getting real creative and I’m quite interested to see how everything ends up.

By: Marcus Lavender and Beatrice Widjaja

October 18, 2019
by ardenm
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Welcome to Div 4. 2019/2020

Welcome to our Div. 4 blog,

The beginning of our year has been an incredible adventure. Div. 4 students are incredibly motivated, environmentally and socially conscious, and keen to make a positive difference in the world. During our class reading of the Breadwinner, students have shown their ability for deep thinking and questioning. Students continue to display these qualities in our small group literature circle discussions. Students are reading books that deal with issues of inequity and struggle across the globe. As we have these discussions, students are developing and expressing a much deeper awareness and empathy for the circumstance of others. Many students have expressed a deeper sense of gratitude and appreciation for the rights and freedoms that they are afforded here in Canada. As we delve deeper into our study, we are starting to question the responsibilities that we have as global citizens given our great level of privilege.

Yesterday in Social Studies, we did an activity that split the world into three sections (Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and High-Income). Students had to complete a task but were given different resources and legible/illegible instructions based on their region. Each round, students in different regions were given penalties that impeded their ability to perform their task. For example, in the Sub-Saharan region, a flood caused all of the water sources, wells, and latrines to overflow causing an outbreak of cholera. As such, two members of the group were unable to help perform the task for that round. At the end of the four rounds, students in the high-income region had easily completed their task. Meanwhile, despite students’ resourcefulness and excellent cooperation in the African and Asian groups, they were not able to successfully complete their tasks due to illegible instructions and penalty after penalty. This led to an incredibly rich discussion about what the activity reveals about the way the world works and what it teaches us about the different region’s education systems. Students shared amazing reflections. One student from the Sub-Saharan region explained that despite his group’s inability to perform their task, their lack of resources and illegible instructions forced them to forge a closer bond as they became much more reliant on one another. Through this struggle, he expressed that his group became very resourceful and worked together very cooperatively. This student shared that because the high-income region had everything they needed to complete the task, they remained much more individualistic during the task and weren’t forced to cooperate on the same level as his group. Many students talked about how every region would profit from a more equitable division of resources and didn’t understand why the higher income region did not want to share their wealth and access to resources with other regions. Students were struck by how many barriers there are to receiving an education in many parts of the world. Our activity led to students’ examination and questioning of the current economic and political structures that are in place in our world. Students in Div.4 are developing powerful critical thinking skills; I am inspired and privileged to guide them in their journey towards becoming excellent global citizens.

Ms. Arden

 

 

 

 

March 5, 2019
by ardenm
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Early Hominids Project

In Social Studies and Science this term, our focus has been to develop an understanding of the evolution of humans from early hominids to modern humans. Additionally, students have been asked to become an expert on one of the early hominids including: Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, and modern humans. Students are currently creating a written and physical representation showing “A Year in the Life of” this early hominid or human and will later present and teach this information to their classmates.

Our projects are currently under construction, and I amazed by the constant flow of creativity and ingenuity that presents itself as students work together to bring their learning to life. Through this project, students are developing their ability to plan, organize, negotiate, communicate respectfully, and to think both creatively and critically.