Day: November 28, 2022

Culture Party December 9th, Friday

As part of our new unit, we are talking about our CULTURE. On December 9th, we will have a My Culture Party, during which everyone can share items related to their culture!

Get your creative thinking going! Here are some of the things you can consider bringing, and I encourage you to talk with your parents ahead of Dec. 9th to get some ideas and prepare for bringing something in to share.

  1.  Traditional clothing important to you or your family — you can wear it if you want, or just bring it
  2.  Artwork representing your culture, or that is important to your family
  3.  Something representing a favourite tradition, festival, or routine in your family
  4.  Picture displays of foods and items representing your culture
  5.  Family pictures, showing your extended relations
  6.  Objects representing your nationality, such as a flag, clothing, national colours
  7.  Items representing your favourite activities, especially things done as a family
  8.  Religious artifacts and objects representing your family’s beliefs
  9.  A map if it helps us understand where your family comes from
  10.  Interactive elements – such as having us make something you traditionally make during an important event to you.

Culture can be many things. It isn’t just about nationality or ethnicity. It is about “the way you do things in your family or community”! What are your traditions? What is normal in terms of routines, foods, clothing, and activities for you and your family? Even a birthday and the way you choose to celebrate it or not is part of your culture.

I look forward to seeing your culture display! You can ask me more questions via email or in class as you begin to prepare something to bring.

By the way — you don’t need a trifold or poster, and you don’t need to be spending hours on a PowerPoint, which we won’t have time to do in class. This is about sharing, and when I have done this in the past, students share in many different ways.

Just be prepared to explain on one index card why you are bringing in the things you are, so you are prepared to speak with us in person. It is a good thing to prepare this index card so you have notes to work from.

E-Port Assignment November 29th: CULTURE and IDENTITY

Over the last few class days, we have discussed both CULTURE and IDENTITY, and how these things have a direct influence on how we see the world.

E-PORT TITLE:  My Culture Glasses

Picture:  Post a picture that has to do with your culture. Avoid flags and symbols. Can you post something specific I might see in your culture, or your day to day life with your family and community?

Questions:

What does the word PERSPECTIVE mean to you?

When we say everyone wears culture glasses, what does that mean?

What kinds of things can influence the way you see the world, or your perspective? Give at least five examples.

What does nationality mean? What do you think yours is?

What does ethnicity mean? What do you think yours is?

What does citizenship mean?  What is your citizenship?

What is the difference between a personal and a social identity?

What does the word race mean? Why is this not part of your personal identity?

Culture can be defined as “the way we do things”? How do you do things in your family? Tell me about five things you do in your family that you think are unique parts of your family’s culture and way of doing things?

New Unit! — Solving the Conundrum, Term 2, 2022-23

Hello Everyone!

We are now done with our first unit on STRUCTURE, although we will continue to talk about some of the things we were learning about. For example, we are going to do in-class presentations about Your World (the planet everyone has been creating), and I am looking forward to seeing the different planets we can go visit! We will also keep practicing our writing skills, looking at structure of sentences, using transition words, and organizing our ideas into solid paragraphs.

Everyone did a great job this term, whether it was creating mixed media art, building towers in critical-thinking challenges, learning about animal adaptations, discussing how form follows function, learning how to use PowerPoint, making an oral presentation, doing experiments, making a planet…… Wow! We did a lot! Congratulations to all of Division 5 for their hard work. I will post a Term One Overview soon, so you can see everything we did.

We have already begun discussing a new unit, which will last through the beginning of February.

Title:  Solving the Conundrum

Key Concepts: Perspective, Problem-solving

Core Competency Focus:  Critical Thinking

Unit Focus Statement:

Problem solving involves careful observation, critical thinking, and consideration of multiple perspectives.

An Inquiry Into:

  • Tools for problem solving (consensus building, “7 Norms of Collaboration”, the “Ladder of Inference)
  • Math and Science used in forensics to solve crimes
  • Problem solving in math, including discussions about proportionate reasoning
  • Elements of a good story, perspective taking in writing, and writing a mystery
  • Using perspective to make art, and using art to find perspective
  • Ethics
  • Human rights (Personal, Children, Aboriginal, International)
  • Why racism and discrimination happen
  • Past discrimination in Canada (Japanese Internment, Chinese Head Tax, Residential Schools, Komagata Maru)
  • Reparation and Reconciliation

Some (But Not All!) of Our Upcoming Activities:

  • Class Culture Party Friday, Dec. 9th
  • You Do the Math Solve a Crime, and Crime Scene Investigation experiments
  • Hour of Code and Ozobots Dec. 5th – Dec. 16th
  • Burnaby Art Gallery Virtual Workshop in January, TBD
  • Discussion of ethics through pictures books, followed by class debates around hard questions
  • Discussion about culture, our own identities, and how those things colour our beliefs about the world, and our perspective
  • Writing a mystery story!
  • Reading and discussion of My Name is Seepeetza
  • Looking at the UN Declaration of Human Rights and Convention on the Rights of a Child, and comparing it to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Field trip to the Museum of Vancouver to learn about Reconciliation, January 17th, Tuesday

More to come as we start to unpack the unit!

Have a good week!

Ms. D

EPort Remembrance Day Art

Hello!

Many of you have already started this e-port or finished it, but here are the questions we discussed in class, so Ms. D can assess your Remembrance Day Art.

Title:  Remembrance Day Art

Questions:

  1.  What kind of art did we use to make this?
  2.  Which elements and principles do you think we used for this art?
  3.  What do you think you did well for this art piece? What would you change for next time?

Thank you!

Ms. D