Category Archives: by Mr Milloy

Are April showers on the way?

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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

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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.

Still Growing

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[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”5″ display=”basic_slideshow”]For those of us used to going to work or school from Monday to Friday, our world seems out of order. (Today happens to be a Monday, by the way; if you are like me, you may be finding that changes in routines are making it a little more diffficult to keep track!) The patterns that seem to govern the way we live don’t fit like they used to. Some of the time, that is a bit of a relief, but often the difference in our days can be disturbing, unfamiliar, uncertain. Sometimes I feel that way. But then, I suppose I should ask myself, “Who doesn’t?”

I spent some time thinking about that. Most people are having to make the same kinds of adjustments to routines. Many people are facing very great difficulties. And it seems like everyone feels like life is upside down. But when I look around and ask myself the same question again, “Who doesnt?” I realise that there are plenty of lives and routines around us continuing as always. Sunrise sparks a chorus of activity from the birds. Flowers blossom, attracting bees and other pollinators. The ravens have built a nest by the Sperling Skytrain station to hatch another generation, like they do every spring. The cherry blosssoms are lining the neighbourhood with their pink explosions. The frogs have been singing their evening choruses. And we have reached what I like to call, “peak magnolia”, when what might just be the most respendent magnolia tree in the province (found just a short walk from my home) is almost hidden by its thick display of heavy, white and purple flowers.

Growth is happening all around us, and it continues in our own lives too. I am hopeful that the differences we are experiencing in life as we know it will spark more of the kind thinking that will hep us to better understand others’ lives and our own. Perhaps a good place to start is to pause, pay attention, and try to be even more aware of what is around us.

What are you becoming aware of?

Moving ahead together

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As we discover a different way of continuing to learn together while we remain apart, it seems to me that Ndidi Onukwulu’s song, “Move Together”, expresses a theme of ever-increasing importance. The first time I heard it, I liked the music and especially the message that captures a mood, purpose and attitude I wish upon my class, myself and the world beyond our walls.

We will remain physically distant for some time yet, and that will reveal some new challenges day to day and in getting back to the work of elementary school. I will be in touch with students and families as we sort out details over the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, I can point families of my students toward a couple of resources that may be helpful in the short term.

You will have seen Superintendent Niccoli-Moen’s letter to families, which refers to a Continuing Learning Site which is expected to be available via the district website this week with some helpful resources kids will be able to dive into. The province has also created a site with some free, everyday educational activities for kids of every age. Do remember the value of the learning children are doing in all the activities and family interactions throughout each day. But I know you may be eager to add something new to the daily routine as we head back to school (after a fashion). While other activities and routines are still being worked out, kids can reacquaint themselves with the links on our class website, even explore some they haven’t looked at yet or in a while. Tyring a game like Factris from Mathigon.org, revisiting some poetry from Kenn Nesbit or experimenting with the poetry writing machine from Scholastic are among activities kids might choose to explore.

With moving together still very much in mind, and especially movement at a time when we might be feeling a little couped up, I do suggest you check out P.E. with Joe. This trainer in the UK leads a daily workout for kids that is available via YouTube and can be done in the home. Try it out for a boost to everyone’s physical and mental health.


We will connect soon. In the mean time, stay well, and let’s keep moving together.

Kids’ thoughts on Climate Change

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We’ve been spending much of our time on Fridays reading about and discussing jtopics related to Climate change. We’ve looked at waste and recycling. We’ve explored questions we have about all the terms that come up  like fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect. We have found some helpful information, but we also keep coming up with new questions.

It is interesting (asn sometimes confusing) that so many different topics, ideas and opinions come up when we talk about Climate Change. I think it is important, especially given how heated discussions on this topic can become, that we make it a habit to be curious about what others are thinking and feeling. And if I am going to ask students to be curious about others’ thoughts, I think I should begin by showing that I am interested in what students are thinking and feeling.

So, I am asking: what do you think about most when you think about Climate Change; how does it make you feel; what questions do you still have; and what action do you think you should take?

Comments and responses are welcome. 

Happy New Year!

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start lineWelcome back everyone! It is a new school year. I’ve had just a week to start getting to know this year’s class, and from what I see so far, I think we can expect a particularly great year ahead.

Next, I’m looking forward to meeting parents at our information conferences later this week. And I hope many will return at the end of the month for our first Celebration of Learning Assembly (where our class will help with a short presentation, though they don’t know it yet).

It seems like we’re off to the races already with the Terry Fox Run and Student Election just around the corner. I hope everyone’s set for a good ride!