Image description: a hand holding a copy of the picture book Muhammad Ali: A Champion is Born by Gene Barretta
This week, we discussed the importance of considering what goals we might want to achieve in our lives. We read about how Muhammad Ali was inspired to begin his boxing career from an experience he had as a 12 year old child. Despite the mockery, prejudice, and injustice that he faced, Muhammad Ali trained and persevered and achieved so much in his lifetime! He was crowned the heavyweight champion of the world an astonishing 3 times, medaled in the Olympics, and, perhaps most importantly, was known as the “People’s Champion” because of his commitment to speaking out against injustice.
Take a look at the short memorial video, below, commemorating Muhammad Ali’s lifetime:
Have you ever heard of the mysterious disappearance of the Franklin Expedition? This History Mystery involves two ships, sailing from Britain to the Artic of Canada on a search for the Northwest Passage. Despite being well-equipped with food, water, and technology, the ships (and crew) disappeared, and even over 150 years later people still cannot agree on what happened to them!
Check out the trailer, above, for an introduction to this History Mystery, and click the link below for our evidence (so far):
Have you ever read a book and felt like a character was SO similar to you, it was like looking in a mirror? Have you ever felt like a book provided you with a window into someone else’s life and experiences? These are both examples of how representation in media (especially books) is important!
We have been exploring how books can be mirrors and windows, and examining what books in our class library are examples of one or the other (or even both)!
We learned that many people may not see themselves in books and movies. There may not be many characters that share aspects of their identities, such as: culture, ethnicity, life experiences, religion, background, family dynamic, etc. We surveyed our class library to look for ‘gaps’ in our books. We talked about how reading books about people who are different from us can build understanding and empathy.
Today, we read The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad:
In the story, a younger sister tells us all about her older sister’s first day wearing hijab. We talked about how many people from different cultures and religions may wear clothing, regalia, jewelry, or other items as testaments to their beliefs and backgrounds. To learn more about Ibtihaj Muhammad’s life, including her time as an Olympic-medalist in fencing, check out the video below:
Some questions to discuss at home:
Have you ever seen a character that is similar to you (culture, race, religion, personality, background, etc.) in a book, movie, or TV show?
What are some characters you feel connected to? Who are your favourite characters, and why do you like them?
Do you have any clothing, regalia, jewelry, that you wear that represents your culture/faith/identity? Are there certain items that you wear on special days?
Our class took on our most complicated recipe yet… a fruit crisp! We learned that fruit crisps can be made with a variety of types of fillings, including: strawberries, apples, peaches, mangos, cherries, and more! They are also a very economical and delicious way to use up extra fruit, or even frozen fruit!
The topping of our crisps used rolled oats, flour, sugar, and cinnamon along with melted butter. We measured our ingredients carefully and worked collaboratively to make individual sized desserts.
Most of us were very excited with how our fruit crisps turned out. Please feel free to click the recipe above to try making it at home.
Our Grade 7s have been hard at work learning about early humans with Ms. Ramen in Socials class! We invited a artist in residence to come in and teach us how to sculpt a human skull out of clay. After sculpting, they were fired in the kiln. Then, we glazed the skulls and they will be fired a final time. We can’t wait to see the final product soon!
Some questions we suggest parents/guardians can discuss at home:
What features did you include in your skull model? What species of hominin did you choose to create?
How does your model skull look similar or different from our own (real) skulls?
How old do you imagine your skull is? What conditions was it in (ex: desert, water)?
Our class has been working on using self-editing strategies in order to make our writing more powerful, formal, and clear! Ms. Lee helped us learn about the difference between formal and informal writing. We might use formal writing when submitting an essay, sending an e-mail to an employer, or writing a letter to a government official. Informal writing is what we use when we text a friend, when we write in a journal, or if we are writing a quick write.
Based on these conversations, we created a checklist that will help us with our editing! Find our checklist below:
Self-Editing Checklist:
Using the checklist below, read through your paper fully. You can make any corrections using a pen. Check off the list as you go.
Formatting:
Is there a title? Is it bolded? Centered?
Is your name underneath (By: Your Name)?
Is your paragraph indented using the TAB?
Is the font easy to read (ex: Arial, Times New Roman)?
Did you use size 12-14 font?
Is your work double-spaced?
Content:
Did you use a catchy or interesting opening sentence?
Did you clearly introduce your topic/thesis?
Did you use at least 3 reasons or pieces of evidence?
Did you use a conclusion sentence and have a strong ending?
Were you persuasive?
Grammar and Formality:
Is the beginning of each sentence capitalized?
Are names of people and places capitalized (ex: Wirt, Pottsfield)?
Is there a period, question mark, or exclamation mark at the end of each sentence?
Did you check for slang (ex: cool, yeah) and remove it?
Did you remove contractions (ex: don’t, won’t)?
Did you remove short forms (ex, ur, irl)?
Did you rephrase your sentences to remove “I” and “we”?
Today, we continued our discussion on evolution by learning about Darwin’s finches. Please view the video below and try your best to answer question 5 on your handout. We will continue our conversation about this on Thursday.
Today, our class discussed what it means to be a bystander to injustice. We discussed how, sometimes, people may not feel empowered to speak out if they witness something wrong. Sometimes, people might not speak up to help others if they are worried about their own safety. We learned that being an ally means that you use your voice to advocate for others. In history, we examine the friendship between Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald by reading the book Making Their Voices Heard.
During the 1950s, both Ella and Marilyn faced oppression because of their gender. However, Ella also faced discrimination because of her race; many music venues would not hire her to sing there because of segregation and racism. After hearing this, Marilyn stood up as an ally and used her power and privilege to demand that Ella be hired. She had always admired Ella for her talent and her perseverance. We brainstormed ways that we can use our voices in powerful ways when we witness injustice, bullying, etc.
Check out one of Ella Fitzgerald’s most famous songs below:
Be careful what you wish for! Our class completed our first read-aloud, the horror novel The Nest by Kenneth Oppel. In this story, a boy named Steven makes a wish to heal his baby brother’s illness. However, his wish costs him much more than he anticipated when he realizes the ‘angels’ he has been talking to are really a hive of supernatural wasps!
We thought this novel had many twists, turns, and suspenseful moments. The dark, creepy illustrations added to the experience. While some of us weren’t entirely satisfied with the ending, this was a great first read-aloud to kick off our school year!
In 2020, the authour Kenneth Oppel shared that The Nest could potentially be made into a film one day! Here is a sketch of the concept art:
Some questions to discuss at home:
Would you watch a film adaptation of this novel? Why or why not?
Who might you cast in the role of Steven, the Queen, and Mr. Nobody? Why?
What songs/soundtrack would you want to include in this movie?
Have you ever performed a dissection? We learned that dissections were (and are) a tool that scientists use to learn more about the biology and anatomy of plants, animals, and even people. We performed a ‘mock’ dissection using Twinkies! Our students needed to practice their precision, observation, and patience when taking samples, making incisions, and removing ‘organs’ (filling) from their ‘test subjects’.
