A collection of moments from our Grade 7 learning community
Hey, Grade 7s!
A few reminders for this week:
-cartoon Math is now overdue: please submit these to Ms. Ramen ASAP
-Jump Rope for Heart fundraising continues this week! Help us reach our goal!
-early dismissal on Friday, Jan. 31st
-Course selection presentation on Wednesday, Feb. 12th from Burnaby North
-Science Fair research will be checked on Friday
Thanks everyone!
Hello, Grade 7s and Grade 7 families!
Please see below for an update from our News Crew about a recent assignment from Career Education:
Hey, Grade 7s!
Please read this update from our News Crew about your amazing to-scale cartoon Math projects:
“This project was a great start to our unit on Cartesian plains. This required the skills of both art and math as we had to measure the lines to create a grid. With a small picture of the cartoon character, we were trying to recreate on a bigger paper. We were blowing up the pictures from 1 Cm to 3 Cm, so the picture on the bigger grid was significantly bigger.
The first thing we did was choose our character… it was a little outdated, and [we wish there was an option for] Bluey. The usual characters were an option, like SpongeBob, Hello Kitty, and a weird starfish. But there were also things that you wouldn’t expect, like Homer Simpson.
We start with a blank piece of paper, not lined, not turned into a grid, just blank. The first thing you must do straight away is get a ruler. (A note to families: if your kid doesn’t have a ruler, please get them one, since if they don’t have one they will be fighting everyone else to get one of Ms. Ramen’s spare rulers). Afterwards, we worked on creating grids on both the big blank paper and the tiny printed picture of the cartoon character we chose to do. We had to copy the grid of the tiny cartoon picture to the big paper. After carefully drawing the character, we were now ready to use more of our skills by colouring. After that’s all done we have finally finished our project and we can now sit back and enjoy the view of all the huge cartoon characters outside of the computer lab.”
Thanks, News Crew!
Hello, Grade 7s!
This week, we started learning about Black Excellence Day, which will be observed next week (January 15th). This day is one opportunity to learn about, acknowledge, and amplify the stories of innovators from Black communities in Canada and globally!
One of the first changemakers we learned about was Stevie Wonder. His music career has spanned decades, and his messages of hope, equality, and love have been heard around the world! Stevie Wonder is also an inspiring person to learn about not only because of his talents in singing, piano-playing, and songwriting, but because he learned all these skills as a blind person. Stevie Wonder has even collaborated with contemporary artists like Ariana Grande.
Please feel free to watch the videos below… you will likely recognize the songs!
Some possible discussion questions:
-Have you ever heard of Stevie Wonder before? Do you recognize his music?
-Why do you think his career has lasted so long? Why does his music still appeal to modern audiences?
-Who are some other notable musicians from Black communities? Who else might we learn about?
Would you be able to tell how much a bar of chocolate costs just by tasting it? Our class put our skills to the challenge yesterday but investigating the appearance, smell, texture, and taste of 6 different chocolates (of varying price points).
Many of us were able to try and make educated guesses about how much each chocolate cost. We learned that usually, chocolate with a smoother texture and more defined cocoa flavour could be more expensive due to ingredients and labour. We also learned that most fair-trade and rainforest-certified chocolate is more expensive.
Today, Ms. Lee came to talk to our class about Lunar New Year. We discussed how many cultures and countries celebrate the Lunar New Year, often with a special meal with family and friends. While not all people eat dumplings during this time of year, many families may choose to make dumplings as a symbol of wealth and fortune. Our classes created our own dumplings using pork, cabbage, green onions, eggs, chives, soy sauce, sesame oil, and dumpling wrappers.
Here are some photos of the process, below:
Stay tuned for the recipe, which will be posted later this week!
Best wishes,
-Ms. Ward
Our Grade 7s have been discussing how being able to send a formal, professional email will benefit us in the future. We learned that whether we are connecting with a teacher, asking our professor a question, contacting a future employer, demanding action from politicians, or sending an invoice to a customer, using a formal tone in an email is helpful.
Students have been tasked with sending Ms. Ward a formal style email. Please see the PowerPoint (attached) for further information.
What does it take to design a video game? Our Grade 7s are beginning to examine the skills and strategies that game designers use, including character creation, instructional writing/walkthroughs, mapping and level design, and more!
We began today by viewing this interview with one of the creators of the Mario series! We learned that video games have been around since the 1970s, and have continued to grow and change as technology, culture, and trends shift and change! Feel free to check out the video below:
Some questions to discuss at home:
Super Mario Game:
Information about the history of Mario:
https://mario.nintendo.com/history/